Radar scanning reveals two hidden chambers behind Egypt's King Tut tomb

The Egyptian antiquities ministry announced Thursday that radar scans revealed two hidden chambers behind the tomb of Egypt's ancient King Tutankhamun in Luxor.

"The chambers are located behind the western and northern walls of the tomb," Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh al-Damati told reporters in Cairo.

According to the scanning, which was carried out by a Japanese team last November, the chambers might contain metal or organic materials.

"Another scanning operation to determine the thickness and the dimensions of the walls will be conducted on March 31," Damati said.

In 2015, British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves announced that Queen Nefertiti's crypt may be buried in hidden doorways behind King Tutankhamun's 3,300-year-old tomb.

Reeves, who has been working jointly with Egyptian experts on the discovery of the new chambers, believes that the last resting place of Queen Nefertiti, who played a major political and religious role in Egypt in the 14th century B.C., may be found behind Tut's tomb.

However, Damati, the antiquities minister, said such chambers may contain Kiya, a wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, or Queen Nefertiti.

Famed for her beauty, Nefertiti was also a wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, Tutenkhamen's father, and ruled Egypt as Queen in the 14th century B.C.

Tutankhamun, who ascended to the throne at the age of nine and died at 19, is the world's best known pharaoh of ancient Egypt. The young king ruled from 1332 B.C. to 1323 B.C., during a period known as the New Kingdom in Egypt's history. Endit