Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s leading archaeologist, has dismissed the theory that Nefertiti is buried next to Tutankhamun’s tomb. In August, the British specialist Nicholas Reeves claimed that there is a hidden doorway in Tutankhamun’s burial chamber that could lead to the tomb of Nefertiti, the chief consort of Pharaoh Akhenaten, Tutankhamun’s father. She died in around 1330BC and her tomb has never been found.
Reeves, who is based at the University of Arizona, made his case in a paper published by the Amarna Royal Tombs Project, which he set up in
1998. A painstaking examination of
high-definition colour images of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber led Reeves to identify two previously undetected, plastered-over doorways, untouched since antiquity. An examination of the paint on the north wall suggests that it was decorated earlier than the other three walls in the tomb.
Hawass believes, however, that there is “very little evidence” for Reeves’s theory, and told us that it will “die”.
A detailed geophysical survey of Tutankhamun’s tomb should now be “one of Egyptology’s highest priorities”, Reeves says. The first step would be to use radar, “which should tell us relatively quickly and easily whether there is a void beyond the west and north walls”. If a void
were detected, it would theoretically be possible to drill a small hole through the walls to insert a fibre-optic camera.
Despite his scepticism, Hawass, who previously served as the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, suggests that a committee should now be appointed to examine Reeves’s evidence.
Reeves has long believed that Nefertiti’s tomb is in the Valley of the Kings. In 2000, he carried out a radar survey of a site near a storage chamber, close to Tutankhamun’s burial chamber. This revealed a void, but subsequent investigation showed no trace of a tomb. Reeves now says that “perhaps archaeologists were not digging in quite the right place”