Microgravity readings suggest low-density, chamber-like structures behind Tutankhamun's north wall

More than 1,200 readings over 35 square metres works out to about 34 stations per square metre. If the grid was regular, that is an average spacing near 17 centimetres, over a patch roughly six metres on a side ^[1][3][2]. Microgravity registers density through tiny variations in Earth's gravitational field, and the team turned to it because radar shot through the walls from inside the tomb has limited range ^[13]. What the map showed, according to George Ballard, is "structures with right angles, of low density - and those structures are interestingly parallel on their axes to the north wall" ^[15].

Geophysical tests of the hidden-chamber idea have gone both ways, with some teams concluding chambers were present and others finding that the data revealed nothing ^[4]. Ballard's explanation is that the earlier work hunted the wrong thing: a large void immediately behind the wall, when the feature he reports is a corridor densely packed with rubble ^[12][11]. He is a structural engineer and president of the geophysics consultancy GBG Group, and he analysed the new radar results along with all available data from the previous surveys ^[10].

So the agreement now claimed across radar, gravity and older electrical work is, in part, one analyst rereading existing datasets with a different target in mind. A 2017 electrical-resistivity survey found anomalies in similar locations, and those were dismissed at the time as unrelated to KV62 ^[16]. Nicholas Reeves is a co-author of the new paper. The independent British Egyptologist proposed in 2015 that the north wall was a false wall, on the basis of lines and cracks in it and ancient alterations to its paintings ^[2][20].

Density is what these instruments measure. Whether anything was interred in a low-density rectangle, and who, is a separate question. The Nefertiti attribution rests on Reeves's reading of the tomb, which is unexpectedly small for a royal burial. He argues it was originally much larger, before Tutankhamun's unexpected death ^[19][1][3].

Mamdouh Eldamaty, an archaeologist at Ain Shams University in Cairo and a former Egyptian antiquities minister, said a confirmed find could "rank among the most transformative archaeological discoveries of the modern era" ^[8][5]. The team highlights one feature, "anomaly 7", a mostly low-density zone hosting a roughly square, high-density area within it ^[17].