Tut's mum's mummy? Cliffhanger in Egypt's Valley of the Kings

Egyptologists are holding their breath over the mystery surrounding the first tomb discovered in Luxor's Valley of the Kings since that of the boy king Tutankhamun in 1922.

News of the surprise discovery in February by an American team from the University of Memphis has had repercussions far beyond this famous necropolis from the time of the pharaohs.

Could the small tomb, designated KV63, hold a royal mummy, perhaps that of Tutankhamun's widow or even his mother?

The theory is being openly discussed -- and argued over -- by American and native Egyptologists.

"It's very exciting, it's the joy of this unique discovery. But let's be very cautious," the director of the University of Memphis Archaeology Institute, Loreilei Corcoran , told AFP.

Mansur Boraik, director of antiquities at Luxor, is optimistic about the find.