Tracking Nefertiti

In between enunciating the "N" and vocalizing the rest of the word — "efertiti" — Joann Fletcher pauses for a full second, presumably to check herself and make a conscious decision about disclosing the name that's been on the tip of her tongue for 12 years:

"Nnnnnnn … efertiti."

Her habit of hesitation is hard to break. During a dozen years of hot and dusty research, mum was the word. Until now, the British Egyptologist has kept secret the presumed identity of an enigmatic and maliciously damaged mummy in a secret chamber in tomb KV35 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. To everyone — colleagues, students and the public alike — she referred to her research subject simply as "X."

Having recently accumulated firsthand scientific data to add to the corroborative evidence that she painstakingly mounted over the years, Fletcher has broken her cryptic silence. She declares that the unwrapped, shaven-headed mummy in KV35 is indeed most likely to be Nefertiti, the stunningly beautiful and powerful 3,400-year-old royal who likely reigned as pharaoh after serving as queen, and whose death and final resting place were ages-old mysteries.

Still and all, whenever the question arises about who is in the tomb, Fletcher can't bring herself to say "Nefertiti" without that split-second hesitation.

Perhaps the only way to be absolutely, positively 100-percent certain of the mummy's identity, Fletcher agrees, is if she would sit up and declare herself as Nefertiti. Short of that happening, Fletcher's as sure as sure can be that the mummy is that of a late-18th-dynasty Egyptian woman with significant royal powers.