Two chambers discovered in King Tut's burial chamber – Antiquities minister

Thursday 17-03-2016 03:05 PM

Tomb of King Tutankhamun, fourteenth century B.C. - Reuters

CAIRO, Mar 17 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt's Minister of Antiquities announced Thursday that radar scans of King Tutankhamun's burial chamber walls have revealed two formerly hidden chambers.

The two chambers are located behind King Tut's tomb on the western and northern sides of the burial chamber.

The discovery may lead to solving the mystery of the disappearance of elusive Pharaonic Queen Nefertiti, who British archaeologist Nicolas Reeves believes may have been buried in a hidden chamber inside King Tut's tomb.

Reeves' hypothesis was tested as a team of archeologists performed a scan of the walls of the tomb late November.

The primary results of the scan gave "very positive results", quoting Damati at the time, who also declared that there was a "90 per cent" chance of a new archaeological discovery.

The primary results were then taken to Japan for further investigation.

"This new discovery in the burial chamber counts as the discovery of the century," Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh al-Damati said in a press conference on Thursday.

"We cannot identify what lies beyond the walls of the tomb yet, whether it is the tomb of Pharaonic Queen Nefertiti as British archaeologist Nicolas Reeves believes, or Meritaten or Kiya," Damati added.

Meritaten was an ancient Egyptian queen of the 18th dynasty, while Kiya was the second wife of King Akhenaten, also of the 18th dynasty.  

Another radar scan is scheduled to be conducted at the end of March in order to learn more about the nature and the dimensions of the bodies identified by the preliminary scan, Damati mentioned. Results of this scan will be announced immediately the day after, on April 1st.  

Nefertiti, whose name means "a beautiful woman has come", died in mysterious circumstances during a revolution which ended her husband Akhenaten’s rule in the 14th century BC.  She was the legendary wife of Tutankhamun's father and her mummy has never been found.

Tutankhamun ruled between 1361 and 1352 BC and died at 17. His tomb was found by Howard Carter in 1922, in what is often dubbed the discovery of the century because the tomb was found largely intact.

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