Despite the efforts of generations of Egyptologists, who have scoured the royal cemeteries of the pharaonic era, many of the most intriguing and notorious individuals remain unaccounted for. Where are Alexander the Great and Cleopatra, rulers of the Hellenistic age, both said by the historians of the Greek and Roman empires to have been buried in Egypt?

In this gripping account, Chris Naunton describes the quest for these and other great ‘missing’ tombs and presents the key moments of discovery that have yielded astonishing finds and created the archetypal image of the archaeologist poised at the threshold of a tomb left untouched for millennia. He skilfully unravels the tangled threads surrounding the burials of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten and his son Tutankhamun, and coolly assesses whether the boy-king’s celebrated tomb might still hold incredible secrets. The Valley of the Kings almost certainly guards hidden treasures. Could other such tombs lie undiscovered? Amazing finds of unsuspected tombs continue to occur throughout Egypt, making headlines worldwide, and renewing the hope that some of these mysteries might yet be solved.