British archaeologists are confident of having unearthed the body of Queen Nefertiti, the ancient world’s most legendary beauty. A mummy found in a tomb in the Valley of Kings is attributed to the stepmother of boy king Tutankhamun and one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful women, according to a report in Australian website News.com.After 12 years of research, archaeologists used clues like fragments of a wig and piercing of the mummy’s ears to identify Nefertiti, which means ‘‘a beautiful woman has come’’. However, a breakthrough took place earlier this year when the Egyptian authorities allowed the 3500-year-old body to be examined in detail.Buried under a pile of ancient linen, the investigators found a broken-off arm bent in a particular way, permitted only if the deceased was a pharaoh or queen and had been holding royal regalia. York University researcher Joann Fletcher, leading the study of the body, said, ‘‘It is basically a royal woman of the late 18th dynasty who wielded tremendous power, and there are not many who fit that description. We can never have cast-iron certainty that it is Nefertiti, but we have narrowed it right down.’’
