Recently Egyptologist Dr. Joanne Fletcher announced on a Discovery Channel Documentary that she has identified the mummy of Queen Nefertiti, icon of beauty and the wife of the monotheist pharaoh Akhenaten. The mummy was discovered among a cache of royal mummies more that 100 years ago in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Most of the royal mummies could be identified by the writings on their coffins or wrappings, but several, including the mummy in question had no coffin or wrappings.

Fletcher claims that based on the position of the mummy's hands, doubly pierced ears, and a wig found near the mummy that she must be Nefertiti.

Most of the Egyptological community says no. X-rays of the mummy show unerupted molars, suggesting an age of around 20 at the time of death. Nefertiti ruled for 14 years and must have been at least in her 30s when she died. It is also known that Nefertiti gave birth to six daughters but the pelvis of the mummy shows no indications of childbirth.

Fletcher's claims so outraged Dr. Zahi Hawas, Chairman of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, that she has been banned from future research in Egypt. The Supreme council of antiquities plans on opening the tomb where the royal cache of mummies was found to tourism and there is a good chance we will be able to visit it. Dr. Brier leads several Far Horizons. trips to Egypt, including one for second time visitors that will explore the oases of the western desert and will be in that country for the full solar eclipse on March 29, 2006.