CAIRO, Sept 30 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's minister of antiquities and an Egyptologist have started testing a hypothesis to locate the burial place of the Pharonic Queen Nefertiti, which still remains a mystery until today.

On Tuesday, Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty said there is "a 70 percent" chance  that there are additional chambers behind the walls of King Tutankhamun's tomb and that Nefertiti's burial chamber "may" be there.

Several theories have been proposed on where Queen Nefertiti may have been buried. She was the wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and the two were known for their influence on introducing monotheism to Egypt. She died over 3,300 years ago. 

Damaty and British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves started initial examinations in the Valley of Kings in the Upper Egyptian city of Luxor on Tuesday, the ministry of antiquities said in a statement.

Reeves recently published his theory that Nefertiti is buried in a side chamber of King Tut's 3,300-year-old tomb. He came up with this hypothesis after a Madrid-based art replication centre published a facsimile of King Tut's tomb, he said in his research paper. 

He and Damaty inspected three tombs to compare their "artistic and architectural elements" with King Tut's tomb.

They will send files on the case to the permanent committee on Egyptian antiquities, which will advise on the forthcoming steps including the specifications of the radar that will be used to test the hypothesis.

If all required procedures are approved, Reeves will come back to Egypt in November to start "actual examinations" of King Tut's tomb.

Reeves and Damaty are giving a press conference on Thursday morning to discuss the results of their initial examinations.