The elusive burial chamber of the legendary Ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti, wife of pharaoh Akhenaten and stepmother of pharaoh Tutankhamen, may be located in a hidden chamber adjacent to the resting place of her regal stepson, The Guardian reports, citing Nicholas Reeves, Egyptologist and former curator in the British Museum’s Department of Egyptian Antiquities.
According to the newspaper, Reeves said that cartouches in the Tutankhamun’s tomb that depict him being buried by Ay, his successor as pharaoh, were apparently painted over cartouches showing Tutaknhamun himself burying his royal predecessor Nefertiti.
“I can now show that, under the cartouches of Ay, are cartouches of Tutankhamun himself, proving that that scene originally showed Tutankhamun burying his predecessor, Nefertiti,” he said. “You would not have had that decoration in the tomb of Tutankhamun.”
Reeves postulated that the tomb of King Tut is but an outer section of a larger tomb “prepared for and still occupied by” Nefertiti, claiming back in 2015 that high-resolution images of Tutankhamun’s tomb displayed possible evidence of plastered unexplored doorways.
“We’ve always been puzzled by Tutankhamun’s tomb because of its strange shape. It’s very small, and not what we’d expect of a king,” he said.
The new evidence is expected to be included in Reeves’ new upcoming book titles “The Complete Tutankhamun”, which is expected to be published next month.