In 2015 a British Egyptologist said he found evidence of a hidden chamber behind King Tutankhamun's lavish tomb. Archaeologists have now started what they hope are decisive scans.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/K. Desouki
Advertisement
Archaeologists have started "decisive" radar scans in King Tutankhamun's burial chamber in the search for hidden chambers, Egypt's Antiquities Ministry said Thursday.
Researchers are using ground-penetrating radar to hopefully verify the presence of empty spaces or corridors behind the walls of the pharaoh's burial chamber. The young pharaoh was buried inside a tomb known as KV62 in the Valley of the Kings near the modern city of Luxor.
The tomb was discovered in 1922 and found to contain a wealth of treasures.
Hidden chamber in the Valley of Kings: Queen Nefertiti's resting place?
Egypt has discovered hidden chambers adjoining King Tut's burial room. What they conceal will remain a mystery for a few months, but experts speculate that it could be the resting place of mysterious Queen Nefertiti.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Dabrowski
Where is Queen Nefertiti?
Nefertiti's bust, a leading attraction at Berlin's Neues Museum, is world famous. This 3,300-year-old effigy was unearthed in Egypt in 1912 by the German Ludwig Borchardt. Yet her corpse was never found, and the location of her grave remains a mystery. Now Egypt has revealed exciting new finds which could potentially lead to one of the biggest archaeological discoveries ever.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Sohn
Hidden chambers
King Tut's mausoleum is being reexplored. Based on preliminary information from infrared scans, Mamdouh al-Damati, Egypt's minister of antiquities, confirmed on Saturday (28.11.2015) that there is a 90% chance that King Tut's tomb contains hidden chambers. One archaeologist believes Nefertiti's sarcophagus could hidden there.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/K. Desouki
Why it could be Nefertiti
The new exploration was launched after Nicholas Reeves, a British Egyptologist affiliated with the University of Arizona, published his theories last August. Through careful observation, he found that King Tut's small tomb appears to be the antechamber of a larger burial room. He also argues that portraits in the murals represent Nefertiti, and not Tutankhamun.
Image: picture-alliance/robertharding
Unexpected death
The young pharaoh Tutankhamun died unexpectedly at the age of 19, in 1324 BC, after a reign of nine years. Reeves believes that priests decided to reopen Nefertiti's tomb to bury him there, since his own mausoleum had not been built yet.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The greatest find in modern archeology
British Egyptologist Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922 was an archaeological sensation. Most such burial rooms had been plundered over the years, but this was the best-preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found in Luxor's Valley of Kings. Will the hidden chambers lead to an even more spectacular find?
Image: Imago
Really King Tut's mask?
Among many other treasures, the tomb contained the mummy's iconic golden mask. Yet Reeves believes that it - and about 80 percent of the burial equipment found in Tutankhamun's tomb - was actually made for someone else.
Image: Getty Images/H. Magerstaedt
Japanese infrared scans
Over a period of two days, Japanese radar specialist Hirokatsu Watanabe, pictured above, conducted scans. Measuring temperature variations, the experts discovered that the north wall of King Tut's burial chamber didn't reflect heat the same way the others did, indicating possible pockets of air behind the murals. The scans must be further analyzed by the Japanese expert over the following month.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
King Akhenaten's many wives
The scans were spurred by Nicholas Reeves' theories. Though the renowned British archaeologist (center) has many reasons to believe this chamber could hide Queen Nefertiti, the Great Royal wife of Akhenaten, others are more cautious. Minister of antiquities Damati (left) said the chamber adjoining King Tut's tomb may also have belonged to Kiya, another of Akhenaten's wives.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/N. El-Mofty
The 'heretic' monotheist cult
Akhenaten is the pharaoh who temporarily converted ancient Egypt to monotheism by imposing the single cult of the sun god Aten. Nefertiti played a major role in this religious revolution. Their rule ended with a military takeover. Later on, the entire family's names were wiped out from official records as they were considered heretics for having abolished the Egyptian pantheon.
Image: bpk/Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, SMB/Margarete Büsing
Impossibly in the Valley of Kings?
This is why it is unclear who succeeded Akhenaten. Reeves argues that it was Nefertiti herself. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former antiquities minister (pictured), believes her involvement in the cult rules out her being entombed in the hidden chamber. "The lady was worshiping Aten with Akhenaten for years. The priests would never have allowed her to be buried in the Valley of the Kings," he told AFP.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Secrets to be unveiled… later
Near present-day Luxor, Egypt's Valley of Kings is where the pharaohs and powerful nobles were buried over 3,000 years ago. After the scans are analyzed, experts will need to determine how to enter the hidden part of the tomb without damaging King Tut's burial chamber. That delicate process could take months.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Dabrowski
11 images1 | 11
British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves in 2015 claimed that photographs and scans of the tomb's northern wall seemed to suggest the presence of a concealed chamber.
Reeves theorized that the hidden chamber might contain the tomb of Queen Nefertiti, the wife of Tutankhamen's father, the pharaoh Akhenaten.
Leader of the investigation Professor Franco Porcelli of the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, told La Repubblica newspaper that proving Reeves' theory "would be like winning the lottery."
He said his team had already identified "two empty spaces, one rather big, one not so much," and that he hopes to give a "final answer" about Reeves' hypothesis in the coming months.
Egypt has previously scanned the tomb, but the results were inconclusive.
In November, a project known as ScanPyramids announced the discovery of a large void in the Great Pyramid of Giza using muography (a technique similar to that of an x-ray, but using cosmic rays to map large volumes). The discovery was the first major inner structure found in the Great Pyramid since the nineteenth century, according to researchers.
