Neferneferuaten Nefertiti has been kept a secret from Egyptology’s eager eyes for 3,300 years. Although there has been ongoing interest in Nefertiti, whose name means “the beautiful woman has arrived,” her existence was established after a bust of the queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt was found in 1912, but she has yet to make an appearance.
Following the alleged discovery of some unidentified mummies and concealed hieroglyphics in the tomb of her stepson, Tutankhamun, new theories regarding her whereabouts are now spreading. On November 4, 1922, Tutankhamun’s remains were first found in a tomb that had previously been suggested as a possible hiding place for Nefertiti.
The location of secret entrances within the tomb was allegedly revealed by high-resolution photos that were cited in the 2015 paper “The Burial of Queen Nefertiti?” This hypothesis was eventually confirmed by distinct lines seen on the tomb’s ceiling, which convinced researchers that one of the “rooms” was actually a passageway that had been partitioned off by a false wall. But as new technologies continue to alter how we conduct archaeology, this “secret chamber’s” convictions grow weaker.
The results of the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) study of the region around Tutankhamun’s tomb were released in Nature in 2020. King Tut’s tomb is rather small for a member of Egyptian royalty, which may be explained by the discovery of a previously undiscovered corridor-like space a few meters from the burial chamber, according to early reports.
King Tut’s tomb is at the center of the most recent flutter of enthusiasm around Nefertiti’s whereabouts. Here, scholars think that images depicting Ay, Tutankhamun’s successor, burial the youthful pharaoh (who was only 19 when he passed away), could be hiding an earlier representation. Nicholas Reeves, a former curator in charge of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, speculates that it might have been painted over a cartouche depicting Tutankhamun burying Nefertiti.
Reeves told the Guardian: “I can now demonstrate that there are cartouches of Tutankhamun himself behind the cartouches of Ay, proving that that tableau originally depicted Tutankhamun burying his predecessor, Nefertiti. “You wouldn’t have had that decoration in Tutankhamun’s tomb,” someone said.
“Ay’s cartouches clearly show underlying remnants of an earlier name — that of Tutankhamun, upon close scrutiny. This tableau originally depicted Tutankhamun executing the funeral rites for Nefertiti, the tomb’s first owner and his direct predecessor.
If confirmed, it might mean that the tomb that we currently think of as Tutankhamun’s is actually just one level of a much larger structure that was originally constructed to accommodate Nefertiti and later modified to make place for the King after his untimely demise.
Amazingly, there is more Nefertiti news circulating than just that. Former Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs Zahi Hawass has also commented on the finding of a number of unidentified mummies, one of which he thinks might be Nefertiti.
The discovery of the mummies of Ankhesenamun, Tutankhamun’s wife, and her mother, Nefertiti, will be able to be announced in October, Hawass told the Spanish newspaper The Independent. DNA testing is being prepared for them.
Although this “find” is the fourth in seven years, it comes just in time given that Tutankhamun’s tomb turns 100 in a month. Although it is wise to exercise caution when faced with scientific discoveries that have the potential to “rewrite the textbooks,” we should have an answer fairly soon.
