The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb was no accident. It was the culmination of a prolonged search by a dedicated Egyptologist, Howard Carter, who was sponsored by his patron the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. We can trace this partnership back to 1907, some fifteen years before the great discovery was made. How was it that they joined together as archaeologists?
Lord Carnarvon was a wealthy young man who was an evangelical Christian and quietly generous to needy folk. He inherited his title at the age of twenty-three in 1890, together with the family estate at Highclere Castle in Berkshire. His love of foreign travel was acquired during an exciting sailing cruise around the world after leaving Cambridge; he was an expert shot and was an early motoring enthusiast. Reading became a lifelong interest. Following a car accident in Germany in 1901, when he barely escaped with his life, he found English winters weakened his health, so he visited Egypt in 1903. This triggered his interest in archaeology to such an extent that he was allotted a site at Thebes. As he was a completely untrained ‘digger’, the French head of the Antiquities Service, Sir Gaston Maspero, decided he could use the Theban site to gain experience, since it had already been much worked and there was little danger that he would damage it. Indeed after six weeks’ effort
Lord Carnarvon reclining.
And expense, Lord Carnarvon’s workmen had unearthed only one notable find: a large mummified cat still in its wooden coffin. ‘This utter failure,’ he later wrote, ‘instead of disheartening me had the effect of making me keener than ever.’
Stimulated by the experience, but aware of his limitations, he recruited Howard Carter, who was already a professional Egyptologist. Carter was out of work at the time, having had to leave his post as Inspector-General of Monuments following a dispute between his watchman at Saqqara and drunken French tourists, and when Lord Carnarvon took him on, at Maspero’s suggestion, he was struggling to make ends meet as a selfemployed artist at Luxor. Here was a splendid opportunity to excavate in style. From 1907-11 they worked together very productively and in 1912 published a well-produced volume, Five Years’ Explorations at Thebes. In the end they excavated for sixteen years, in the Delta and at Thebes, but the results were disappointingly repetitive until they turned to the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings opposite Luxor. In 1915 Lord Carnarvon was able to take the concession left by the death of Theodore M Davis in 1914. Davis had financed his own excavations in the Valley, with his finds going to the Cairo and Metropolitan museums. In spite of the First World War, Carter remained in Egypt,
Howard Carter. Painting by William Carter, 1924.
The Valley of the Kings in 1963 with the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb on the right.
Continuing to excavate the tomb of Amenophis III, although Lord Carnarvon was in England helping his wife Almina set up a hospital at Highclere Castle - as well as having surgery himself. His return to Egypt in 1919 proved inopportune owing to civil unrest, yet he was keen to see Carter’s excavations of various tombs. From time to time Davis’s workers had found evidence of Tutankhamun - a cache of pots containing material left over from the embalming and funeral of the king, and a cup inscribed with his name - but nobody knew where his tomb was situated. Most of the other pharaohs were known to be buried in the Valley so it was presumed that Tutankhamun’s tomb was also there, although Davis had considered it exhausted.
Labourers shifted mountains of debris from likely spots only to have the disappointing sight of bare stone cliffs or workmen’s homes. After five years’ activity both their patience and their money were nearly exhausted, yet Carter still persisted and he persuaded Lord Carnarvon to try one more season of digging. Despondency turned to elation when three rock-cut steps were exposed. Before long they had dug down sixteen steps to a sealed doorway. Then he cabled Lord Carnarvon, who dropped everything to sail to Egypt, while Carter had the entrance covered up pending his arrival.
The story of the breaking down of the doorway on 22 November 1922, the confirmation that it was indeed the tomb of Tutankhamun and the astonishment at its contents has often been told. A natural impulse to disclose the contents as soon as possible was suppressed in the interests of science and archaeology.
Evidence that the tomb had been entered and resealed appalled these modern discoverers, who feared that the contents might have been taken away already. So it was with apprehension that Carter pierced the wall and gazed in by the light of a candle. When asked whether he could see anything he made the now classic remark ‘Yes, wonderful things.’ This Antechamber was full of a jumble of beautiful pieces of gilded furniture and humble leafy bouquets.
A photographer, Harry Burton of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, happened to be in Egypt and took photographs as the contents were revealed. Many of his original shots are included in this book. A laboratory and photographic dark-room were set up in another tomb nearby and scientific study began. The laboratory was used by A Lucas, a chemist who joined the team and later published results in his book on Ancient Egyptian materials (see Further Reading).
The study and clearance were not without problems. The world’s press and wealthy sightseers descended on the Valley of the Kings to such an extent that Carter’s work ground to a halt. A misunderstanding with the Egyptian government over the terms of the concession was another problem. The sudden death of Lord Carnarvon caused further apprehension, but the work resumed, and culminated in the discovery of the quartzite sarcophagus and golden inner coffin, and the mummy of Tutankhamun himself. Ever since, popular interest has continued, and much research has been done, resulting in thousands of publications and many films.
World History
