Science / Medicine : Nefertari Tomb Yields Relic

Workers cleaning the dusty tomb of Ramses II’s beautiful Queen Nefertari have found a fragment of beaten gold jewelry that grave robbers and tourists apparently overlooked for 3,250 years.

Resins clinging to the etched fragment indicate that it may have been attached originally to her missing mummy, Egyptian and U.S. officials said last week.

The only other surviving legacy of Nefertari is the lid of her sarcophagus, on exhibit at the Turin Egyptian Museum in Italy.

The piece, which is 1 1/2 inches long and 1 inch wide, resembles segments of armlets or bracelets surviving from Ramses’ New Kingdom era, with golden pieces linked by chains and beads and decorated with flowers.

The fragile gold sheet was in an anteroom behind the queen’s burial chamber. It was found during a project to stop the decay of Nefertari’s tomb in southern Egypt’s Valley of the Queens.

With its vivid wall paintings, Nefertari’s is the greatest among 80 tombs in shallow valleys called “the place of beauty.” She is thought to have died at age 45 about 3,250 years ago. Her tomb paintings and inscriptions depict her as a woman of great charm and exquisite taste, adorned with magnificent jewelry and wearing fashionable gowns.