Egyptologists think they may have found the secret chamber where Queen Nefertiti was buried

Isaac Scher 


© Borja B. Hojas/Getty Images
New evidence could help Egyptologists solve the long-debated problem of where Queen Nefertiti was buried.

In February, a team of researchers discovered secret chambers behind the tomb of King Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut.

The discovery comes after years of debate over whether King Tut's tomb contains Nefertiti's remains.

For years, there has been a controversial theory about the famous 3,300-year-old tomb of King Tutankhamun: that Queen Nefertiti's remains are contained just beyond its walls.

A team of scientists led by Mamdouh Eldamaty, the former Egyptian minister of antiquities, seemed to have recently confirmed the theory. The researchers surveyed the tomb with ground-penetrating radar and discovered a previously unknown space near King Tut's burial. The uncovered area is roughly seven feet high and 33 feet long.

The theory of Nefertiti's burial was first advanced in 2015 by a British Egyptologist who said there could be secret chambers behind the tomb of King Tutankhamun. The theory was backed up by initial research later that year.

Three years later, in a sudden scientific twist, a different team found evidence refuting the theory. Using radar, Franco Porcelli and his team spent three years exploring the area around the pharoah's tomb and concluded there was nothing there.

"It is maybe a little bit disappointing," he told NPR in 2018.

But on Wednesday, Eldamaty's team entered the fray. The scientific journal Nature saw details of his team's brand-new and unpublished report, which revealed more evidence of the secret enclosure that could contain Nefertiti's remains. The team presented their research to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities earlier in February.

The groundbreaking finding is "tremendously exciting," said Ray Johnson, an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago who was not part of the research team. "Clearly there is something on the other side of the north wall of the burial chamber," he told Nature.

King Tut's tomb was first discovered nearly a century ago, in 1922. The pharaoh himself died mysteriously at age 19 in 1323 BC, after ruling the throne for 10 years. (Experts believe he died of gangrene, though they previously thought he was murdered.)



© Markus Schreiber/AP Photo

Although some are delighted by the new finding, others remain skeptical.

The technology that Eldamaty's team used is not reliable, according to Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian antiquities minister. It has "never made any discovery at any site in Egypt," he told Nature.'The biggest archeological discovery ever'

The location of Nefertiti's tomb has long been a mystery. If her remains were discovered, it would be a significant scientific breakthrough, according to Nicholas Reeves, the British scientist who first proposed that the queen is buried near King Tut's tomb.

For much of history, Nefertiti was known as the Great Royal Wife of the Pharoah Akhenaten. But some Egyptologists believe she was promoted to a co-regent with Akhenaten, and ruled Egypt with him before his death. Others theorize that Nefertiti may have ruled - but while she was disguised as a man.

Either way, "if Nefertiti was buried as a pharaoh, it could be the biggest archeological discovery ever," Reeves told Nature.

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Scientists say they're 90% sure they've found a hidden chamber in King Tut's tomb - and they have a theory on who it might belong to

Nefertiti, Is That You? Radar Clues Reignite The World's Longest Game Of Hide-And-Seek

By Rachael Fu

The arduous tale of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb outlines the unique problem faced by archaeologists trying to uncover the secrets of nnell21 FEB 2020, 17:31Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Having drawn up plots in which to excavate, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon searched desperately for the Boy King’s resting place, only to eventually find its entrance cloaked by the neighboring tomb of Ramses VI. In a valley where the wealthy dead were laid to rest with their most precious belongings, tombs were intended to evade those searching for them, and so attempts to find missing figures in history are still thwarting archaeologists to this day.


One such hotly sought-after Egyptian is the mother (or stepmother, researchers aren’t quite certain which) of Tutankhamun, Queen Nefertiti. For decades there has been a back and forth as to the location of her missing remains with the media reporting from one year to the next that Queen Nefertiti has been “found” while she sits out there somewhere, presumably sniggering at our naivety, in her still-not-yet-discovered sarcophagus.

A popular theory for the all-time Hide and Seek champion is that she’s tucked away in a secret chamber in the tomb of Tutankhamun, an afterlife property the world has been very familiar with since its groundbreaking discovery in 1922. In 2015 a paper titled The Burial of Queen Nefertiti? referenced high-resolution images that were believed to reveal the location of hidden doors within the tomb. This theory was later supported by distinct lines observed on the ceiling of the tomb, which led researchers to believe one of the “rooms” was actually a corridor, sealed off by a false wall. But as technological advances continue to change the way we practice archaeology, the convictions of this “hidden chamber” continue to waiver.

Recent findings from a team led by archaeologist Mamdouh Eldamaty, a former Egyptian minister of antiquities, reported on by Nature, detail the outcome of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) used to scan the area surrounding Tutankhamun’s tomb. Initial reports indicate that they have identified a previously unknown corridor-like space a few meters from the burial chamber, findings which were presented to Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) earlier this month. 

The famous bust of Nefertiti. Vladimir Wrangel/Shutterstock

Theoretically the idea of a hidden chamber within the tomb makes sense, as Tutankhamun’s pad is unusually small for a member of royalty. The spaces detected in Eldamaty’s GPR investigation appear as pale blue areas on the radar, which indicate a gap in the bedrock a few meters to the east. The team can’t yet confirm if the “space” is connected to Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, but the 2-meter-high (6.5 feet), 10-meter-long (32 feet) gap is at the same depth and runs parallel to the tomb’s entrance corridor.

As exciting as this sounds, not everyone is convinced. Zahi Hawass, another former Egyptian antiquities minister, told Nature that using geophysical techniques to search for tombs has “never made any discovery at any site in Egypt” and only serves to raise false hopes. He’s reported to have excavated an area to the north of the Boy King’s tomb in search of alternative entrances but found nothing. Francesco Porcelli, a physicist at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy, led a similar GPR survey inside the tomb in 2017, concluding in a paper published last year in the Journal of Cultural Heritage that his findings actually ruled out any possibility of there being hidden rooms within the tomb.

Eldamaty plans to return to the site to carry out further studies of the area north of the known burial chamber but faces difficulties as the resting place of Tutankhamun is once again obscured, only this time by air conditioning units rather than another tomb. Without removing these, the team will struggle to get a read on the bedrock in this crucial area, but hopes remain that by using a different antenna and taking readings closer together they may pin down the shape and location of the “hidden room” to within a few centimeters.

You’re safe for now, Nefertiti.