Inspection of King Tut’s Tomb Reveals Hints of Hidden Chambers
Secret doors may conceal the burial chamber of Queen Nefertiti, but tantalizing clues await further testing.
LUXOR, Egypt—Nearly a century after the rediscovery of King Tut’s tomb ignited a worldwide craze for Egyptology, new findings could turn out to be almost as stunning.
On Monday, after a group of Egyptian and foreign archaeologists examined the famous tomb, Egypt’s antiquities minister confirmed that they found evidence suggesting the existence of two previously undiscovered rooms. “This indicates that the western and northern walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb could hide two burial chambers,” minister Mamdouh Eldamaty told the Egyptian state press.
“To be honest, I feel numb,” Nicholas Reeves, the archaeologist who first proposed the existence of the hidden rooms, said in his Luxor hotel room, after inspecting the tomb. “This has been part of my life now on a daily basis for more than a year.”
Earlier this year, Reeves published a paper in which he claimed that the tomb of Tutankhamun, an 18th-Dynasty pharaoh who died around 1323 B.C., includes two doorways that were plastered and painted over.
In Reeves’s theory, these doorways are among several clues suggesting that the tomb was originally built for another ruler—Nefertiti, the principal wife of Akhenaten, who is believed to have fathered Tutankhamun with another wife.
Reeves believes that Nefertiti and her grave goods may even lie intact behind the hidden doors, which were never penetrated by ancient robbers or modern archaeologists. But until Monday his theory had not been supported by a physical examination of the tomb itself. (Read more about Reeves’s theory.)
Lines of Evidence?
Inside Tut’s tomb, Egypt’s antiquities minister Mamdouh Eldamaty and archaeologist Nicholas Reeves examine a section of wall for subtle signs of a hidden doorway.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRANDO QUILICI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNELS
“First of all, we saw that on the ceiling itself there’s a distinct line,” Reeves said, after returning from visiting the tomb with Egyptian archaeologists and officials. He explained that in the room that contains Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus, the line on the ceiling perfectly matches the section of wall that appears to have been plastered over. “It suggests that the room was indeed a corridor,” he said.
The archaeologists also noticed a marked contrast in the materials that cover different parts of the same wall. “What my Egyptian colleagues discovered is that there is a distinct difference in the surface of the surrounding wall and the central part that would be covering the door,” Reeves said. “The surrounding wall is a softer plastering. At the point where I suspect there’s a doorway, it’s quite gritty.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150928-king-tut-tomb-door-nefertiti-archaeology-egypt/
