Scans point to hidden chamber in King Tut’s tomb

Experts believe there is a 90 per cent chance that King Tutankhamun’s tomb contains a secret chamber, adding to growing excitement that Queen Nefertiti’s resting place may finally be found.

But now, the Egyptian antiquities minister says they’re 90 percent positive there is a hidden chamber that would represent “one of the most important finds of the century”.

One archaeologist has speculated that if the second chamber exists, it could be Queen Nefertiti’s long-lost burial place.

Luxor, in southern Egypt, served as the pharaonic capital in historic times, & is home to sprawling temples and a number of other historic tombs.

Reeves reached his theory after high-resolution images discovered what he said were straight lines in King Tut’s tomb.

Reeves theorized Tutankhamen was buried within Nefertiti’s burial chamber because of his sudden and unexpected death at age 19, after ruling for about a decade. Further analysis will be required over the next month, but the ministry said there was hope that “an enormous archaeological discovery will be declared soon”.

“We can now say that we have [possibly found] behind the burial chamber of King Tutankhamun another chamber, another tomb”, Mamduh al-Damaty said at a press conference, speaking in English.

“Clearly it does look from the radar evidence as if the tomb continues, as I have predicted”, he said.

Nefertiti died in the 14th Century BC and was believed to be Tutankhamun’s stepmother.

Dr Reeves developed his theory after the Spanish artistic and preservation specialists, Factum Arte, were commissioned to produce detailed scans of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Reeves is a National Geographic grantee as well as director of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project and senior archaeologist with the University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition.

Damati himself considers the concealed chamber may include the mummy of Kiya, a wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten.

“The lady was worshipping Aton with Akhenaten for years”, Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former antiquities minister, told AFP.

In a research paper published in October, he said he believed Tutankhamun’s mausoleum was originally occupied by Nefertiti and that she had lain undisturbed behind what he believes is a partition wall for more than 3,000 years. The tomb that Tut was buried in was small in comparison for a king.