A Johns Hopkins University archaeological expedition in Luxor, Egypt, has unearthed a life-sized statue, dating back nearly 3,400 years, of one of the queens of the powerful king Amenhotep III. [The media are calling her Kingt Tut's grandmother.]

The statue, which dates to between 1391 and 1352 B.C.E., was uncovered earlier this month by the expedition’s director, Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins professor of Egyptian art and archaeology. Bryan and a graduate student, Fatma Talaat Ismail, were clearing a portion of the platform of the temple of the goddess Mut in Luxor, an area dating to about 700 B.C.E. The statue, which was lying face down in the ground, appeared to have been used as building rubble, Bryan said.

The statue’s back pillar was unearthed first and led Bryan to believe briefly that it dated from a far later period, since an inscription there was clearly made in the 21st Dynasty, about 1000 B.C.E., for a very powerful queen Henuttawy.

"The statue, however, when it was removed, revealed itself as a queen of Amenhotep III, whose name appears repeatedly on the statue’s crown," Bryan said. She said she theorizes that perhaps this statue is of the great Queen Tiy, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of the so-called heretic king Akhenaten, who came to the throne as Amenhotep IV but later changed his name because of his rejection of the god Amen in favor of the sun disk Aten.