Nicholas Reeves

This idea isn't actually new.

Back in 2015, Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves argued that Tutankhamun's tomb may have originally been part of a much larger royal tomb.

He noticed features and high-resolution scans of the walls that looked suspiciously like sealed doorways.

His theory is that when Tutankhamen died unexpectedly at around age 19, part of an existing tomb may have been quickly adapted for him.

But it was originally potentially belonged to Neferneferuaten, and the face was changed later on.

This was a theory proposed by Nicholas Reeves, the Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves.

Um, and yeah, it's an interesting argument that, you know ...

And it, but it, it's not surprising in some ways because we know al- we knew already that various items from the tomb were reused, uh, and belonged to Neferneferuaten.

So the fact that the mask, uh, might also have been reused, uh, you know, is just a, a sort of continuation of that theme.

And so if Nicholas Reeves is right, then yeah, it's a very interesting, uh, development.

[laughs]

Certainly is.

Yet the location of her burial remains uncertain.

Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves has argued for more than a decade that Tutankhamun was placed in the outer portion of an older royal tomb, and that the original burial could remain deeper inside.

Reeves is a co-author of the new report.

There is a decision still to be made.

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities controls whether the team may test the suspected spaces.

In 2011, the Egyptian antiquities authorities agreed to share the digital data through online viewers for study and education.

A reader far from the Valley of the Kings could examine features of the decorated chamber that were difficult to appreciate in ordinary photographs.

Nicholas Reeves was one of those readers.

The idea that Nefertiti's tomb might be hidden within or directly adjacent to King Tut's tomb.

This theory was most prominently championed by British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves.

In 2015, Reeves announced that high resolution laser scans of the tomb walls revealed something fascinating.

There were subtle fissures and outlines suggesting two sealed doorways behind the plastered and painted surfaces.

I love this.

Those chambers might hold the body of Queen Nefertiti, okay? This theory dates back to 2015 when British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves proposed that Tut's tomb was originally built for a different ruler.

Experts had long noted the burial chamber seemed sort of weirdly small for a king.

If you see the original photos from when the explorers opened the tomb for the first time, thus cursing them throughout all time.

where she actually ended up has, for the last decade, centered almost entirely on one particular tomb, that of Tutankhamun, her husband's likely son by another wife, discovered famously intact by Howard Carter in 1922, itself still probably the single most famous archaeological find of the 20th century, and part of why any suggestion of an undiscovered chamber attached to it draws international attention almost instantly.

In 2015, the British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves published a paper arguing that Tutankhamun's tomb, catalogued as KV62, was never actually built for Tutankhamun at all.

Reeves pointed to high-resolution scans of the tomb's painted walls, commissioned by the conservation group Factum Arte, which appeared to show faint straight lines running beneath the paint and plaster.

lines he interpreted as the outline of two sealed, plastered-over doorways.

A possible complex beneath the Valley of the Kings.

According to a report published by Nature magazine on September 17, 2026 to accompany the review by Mamdo Eldamati, Abbas Mohamed Abbas, George Ballard and Nicholas Reeves in occasional paper aid of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project, the team revisited seven major field campaigns from 2015 and two seasons of field work of 2023 and 2024.

Their findings suggest that KV-62 could have been larger than what was traditionally understood and could have predated the burial of Tutankhamen.

The report published in IFL Science noted that the authors consider five to six chambers are possibly present, interconnected with passages filled with rubble in antiquity.

Nefertiti's famous bust in Berlin's Neues Museum.

Philip Picard, CC by SA 3.0.

In 2015, Reeves presented evidence derived from high-resolution scans, wall fractures, and the unique configuration of the tomb that Tutankhamen's burial space might actually be a repurposed version of a larger monument.

In this theory, the chambers of a former occupant were sealed at the time of the untimely death of the young ruler.