Tracking Nefertiti

It was long presumed that grave robbers had aimlessly hacked away at the bodies as they plundered for jewels. However, Fletcher saw firsthand evidence that the bodies were carefully and quite intentionally mutilated after having been unwrapped.

"We're trying to work out what weapons would have inflicted these wounds," she says. "Metal — bronze — was a precious commodity. Who would have had access to it? Someone systematically damaging the mummy with sharp blades that cut straight through to the bone."

Ancient Egyptians believed that postmortem damage could render a body incapable of living again in the afterlife, Fletcher explains, as the soul lived within the mummified body. By depriving a body of its mouth, for instance, the soul was robbed of the breath of life; by disfiguring the feet, a body might be unable to walk into the afterlife.

"It is that calculated damage that sends a chill through your spine," Fletcher says. "People were trying to condemn them to damnation."

At least one of the injuries (to Nefertiti) may have been done in life and resulted in severe blood loss, Fletcher says. Nothing is known about the manner and timing of Nefertiti's death. Now, clues are starting to mount that hers might not have been a natural death. The physical evidence makes sense given the historical context: About 14 years into Akhenaten's reign, Queen Nefertiti mysteriously disappears and a feminine-looking pharaoh shows up in the iconography of ancient Egypt. Like an increasing number of Egyptologists, Fletcher believes it's none other than Nefertiti wielding full pharaoh power. Perhaps the priests were so outraged by the controversial religion put forth by Nefertiti — their gods having been kicked out of the temples and replaced by the omnipotent sun god — that they not only killed her but also erased her identity in the afterlife.

"It's a melodramatic scenario," she says, "but quite possible."

Fletcher expects that she and her team still will be working on this project in 12 months' time: "There's no value at all in just whistling through the data. It's a time-consuming process, a work in progress. The information is coming out piece by piece."