lesandarah As an amateur Egyptology buff and a romantic given to the belief in miracles, I was fascinated when I first watched this documentary. How astonishing that the body of a woman dead for thousands of years could suddenly be discovered, with a confirmed identity! The evidence, upon first viewing, seems overwhelming. It seems that all the clues given in the documentary point to the mummy in question being Nefertiti, the lost queen.For some, it's easy to leave it at that. However, on further viewings, it becomes clear that although the case presented is compelling, there is too much left uncertain and too many unfounded conclusions made to truly give this mummy a name. The historical information given, for example, is wobbly at best, rife with unfounded rumors about Akhenaten's rule and Nefertiti's life. Personal beliefs of the main Egyptologist involved, Dr. Joann Fletcher, are presented as fact, such as Nefertiti's origins and her role after the death of Akhenaten. Some suggestions made by Dr. Fletcher have been dismissed by the academic community as little more than conspiracy theories, which definitely gives this documentary an air of the desperate--more like a UFO documentary than a historical one.Another blow to the documentary's integrity comes from later claims by the people involved in the documentary, such as Zahi Hawass, that the mummy is male or out of the age range necessary for it to be Nefertiti. While this sort of flip-flopping on an issue is very discouraging coming from authorities on the topic in question, it does seem to throw the documentary into an almost fanatical light. The conclusions drawn by Dr. Fletcher, on closer inspection, become more and more far-fetched by the minute, such as claims that the mummy's arm position must mean that it was the body of a pharaoh. She even states that she believes that Nefertiti ruled on as a pharaoh under an assumed name after the death of Akhenaten. While an interesting theory, there is little to no evidence presented to support it.There are numerous other issues I could draw attention to in the documentary, such as the comparison of the facial reconstruction to the famous Nefertiti bust. The documentary states that the resemblance is 'striking', as though it's enough to make the whole thing fact; however, the reconstruction is only superficially similar to the bust, lending little to no credence to the claim that the mummy is Nefertiti. A point made by another reviewer comes to mind--that the reconstruction is very similar to the actress used to portray Nefertiti, and that it was likely that the reconstruction experts were shown or used photos of the actress during the reconstruction of the face.As a whole, the documentary, while interesting, is fairly shabby, and not the sort of production one would expect from Discovery. There are even artistic details that point to it being low-budget in general, and definitely not as prime material from a normally high-grade network. The only real value that this documentary has is as an introduction to the topic--the life of Nefertiti and Egyptology in general. Those who enjoyed it should seek other, more reputable sources of information; Egyptian history is fascinating, but not a mere romantic tale as it is presented in this documentary.All in all, it's a good watch for rainy days, but no one, not even the most uninformed, should take the word of this documentary as gospel.

Kayraja1 An interesting commentary but far from a conclusion as any Historian or History buff knows, there is no ending to historical research. In this case I see a very promising beginning tainted by many outside what-ifs! Case in point is a comment on this page claiming the mummy was in fact a male because of DNA testing. Now my knowledge of DNA testing is that there are so many inherent problems, as to use DNA on ancient bodies as the last resort and decode the story from the clues around the site (which is also why if ANY item is moved it destroys major parts of the story and alters it because the item is now out of context; and this is another reason to out and out despise grave robbing and other looting of historical artifacts as it takes away from our joint human story), that said the DNA evidence is blotchy at best,plus based on modern statistics so to speak, but in ancient Egypt in the royal family there was a common practice called inbreeding that would significantly alter ANY such gender test-just look at the carvings of Akhenatan for example, we see clearly hermaphroditic traits on him in just about every seen depiction, and considering she was working on what information they could and/or were allowed to gather the conclusions she came to are understandable though not concrete. Plus she was banned from the site because she had 'broken the rules' according tho Dr.Hawass, who had apparently identified that same mummy not only as female but as a much older woman, though scientific research showed it to be a woman younger than 35 and therefor not the woman Dr.Hawass identified the mummy as being...I find it all to conveniently discouraging and in the realms of male 'acedamia' that is also something to consider. How could a team of experts who were on a blind study apparently get nearly everything wrong in a much controversial situation were more established 'scholars' were proved wrong, and one such scholar banned the young doctor investigating the issue? I hope we will get a chance to see more evidence and confirm if this really is the famous queen and discover her story.

WritergirlAD I watched this video in Western Civ. class today, and I thought it was very interesting. I learned a lot about Nefertiti, and her husband Akhenaton, and I believe that Joann Fletcher is right, and the mummy is in fact Nefertiti. The only thing that kind of bothered me was that the video repeatedly showed the same shots of the actress portraying Nefertiti, over and over and over again, especially this one shot of her opening her eyes-yes, just opening her eyes, and they showed it constantly. Other than that, I think it was a great video. Joann was a bit annoying with her "Wows!' and "its amazings" but I think she had reason to be excited, since there is so much evidence that the mummy is Nefertiti.

Irving Warner This "documentary" was mostly padding, e.g. staged "reenactments", dozens of one shots of Nefertiti's classic statuette, Dr. Fletcher walking here, there, everywhere--then reversing her path, and walking everywhere, there and here. Dozens of wasted minutes. And for Dr. Fletcher? Her gushing "Unbelievables", "Fantastics", "Unreals" and "Wows" mark her as the world's foremost scientific commentator. This is a product of the Discovery Channel--their money made it possible. As a documentary, it was completely unconvincing, poorly done, overlong and I feel it was a waste of time for me to watch this misfire. My recommendation is to avoid it.