But another tomb unearthed in the temple contained two coffins, one identified as that of Hatshepsut’s wet nurse.
After Queen Hatshepsut died around 1458 B.C., her stepson and successor, Thutmose III, had much of the evidence of her reign erased. Little was known about Egypt’s first great female leader until the late 19th century, when archaeologists decoded the hieroglyphics on her temple at Deir el Bahri in Luxor. When Howard Carter found Hatshepsut’s sarcophagus in 1903, it was empty, like most of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. But another tomb unearthed in the temple contained two coffins, one identified as that of Hatshepsut’s wet nurse. In 2007, the remains in the other coffin were identified as Hatshepsut herself, after scientists matched a molar found in a jar with the queen’s embalmed organs to a space in the mummy’s jaw. Hatshepsut’s mummy is now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.