The discovery of hidden hieroglyphics within Tutankhamun’s tomb lends weight to a theory that the fabled Egyptian queen Nefertiti lies in a hidden chamber adjacent to her stepson’s burial chamber, a world-renowned British Egyptologist has said.

Nicholas Reeves, a former curator in the British Museum’s Department of Egyptian Antiquities, said that while the theory remained unproven after inconclusive radar scans, it has been given fresh impetus following the new clue.

Reeves realised that cartouches depicting Tutankhamun being buried by his pharaonic successor, Ay, had been painted over cartouches of Tutankhamun burying Nefertiti, the legendary beauty, queen of Egypt and wife of King Akhenaten.1

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• 1. Reeves 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.” On the decorated north wall, the later cartouches show Ay holding a ceremonial adze and performing the ritual of “opening the mouth” of the mummy, to restore the deceased’s five senses. Reeves said: “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.” He added: “This conclusion finds absolute confirmation in the figures’ facial profiles – the snub nose and chubby under-chin of the [figure] currently labelled as Ay follow … precisely the standardised facial outline adopted for official representations of Tutankhamun at the very start of his kingship. The face of the mummy carries the indisputable features of Nefertiti. Demonstrably, the scene had begun its life as a record of Tutankhamun officiating at the burial of his predecessor.”