An Egyptian mummy whose identity had been in question has finally been identified with decisive evidence from a molar tooth in a wooden box inscribed with the mummy's name. Now DNA tests carried out on the mummy at the University of Manchester are expected to support the claim by Egyptian authorities that the remains are of ancient Egypt's most powerful female ruler Queen Hatshepsut.

Egyptologists in Cairo announced last month that a tooth found in a wooden box associated with Hatshepsut exactly fitted the jaw socket and broken root of the unidentified mummy. The box was found in 1881 in a cache of royal mummies collected and hidden away at the Deir al-Bahari temple about 1,000 metres (yards) away from the tomb where she was found.

Dr Angelique Corthals, a biomedical Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, says that DNA tests she helped carry out with colleagues at the National Research Centre in Cairo have promising preliminary results suggesting the identity of the queen.

Hatshepsut, meaning 'Foremost of Noble Ladies' was Egypt's greatest female ruler, having greater power than even Cleopatra. The fifth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, her reign in the 15th century BC was longer than any other female ruler of an indigenous dynasty.

Most of the 18th dynasty royal mummies were moved away from their original tombs in the Valley of the Kings by the priests of the 21st dynasty, fearing desecration and tomb robberies.

The cache was discovered in the 1870s by the Razzul brothers and, in 1881, all 40 mummies were moved to Cairo. However, Hatshepsut's remains appeared to be missing and it was feared the mummy was lost, having been moved by her stepson Thutmose III, who – on succession – tried to destroy every trace of her reign. However, in 1903 a British archaeologist, Howard Carter, excavated what became known as tomb KV60 and discovered two mummies – one in a coffin inscribed for a royal nurse, the other stretched out on the floor. In June, Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, held a news conference in Cairo to announce that this second mummy was that of the lost queen, pointing to the tooth as evidence.

The team is now planning to carry out more tests on the 40 remaining royal mummies, including that of Tutankhamun, in order to resolve the many questions surrounding the genealogy of the 18th and 19th dynasties.