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Archaeologist Nicholas Reeves believes Tutankhamun's remains may have been rushed into an outer chamber of what was originally Queen Nefertiti's tomb. The remains of Tutankhamun, who may have been her son, were found in 1922. He died 3,000 years ago aged 19. ... Dr Reeves developed his theory after the Spanish artistic and preservation specialists, Factum Arte, were commissioned to produce detailed scans of Tutankhamun's tomb. The scans were then used to produce a facsimile of the 3,300-year-old tomb near the site of the original Valley of the Kings in Luxor. While assessing the scans last February, Dr Reeves spotted...

The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has just announced that a scientific team has found initial evidence of what might be a hidden chamber in the tomb of King Tutankhamun. [Update: See video below.] A survey of the tomb was conducted using infrared thermography, which measures temperature distributions on a surface. According to Mamdouh el-Damaty, the Minister of Antiquities, “the preliminary analysis indicates the presence of an area different in its temperature than the other parts of the northern wall.” One possible explanation is that the variation in temperature is, in effect, an infrared shadow of an open area behind the...

Restorers have put their work on the famed golden burial mask of King Tutankhamun on display in Cairo, over a year after the beard was accidentally knocked off and hastily glued back on with epoxy. A German-Egyptian team of experts showed off the mask in a laboratory in the Egyptian Museum, detailing plans for how the epoxy will be scraped off and the beard carefully removed before being reattached by a method to be determined by a joint scientific committee. Christian Eckmann, the lead restoration specialist, said the work should take a month or two, depending on how long it...

Although monotheism is usually associated with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, there have, in fact, been a number of other monotheistic religions in world history. Iran, in particular, was a center for monotheistic thought, being home to both Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. At first glance, ancient Egypt, with its hundreds of exotic gods, would seem the last place for a monotheistic revelation. Yet one of the earliest monotheists known to history was Akhenaten, pharaoh of Egypt from 1352-1336 BC, who perhaps lived in the generation before Moses. Akhenaten was born of royal parents, raised and trained in the religious traditions of Egypt...

Any scholar who knows archaeology should discuss his theory in the presence of scholars who know the Valley of the Kings and are working there now. Instead, this theory was analysed by Egyptologists who have never worked in the valley or written a single article on Tutankhamun or his tomb. Reeves has gained a lot of publicity for saying nothing.

Ahram Online spoke with Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty regarding an upcoming radar scan of Tutankhamun’s tomb to determine if Queen Nefertiti is buried in a hidden chamber. The theory that Nefertiti may be buried in Tutankhamun’s tomb was introduced by Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves. Ahram Online (AO): What is your opinion about Reeves' theory, and could it be true? Minister: It is a respectable scientific theory that could prove right or wrong, and when examining the west and north walls of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, I realised that all the evidence that Reeves mentioned regarding the existence of hidden chambers is...

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian official says the Antiquities Ministry has given initial approval for the use of non-invasive radar to verify a theory that Queen Nefertiti's crypt may be hidden behind King Tutankhamun's 3,300-year-old tomb in the famous Valley of the Kings.

After analysing high-resolution scans of the walls of Tutankhamun's grave complex in the Valley of the Kings, Dr Reeves spotted what appeared to be a secret entrance. He described how he uncovered the 'ghosts' of two portals that tomb builders blocked up, one of which is believed to be a storage room. The other, on the north side of Tutankhamun's tomb, contains 'the undisturbed burial of the tomb's original owner - Nefertiti', Dr Reeves argued. If Dr Reeves is correct, the hidden tomb could be far more magnificent than anything found in Tutankhamun's burial chamber. He believes it is her...

The blue and gold braided beard on the burial mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun was hastily glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic after it was knocked during cleaning, conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said Wednesday. The museum is one of the city's main tourist sites, but in some areas, ancient wooden sarcophagi lay unprotected from the public, while pharaonic burial shrouds, mounted on walls, crumble from behind open panels of glass. Tutankhamun's mask, over 3,300 years old, and other contents of his tomb are its top exhibits. Three of the museum's conservators reached by telephone gave...

Thanks to the careful work of archaeologists, we learned more in the past year about Stonehenge's hidden monuments, Richard III's gruesome death and King Tut's mummified erection. From the discovery of an ancient tomb in Greece to the first evidence of Neanderthal art, here are 10 of Live Science's favorite archaeology stories of 2014. 1. An Alexander the Great-era tomb at Amphipolis [snip] 2. Stonehenge's secret monuments [snip] 3. A shipwreck under the World Trade Center [snip] 4. Richard III's twisted spine, kingly diet and family tree [snip] 5. A teenager in a "black hole" [snip] 6. Syria by satellite...

