LUXOR, Egypt — For weeks, a group of explorers have scanned the walls of a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, using radar and infrared devices, in the hopes that science might confirm one Egyptologist’s theory: that hidden behind a wall of King Tutankhamen’s burial chamber sits the long-sought tomb of Queen Nefertiti.

The prospect of such a discovery is beyond tantalizing, and would be as momentous a find as any here for almost a century, antiquities officials say. It would also come at a time when Egypt’s tourism industry, frozen by years of political unrest and fears of militant attacks, is in urgent need of good news.

For the noted Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves, the tests could vindicate his arguments that two of the walls in the tomb of Tutankhamen, also known as King Tut, are likely to mask hidden rooms, and that the tomb itself was in fact an antechamber to a larger burial complex that belonged to Nefertiti, Pharaoh Akhenaten’s powerful queen who according to some theories, succeeded him as ruler of Egypt.

Dr. Reeves acknowledges that Egyptian officials, including some of his colleagues in the search, do not share the conviction that Nefertiti is waiting to be found in any undiscovered chambers.