SHE was one of the legendary beauties of antiquity, a queen whose fame rivalled that of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy.

The stepmother of the boy king Tutankhamun, Queen Nefertiti was undoubtedly one of the most powerful women in ancient Egypt.

And now experts from York University believe they have identified her earthly remains in the shape of a battered and neglected mummy.

After 12 years of painstaking research, they are convinced the 3,500-year-old remains are those of Nefertiti, even though they say they will probably never know for sure.

The mummy was found with two others by a French team working in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in 1898. It was walled up in a side chamber of the tomb of King Amenhotep II.

It was photographed only once, in 1907, before the chamber was walled up again.

Since then it has been known simply as "the younger woman".

The breakthrough finally came when Egyptian authorities allowed the mummy to be examined in detail for the first time.

Egyptologist Joann Fletcher, who worked closely with York University's Mummy Research Team, said: "It is a royal woman of the late 18th dynasty, who wielded tremendous power.

"There are not many who fit that description. We know we can never be 100 per cent sure, but we have narrowed it right down and we think it is her."

She added: "It was incredible to be there with her in the tomb and very emotional. I never thought in a million years that I would ever see her."

The double-pierced ears provided a major clue, as did her shaven head, and under a pile of ancient linen, the archaeologists also found a broken-off arm bent in a way that was permitted only if the dead person was a royal.

The mummy also bore a resemblance to a bust of Nefertiti found at Amarna, where her husband, the pharaoh Akhenaten, had his capital in the 14th Century BC.