...The analyses revealed that the glass originate from the same glass workshops in Egypt that supplied the glass that the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun took with him to his grave in 1323 BC... Globalisation in the Bronze Age Twenty-three glass beads from Denmark were analysed using plasma-spectrometry. Without destroying the fragile beads, this technique makes it possible to compare the chemical composition of trace elements in the beads with reference material from Amarna in Egypt and Nippur in Mesopotamia, about 50 km south east of Baghdad in Iraq. The comparison showed that the chemical composition of the two sets of trace...

Contact: Dr. Paul Nicholson NicholsonPT@cardiff.ac.co.uk 44-292-087-4582 Cardiff University Ancient Egyptian glassmaking recreated 3000-year-old furnace rebuilt by archaeologist The reconstructed kiln built by Dr. Paul Nicholson of Cardiff University and Dr. Caroline Jackson of Sheffield University. A team led by a Cardiff University archaeologist has reconstructed a 3,000-year-old glass furnace, showing that Ancient Egyptian glassmaking methods were much more advanced than previously thought. Dr Paul Nicholson, of the University’s School of History and Archaeology, is leader of an Egypt Exploration Society team working on the earliest fully excavated glassmaking site in the world. The site, at Amarna, on the banks of...

With strong features cast in burnished gold, Tutankhamun’s burial mask projects an image of majestic beauty and royal power. But in the flesh, King Tut had buck teeth, a club foot and girlish hips, according to the most detailed examination ever of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s remains. And rather than being a boy king with a love of chariot racing, Tut relied on walking sticks to get around during his rule in the 14th century BC, researchers said.

CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed part a 3,000-year-old statue of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of the young King Tutankhamun, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Saturday. "The statue was found near the northern entrance of Amenhotep III's temple and depicts the king sitting down on a throne with Amun," the chief deity, Hawass said. The red-granite top half of the statue was discovered at the site of the Amenhotep III's funerary temple in the southern city of Luxor, Hawass said. The newly-discovered artifact which measures 130 cm (51 inches) in height and 95...

In recent years, DNA analysis has shed light on the parents of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh, the boy king Tutankhamun, known to the world as King Tut. Genetic investigation identified his father as Akhenaten and his mother as Akhenaten’s sister, whose name was unknown. French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde offered a different interpretation of the DNA evidence on Thursday. Speaking at Harvard’s Science Center, Gabolde said he’s convinced that Tut’s mother was not his father’s sister, but rather his father’s first cousin, Nefertiti. Nefertiti was already known to be Akhenaten’s wife and in fact the two had six daughters. Gabolde believes...

The pharaoh was buried in Egypt's Valley of the Kings without a heart (or a replacement artifact known as a heart scarab); his penis was mummified erect; and his mummy and coffins were covered in a thick layer of black liquid that appear to have resulted in the boy-king catching fire... The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made...

Tutankhamen was the most famous of all the Egyptian Pharaohs, but it's always been a bit of a mystery how he died. He passed at only 19, and he seemed to have pretty bad injuries at his death, but there was no record of an assassination. Thanks to Science, we now know it was probably due to a chariot accident. King Tut is best known because when his tomb was found in 1922, it was in relatively good condition compared to other, more ransacked pharaonic resting places. The sarcophagus and mummy were still there, which is always a good sign,...

The mummified body of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun burst into flames inside his sarcophagus after a botched attempt to embalm him, according to scientists in a new documentary. After his death in 1323 BC, Tutankhamun was rapidly embalmed and buried, but fire investigators believe a chemical reaction caused by embalming oils used on his mummy sparked the blaze. A fragment of flesh from the boy pharaoh, whose tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon, was tested by researchers who confirmed his body was burnt while sealed in his coffin. Tut has long fired the public imagination....

Archaeologists have discovered two ancient Egyptian skeletons, dating back more than 3,300 years, which were each buried with a toe ring made of copper alloy, the first time such rings have been found in ancient Egypt. The toe rings were likely worn while the individuals were still alive, and the discovery leaves open the question of whether they were worn for fashion or magical reasons. Supporting the magical interpretation, one of the rings was found on the right toe of a male, age 35-40, whose foot had suffered a fracture along with a broken femur above it. Unique rings in...

...says Hutan Ashrafian, a surgeon with an interest in medical history at Imperial College London. Tutankhamun died young with a feminised physique, and so did his immediate predecessors. Paintings and sculptures show that Smenkhkare, an enigmatic pharaoh who may have been Tutankhamun's uncle or older brother, and Akhenaten, thought to have been the boy king's father, both had feminised figures, with unusually large breasts and wide hips. Two pharaohs that came before Akhenaten -- Amenhotep III and Tuthmosis IV -- seem to have had similar physiques. All of these kings died young and mysteriously, says Ashrafian. "There are so many...