No hidden chamber confirmed inside Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt

CAIRO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced on Sunday that no hidden chamber could be found in Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings of Upper Egypt's Luxor.

The result of a third radar survey by an Italian mission from the Polytechnic University of Turin is likely to end a three-year debate over the presence of a hidden chamber for ancient Queen Nefertiti in the boy king's tomb as suggested by the British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves in 2015, the ministry said in a statement.

Francesco Porcelli, leader of the Italian scientific team, is expected to provide all the details of the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey later in the day during the ongoing Fourth Tutankhamun International Conference, according to Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

In a report submitted to the Egyptian ministry, Porcelli concluded that "the hypothesis concerning the existence of hidden chambers or corridors adjacent to Tutankhamun's tomb is not supported by the GPR data."

It is a conclusion "with a very high degree of confidence," he noted.

The theory of the British Egyptologist Reeves was supported by a Japanese GPR survey but dismissed by a U.S. one from the cable network National Geographic.

Tutankhamun, who died at about 19, became the world's best known pharaoh of ancient Egypt after his nearly intact tomb was discovered by the British Egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922.

On Saturday, Tutankhamun's sixth and last historic military chariot was moved from a military museum in Cairo to the under-construction Grand Egyptian Museum near the Pyramid complex in Giza, which is scheduled to display about 4,500 new and unique pieces of the boy king after its opening later in 2018. Enditem