Egypt begins King Tut exploration, searching for Nefertiti
Source: AP
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's antiquities ministry says exploration has begun inside King Tutankhamun's 3,300 year-old tomb in the search for hidden chambers that an Egyptologist believes could include Queen Nefertiti.
The ministry said Thursday the search would last three days. Results are to be announced Saturday in Luxor, the southern Egyptian city that served as the pharaonic capital in ancient times.
Egypt's Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty said in September he was convinced a hidden chamber may lie hidden behind King Tut's final resting place.
British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves, who toured the tomb with el-Damaty in September, theorized that Tutankhamun, who died at the age of 19, may have been rushed into an outer chamber of what was Nefertiti's tomb.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b710e52fddac48c1a01102a7f1dd1e70/egypt-begins-king-tut-exploration-searching-nefertiti
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In the desert, near Cairo, are the pyramids of Gizeh (or Giza), believed by Carson to be the granaries of Joseph and Pharaoh--a theory, I might add, that the Bible does not support. (The bible says the grain was stored outside cities, plural.)
Tut's tomb is in the Valley of the Kings, which is in Luxor, a considerable distance south of Cairo. For some reason, the Nile near Luxor and the south is considered the Upper Nile and the Nile near Cairo is considered the Lower Nile; and so Upper Egypt is the southern part of Egypt and northern Egypt is Lower Egypt. At one time, they were two different kingdoms.
Many kings and queens were interred in the Valley, but, as far as we know, grave robbers got to all their tombs, except for Tut's. I've been in Tut's tomb. From the Valley, you enter an opening in the hill to an antechamber. The antechamber opens into the small room where Tut's incredible coffin was found.
As I recall, when discovered, the anteroom was full of things that Tut was supposedly going to need in the afterlife and those things are now in the museum in Cairo.
If Nefertiti's tomb is somewhere near Tut's tomb--or if Tut was buried in her tomb--then the people who buried Tut built one or more false walls to separate his tomb from hers. Maybe her tomb was divided lengthwise, with a single dividing wall put between the two tombs? That would make sense because the entry to Tut's tomb is off to your extreme left side as you face the tomb.
The financial sponsor of finding Tut's tomb was Lord Carnarvon, whose name some may recognize. Downton Abbey is being filmed in what was once his home, Highclere Castle, which his descendant now owns.
