Italian scientists are conducting the third study of the tomb of the famous pharaoh Tutankhamun in the vicinity of Luxor in Egypt in search of the burial place of Queen Nefertiti, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities said in a statement.
The decision to conduct a third additional study was made at an international scientific conference in Cairo in 2016. It should give a final conclusion about the possible presence of rooms hidden behind the frescoes in the walls of the tomb, which may be the disguised burial of Queen Nefertiti. The theory of the hidden tomb of Nefertiti was put forward by the British archaeologist Nicholas Reeves.
The ministry said in a statement that the Italian specialists are working with advanced equipment. The study will last a week, followed by painstaking work on the study of the data obtained, after which the scientists will issue their verdict.
According to Reeves' theory, in one of the walls of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, the entrance to the tomb of the famous ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti, whose tomb has not yet been found, may be hidden. The entrance may have been skillfully disguised with frescoed stucco in one of the walls of the tomb of the young pharaoh, who is believed to be her adopted son. This conclusion was made by the British scientist after a detailed study of three-dimensional laser scanned images of the tomb, as well as its layout.
According to Reeves, he, studying a three-dimensional copy of the tomb and wondering why the tomb of Tutankhamun is significantly smaller than the tombs of other ancient Egyptian kings, based on a number of facts, he came to the conclusion that this tomb was originally intended for the queen, and not for the king. It was necessary to use it for the burial of the pharaoh due to the sudden death of Tutankhamun and the lack of another suitable place for the tomb. The scientist proposed to test his theory using radar, which makes it easy to detect possible voids outside the walls of the tomb.
This British proposal was accepted by the then Minister of Antiquities of Egypt Mamduh al-Damati. Research was carried out, and the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities reported that the radar actually found two rooms behind one of the walls of the tomb. In addition, the study showed the presence of organic objects behind the wall, possibly bones or wood, as well as others made of metal. Reeves suggested that the research should continue and a hole should be made in the wall of the tomb to prove the results obtained using the radar. However, the current minister, Khaled al-Annani, refused to conduct any research that could damage this priceless monument. It was decided to conduct a third additional survey using radar.
The tomb of Tutankhamun, almost untouched by robbers, was discovered by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922. This find became one of the main sensations in Egyptology of all time. Queen Nefertiti, considered the adoptive mother of Tutankhamun and the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, was one of the most powerful and beautiful women of her time. Scientists have still not been able to solve the riddle of the place of the queen's resting place, whose name is translated as "Beautiful has come."
Margarita Kislova
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