Has Nefertiti’s tomb finally been located?
Has Nefertiti’s tomb finally been located?
A British archaeologist thinks he may have found the final resting place of Queen Nefertiti - hidden behind a 'secret door' in the tomb of her probable son, Tutankhamun.
2 min read
Nefertiti was made famous by her bust, now in Berlin's Neues Museum [Getty]
The mystery of the final resting place of Queen Nefertiti could soon be solved after a British archaeologist claimed to have found 'secret', bricked-up doorways in the tomb of her probable son, Tutankhamun.
Nicholas Reeves, a British Egyptologist at the University of Arizona, believes Nefertiti's grave lies just yards beyond the the tomb of the boy king.
In a paper entitled The Burial of Nefertiti?, Reeves says high-resolution scans reveal two bricked-up "ghost" doorways behind the tomb's painted reliefs, which he thinks could either lead to an unexplored chamber or the undisturbed burial place of the tomb’s original owner.
"If I’m wrong, I’m wrong; but if I’m right this is potentially the biggest archaeological discovery ever made," Reeves told The Economist.
"Each piece of evidence on its own is not conclusive, but put it all together and it's hard to avoid my conclusion."
Reeves believes Tutankhamun's death at 19 threw the royal court into crisis. There was no tomb prepared, and so they decided to enlarge his mother's and bury him near her.
Nefertiti ruled alongside the "heretic king" Akhenaten in the 14th century BC. King Tut was the son of the Akhenaten, who tried to change Ancient Egyptian religion by exclusively worshipping Aten, the sun disc.
Nefertiti, whose beauty passed into legend, was the most favoured of the pharaoh's several wives, and the probable mother of Tut.
Howard Carter and George Herbert discovered Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb in 1922 in Luxor's Valley of the Kings, where the powerful nobles of the New Kingdom were buried.
Joyce Tyldesley, a senior lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, told The Times that she was skeptical about Reeves' theory.
"It is highly likely that she died during her husband's reign and so would have been buried at Amarna, the city purpose-built by Akhenaten in Middle Egypt," she said.
Nicholas Reeves, a British Egyptologist at the University of Arizona, believes Nefertiti's grave lies just yards beyond the the tomb of the boy king.
In a paper entitled The Burial of Nefertiti?, Reeves says high-resolution scans reveal two bricked-up "ghost" doorways behind the tomb's painted reliefs, which he thinks could either lead to an unexplored chamber or the undisturbed burial place of the tomb’s original owner.
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If I’m wrong, I’m wrong; but if I’m right this is potentially the biggest archaeological discovery ever made Nicholas Reeves |
"Each piece of evidence on its own is not conclusive, but put it all together and it's hard to avoid my conclusion."
Reeves believes Tutankhamun's death at 19 threw the royal court into crisis. There was no tomb prepared, and so they decided to enlarge his mother's and bury him near her.
Nefertiti ruled alongside the "heretic king" Akhenaten in the 14th century BC. King Tut was the son of the Akhenaten, who tried to change Ancient Egyptian religion by exclusively worshipping Aten, the sun disc.
Nefertiti, whose beauty passed into legend, was the most favoured of the pharaoh's several wives, and the probable mother of Tut.
Howard Carter and George Herbert discovered Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb in 1922 in Luxor's Valley of the Kings, where the powerful nobles of the New Kingdom were buried.
Joyce Tyldesley, a senior lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, told The Times that she was skeptical about Reeves' theory.
"It is highly likely that she died during her husband's reign and so would have been buried at Amarna, the city purpose-built by Akhenaten in Middle Egypt," she said.
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