New and surprising turn in the debate about whether or not there are secret cameras hidden in the tomb of Tutankhamen. After the latest official conclusions that nothing is hidden behind the walls of the tomb of the young pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings (Luxor), a new study reopens the case. The new radar surveys in the grave, the KV 62, again reveal possible evidence of hitherto unknown rooms. The alleged findings are explained in a report not yet published, to which details the journal Nature has had access, which is always a guarantee, and revive the controversial theory, proposed by the British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves, that after the funeral chamber of Tutankhamen hides another grave, larger, that could belong to Queen Nefertiti (wife of Tutankhamun's father, Akhenaten, and mother-in-law of the young king).
Researchers led by former Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Eldamaty have used high ground penetration radar (GPR) to scan the area around Tutankhamun's tomb again. The study, according to its authors, would have identified a space similar to a corridor a few meters and east of the burial chamber of the sepulcher. The finding would have been submitted to the Superior Council of Antiquities of Egypt earlier this month.
Egyptologists from all over the world are being shown again at the same time excited and cautious about the possibility of the existence of unknown cameras in KV 62. If these cameras exist, whatever is in them, we would be facing one of the greatest discoveries of the History of Egyptology, given the very special relevance of everything related to Pharaoh Tutankhamen, his time (the so-called era of Amarna), his family and his grave. To think that Howard Carter could have missed that the tomb he discovered harbored more secrets is something that ignites any imagination.
What is detected now it is a space east of the tomb and that looks like a corridor two meters high and ten meters long that would have cameras
The possibility that these spaces exist had been previously investigated by different teams, public and private, but so far with negative results. In 2017, a group led by Francesco Porcelli of the Polytechnic University of Turin conducted a study that, it was claimed, pointed to the existence of secret chambers. However, other later studies ruled it out. Just a couple of weeks ago, the former minister and world reference man of archeology in Egypt, Zahi Hawass, visiting Spain, stressed that the cameras had been nothing more than a hoax and reaffirmed that the investigations had not proven nothing, and that in fact, the use of radar is not conclusive, it only holds false hopes and alone has never caused a discovery in Egypt.
Interestingly, the area in which it is now suggested that there is something does not match those noted above. Then, it was unknown spaces next to the north wall, in the burial chamber, and the west wall of the same chamber. The first space would correspond to a corridor that would lead to the hidden tomb and the second to a warehouse like the other two known chambers of the tomb of Tutankhamen, the annex and the treasure. But what is detected now, according to the study to which Nature has had access , is a space east of the tomb, beyond the treasure and that looks like a corridor two meters high and ten meters long that would have cameras and that runs parallel to the original entrance hall of the tomb (which they agreed to discover in 1922 Carter and Carnarvon and that is the entrance through which the site is visited today).
In reality, it is not even clear that the space that seems to have been detected is physically linked to the tomb of Tutankhamen or is part of another burial. The researchers believe that it is, given that its orientation is perpendicular to the main north-south axis in which KV 62 is aligned.
Of course Reeves has been very interested in the new study that revives his hypothesis, although, to his perplexity, not in the way he expected. Reeves, as explained above, believed that the tomb continued along the north wall to a new grave, that of Nefertiti. The theory of the new cameras or spaces arose in 2015 from the detailed scanner that was made of the grave to make an exact copy and seemed to indicate the existence of boarded doors behind the north and west wall paintings. Then, after publicly exposing Reeves his hypothesis, the Egyptian government sponsored two radar projects, one, carried out by a Japanese team, seemed to confirm the existence of unknown spaces, but the second, orchestrated by National Geographic did not confirm the previous result. In 2016, two other teams repeated the exams, but the disagreement continued.
In the new situation, we only have to wait until the discoveries are explained in detail and the experts and the Egyptian authorities give their verdict. At the moment we return to the doors of what could be something spectacular and that solved some of the great enigmas of the Tutankhamun era. We have to wait patiently. Again.