British archaeologist Nicholas Reeves announced Thursday in Cairo that Tutankhamun's world-famous gold burial mask and most of his other burial possessions actually belonged to Nefertiti, according to an Antiquities Ministry's statement .
In the international press conference in which Reeves finally revealed the full details of his controversial Nefertiti tomb theory and presented the findings of his first visit to King Tut's Luxor tomb, he said that there is evidence that proves his theory.
His close examination of the mask resulted in finding strange features including the fact that the mask, which is one of the main attractions of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, has ear holes designed for hanging earrings.
This led Reeves to believe the mask was originally made for Tut's stepmother Nefertiti as his research concerning the matter indicates that earrings were never worn by ancient Egyptian kings, only the queens.
In addition, Reeves told Ahram Online that he noticed the inscription on the mask's cartouche (on which the name of a sovereign was inscribed in ancient Egypt), had been changed, which further led him to believe that the mask was not originally intended for the boy king.
These findings led Reeves to advance his conclusion, as he announced at the conference that not only the burial mask but 80 percent of the treasures discovered in Tut's tomb actually belonged to Nefertiti, and the tomb itself was originally prepared for her in the first place.
Reeves backed up his conclusion by explaining that Nefertiti did not die before Akhenaten and was not buried at Tal El-Ammarna as is widely believed, but she instead disappeared from historical records for a different reason.
He claims it is because she changed her name to become a co-regent of her husband (which is a theory that has been long debated by Egyptologists) and therefore the tomb and its treasures, fit for a ruler, were originally prepared for her.
Reeves added that long after Nefertiti was buried in the tomb, the unexpected death of King Tut caused the outer part of it to be used by him, so some of her treasures were given to him. This is what assures him that she must lie somewhere in that tomb.
Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Eldamaty said that the groundwork to confirm or disprove this intriguing narrative will hopefully start in November as the procedures required for digging in the tomb while keeping it protected will take from one to three months.
If this elaborate and exciting evidence-backed theory turns out to be correct, Reeves will be credited for more than finding Nefertiti's long lost tomb and solving the centuries-long mystery of why Nefertiti disappeared from historical records.
He will also be the Egyptologist who proved Howard Carter wrong and who changed so much of what we know about both Tut and Nefertiti.