Queen Tiye plotted to put her son Pentawere on the throne of Ramesses III, and a 2012 CT scan found the king's throat had been cut

Ramesses III had appointed an heir, the future Ramesses IV. Tiye, a wife of the king, recruited officials of the royal household and harem to place her own son Pentawere on the throne instead. The Judicial Papyrus of Turin (Museo Egizio, Cat. 1875) records the trials. Breasted's translation counts 22 condemned in the first prosecution, 6 in the second and 4 in the third. Pentawere, recorded as the one who "bore that other name," was tried and "took his own life." Some of the judges and officers were sentenced to lose their noses and ears, and one judge, Pebes, then killed himself. Tiye's own sentence is not preserved. The papyrus does not say whether the king died. The appointed heir became Ramesses IV. In 2012 a team led by Zahi Hawass and Albert Zink published CT scans of the king's mummy in the BMJ (345:e8268). They found a wide, deep wound in the throat, probably made by a sharp blade, with a Horus eye amulet placed inside it by the embalmers. The same study examined "Unknown Man E," aged 18 to 20, wrapped in a ritually impure goatskin. DNA showed he and Ramesses III shared a paternal lineage, and the authors called him "a good candidate for Pentawere." On 3 April 2021 the mummy of Ramesses III was moved to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.