A secret chamber near the tomb of the teenage Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun (BC 1341 – 1323), commonly referred to as King Tut, may contain the mummy of his mother-in-law and stepmother Queen Neferneferuaten Nefertiti (BC 1370 – 1330), the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. British daily The Guardian has made this claim in a recent report. As per the report, a team of researchers from Europe had found the clue of the secret chamber in Tutankhamun’s tomb a few years ago. Researchers have claimed that the mummy of Queen Nefertiti could be there in that chamber.

The possibility of Nefertiti’s secret tomb had been mentioned in a number of research papers on ancient Egypt. Nicholas Reeves, the former Curator in the British Museum’s Department of Egyptian Antiquities, told The Guardian: “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. You would not have had that decoration in the tomb of Tutankhamun.” He stressed: “Close inspection of Ay’s cartouches reveals clear, underlying traces of an earlier name, that of Tutankhamun. In its original version, this scene had shown Tutankhamun performing the funerary ritual for the tomb’s original owner, his immediate predecessor Nefertiti.”

According to Reeves, Tutankhamun’s tomb is just the outer section of a much larger tomb “prepared for and still occupied by” Nefertiti. “It’s very easy just to write this off as sheer fantasy, but I have discovered that the decoration of the wall in the burial chamber had been changed. We have always been puzzled by Tutankhamun’s tomb because of its strange shape. It is very small, and not what we’d expect of a king,” he said.

Tutankhamun’s role as a Pharaoh was not that important in the history of ancient Egypt. However, the royal treasures kept with his mummy, discovered in 1922, trumped other mummies. Apart from that, the miraculous legend of revenge of Tutankhamun’s mummy made the last Pharaoh of his royal family to rule during the end of the 18th Dynasty (BC 1332 – 1323) famous. In Egypt, many believe that anyone who disturbs Tutankhamun’s mummy will die. This belief has been around since the discovery of Tutankhamun’s mummy 100 years ago. Many of the researchers involved in the excavations, led by British Archaeologist Howard Carter, had died under unusual circumstances.

The search for the secret chamber, hidden inside Tutankhamun’s tomb for 3,300 years, began a few years ago. At that time, Reeves suggested that the tomb of Queen Nefertiti, like Tutankhamun’s, might have contained vast treasures. In fact, he was of the opinion that Queen Nefertiti could be the real owner of the tomb. Reeves has conducted genetic tests of 16 Royal mummies, including King Tut’s grandparents, parents and his wife, in the last 15 years to find the mummy of Nefertiti. However, the search continues, as there is still no evidence of his stepmother, Nefertiti.

Tutankhamun was the son-in-law of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (or Akhenaten), the 10th ruler of the 18th Dynasty who had reigned from BC 1353 to BC 1336 (or from BC 1351 to BC 1334). Queen Nefertiti was the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Tutankhamun had tied the nuptial knot with Ankhesenpaaten, one of the seven daughters of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti. Later, Ankhesenpaaten changed her name to Ankhesenamu. Tutankhamun was between eight and nine years of age when he ascended the throne and became the youngest Pharaoh, taking the throne name Nebkheperure. He reigned for nearly nine years. His father-in-law Amenhotep IV was one of the most important Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. A section of historians has claimed that Tutankhamun (on the other hand) was actually a puppet of the priesthood. Many are of the opinion that someone had assassinated the teenage Pharaoh.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das