King Tut's Wife Disappeared From History. She May Soon Be Found

The dig for King Tut's wife is officially on. Last July, archaeologist Zahi Hawass announced his team had located a possible tomb 16 feet underground in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Due to its location in the Valley of the Monkeys near the tomb of Ay, the pharaoh who succeeded Tutankhamun, Hawass and his team believe it may be the resting place of Tut's wife Ankhesenamun, Live Science reports. And this month Hawass finally started the excavation—funded by the Discovery Channel—to find out if that's indeed the case, according to an announcement on his website.

Ankhesenamun was Tut's teenage bride and half-sister, International Business Times reports. Shortly after Tut's death in 1323BC, Ankhesenamun married Ay. But their marriage marks her last appearance in historical records. She's also absent from Ay's tomb, where another wife's name appears. It's unknown when or how she died, though Yahoo News reports it's possible she was also briefly married to her own father and grandfather prior to her death. The discovery of Ankhesenamun's tomb could answer many of the questions surrounding the wife of arguably the most famous pharaoh in ancient Egyptian history. (More Tutankhamun stories.)