The mummy found there was once thought to be female, then a male of 20 - 26 years, and with the most recent re-examination and modernized xray's, now paint a different picture. It is now thought to represent a man between the age of 30 - 35 years. In the tomb with this mummy were 'magic bricks' with the name of Akhenaten. Found and stolen shortly after were bracelets on the mummy with Akhenaten's name. According to the discoverer, the coffin was originally bound with ribbons containing his name. These objects and the new age estimate clearly point to the mummy being Akhenaten and not Smenkhkare. The coffin pictured here is always associated with Tutankhamun. The truth is that this coffin was initially made for Smenkhkare and is the only true portrait we have of him at the time of his death.

He is nowhere called a Kings son, unlike Tutankhamen. That in itself proves nothing, since male children were frequently ignored on monuments and tomb paintings. He was, though, Akhenaten's choice for his coregent. He married Meritaten in year 15 (his year 1) and on her death, and shortly before his own, Ankhesenpaaten (year 3). His highest known year is 3, two(?) as coregent(and going by the prenomen "Neferneferuaten"). By neither wife, it is believed, did he produce an heir.

An interesting, but off-the-mark suggestion has been put forth by Dennis Forbes, in KMT Magazine (97). He tests waters with the suggestion that Smenkhkare & Meritaten were the possible parents of Tutankhamen. Although both were certainly old enough, they were not married long enough (co-regency or not) to have produced an heir that would be 9-10 years old three years later! Neither could Tut's parents have been Meritaten and her father, for the same reason.

Meritaten, supposedly was married to her father before Meketaten's death, and only for a year before being taken as wife by Smenkhkare. Forbes suggestion at least shows that egyptologists are continuing to look for answers. If Tutankhamun's age at death were 13, the above parentage would tie in much nicer.