CAIRO — Egypt’s archaeological mission, led by famed Egyptologist and former Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass, resumed on Dec. 9 the hunt for Queen Nefertiti’s tomb within the west financial institution of Luxor after years of debate over her burial web site.
Hawass informed Al-Monitor by telephone he believes Queen Nefertiti is resting within the Valley of the Kings within the west financial institution in Luxor. He mentioned an Egyptian workforce has been shaped to seek for and excavate the tomb.
“The workforce of Egyptian archaeologists tasked with discovering Nefertiti’s tomb was shaped in 2017 and is a wholly Egyptian mission. That is the primary time that an Egyptian mission leads [the excavation] works on the archaeological web site of the Valley of the Kings, the place international missions have at all times labored,” Hawass mentioned.
Controversy and division over the whereabouts of Queen Nefertiti’s tomb have prevailed amongst archaeologists for years. In August 2015, Nicholas Reeves, an archaeologist on the College of Arizona, claimed Nefertiti might lie behind a wall inside Tutankhamun’s tomb.
The BBC reported in August 2015, “The whereabouts of Nefertiti’s stays will not be identified, though these of Tutankhamun had been present in 1922.”
In October 2015, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities shaped a scientific committee led by then-Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh el-Damaty to carry an goal dialogue within the Valley of the Kings in Luxor with Reeves, who mentioned Nefertiti’s tomb is likely to be positioned behind the north wall of Tutankhamun’s tomb. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities conducted a radar survey of Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 2015, but it surely didn’t verify what Reeves mentioned.
In Might 2018, the ministry dismissed Reeves’ principle concerning the tomb and mentioned the monthslong geophysics research by the workforce of researchers on the Polytechnic College of Turin in Italy dominated out any hidden rooms behind the partitions of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Which means Nefertiti’s tomb was not discovered.
Hawass mentioned, “There isn’t any scientific proof proving the idea that Queen Nefertiti was buried inside Tutankhamun’s tomb. We imagine that Nefertiti may very well be buried within the western valley subsequent to the tomb of King Amenhotep III.”
“There are nonetheless a variety of undiscovered secrets and techniques about historic Egyptians within the space positioned between King Amenhotep III’s tomb and King Ay’s,” Hawass added. Finding Nefertiti’s tomb could be “a very powerful archaeological discovery on this planet, and even the invention of the century,” he mentioned.
Hawass mentioned in a lecture on the Nationwide Museum of Egyptian Civilization on Dec. 8 concerning the recent archaeological discoveries that “evidences within the west financial institution (in Luxor) present that there are antiquities that match these discovered among the many amulets belonging to King Tutankhamun, the son of Akhenaten, Nefertiti’s husband.”
Hussein Abdel Baseer, director of the Antiquities Museum at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, informed Al-Monitor, “Queen Nefertiti is the gorgeous and good spouse of King Akhenaten. She supported him tremendously and was one of many strongest supporters of the brand new non secular name that he made to worship the brand new god Aten. She is likely one of the most well-known queens of historic Egypt and the woman of the Amarna interval.”
He added, “There are some research that point out Queen Nefertiti co-reigned along with her husband. Current research, nevertheless, said that King Akhenaten dominated alone and that Nefertiti might have assumed energy after his loss of life. Too many mysteries and questions proceed to encompass this queen’s life normally.”
Egyptian historian and Egyptologist Bassam al-Shammaa informed Al-Monitor by telephone, “There are lots of hurdles to the invention of Nefertiti’s tomb, given her mysterious life about which solely a bit of was revealed. It’s mentioned that historic Egypt’s most well-known figures are essentially the most mysterious ones.”
Shammaa added, “I doubt that the [team] will discover the mum and the unique tomb of Nefertiti in Luxor for non secular and political causes, most notably amongst which is the enmity with the monks of Amun-Ra after her husband Akhenaten known as for worshipping the god Aten and he or she supported him. This resulted in issues and pushed them to desert Thebes (in Luxor), the capital of historic Egypt, and to construct a brand new capital in Amarna.”
He defined, “Discovering Nefertiti’s tomb within the west financial institution in Luxor is barely attainable if the mummies of Akhenaten and Nefertiti had been moved from Amarna to Luxor in later eras.” He known as on the ministry to develop the archaeological workforce looking for Nefertiti and to contain extra scientists who concentrate on searching and finding tombs.
Commenting on the attainable historic worth of the invention of Nefertiti’s tomb, he mentioned, “Discovering Nefertiti’s mummy, and what’s in her tomb, by the Egyptian workforce could be tantamount to the rewriting of historical past, notably since that tomb has preoccupied everybody for lots of of years.”
