Researchers discover anomalies in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings | The Art Newspaper

The Valley of the Kings
Photo: Peter J. Bubenik CC BY-SA 2.0
Italian researchers have discovered two anomalies below the surface of the Valley of the Kings that could represent ancient undiscovered chambers metres away from Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Led by Francesco Porcelli of the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy, the team of researchers undertook a geophysical survey, a scientific exploration method that allows researchers to peer beneath the ground–to reveal the two subterranean anomalies. The anomalies are not connected to Tutankhamun’s tomb, Porcelli and his colleagues write in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, but they “are particularly interesting in that they do not appear to be correlated with known underground cavities”.

Their results suggest that the first anomaly, if indeed man-made rather than natural, could represent a void that possibly dates to the era of ancient Egypt; its depth and location suggest that it is unlikely to have been created by more recent human activity. The anomaly is about 12 metres from Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, on roughly the same north-south alignment, but located higher than its ceiling. It may even be of similar size to Tutankhamun’s tomb.