King Tut's beautiful grandmother 'had ugly wart on her forehead'

King Tut's grandmother was a legendary beauty but her complexion wasn't perfect, high-resolution images of her mummified face suggest.

According to a mummy expert, the powerful and beautiful queen Tiye might have had an unattractive flat wart on her forehead, reports Discovery News.

Located between the eyes, the small protuberance was found on the mummy of the so-called Elder Lady.

Boasting long reddish hair falling across her shoulders, the mummy was identified in February 2010 by DNA testing as queen Tiye, the daughter of Yuya and Thuya, wife of Amenhotep III, and mother of Akhenaten.

The skin growth had gone unnoticed until Mercedes Gonzalez, director of the Instituto de Estudios Científicos en Momias in Madrid, spotted it looking at the mummy during a visit to the Cairo Museum.

"I got a high-resolution image of the mummy's face from the Egyptian museum. From the enlargement, the small growth appears compatible with a flat wart or verruca plana," Gonzalez said.

Slightly raised, flat and smooth, these harmless bumps of various colours are hyperplastic epidermal lesions produced by papilloma viruses (HPV). They usually occur on the face, neck and back of hands.

However, flat warts are not commonly found on the face of ancient Egyptian mummies.

"Until now I haven't seen anything similar," Gonzalez said.