May 9 – Happy Birthday, Howard Carter

nPostednon May 9, 2014

HowardnCarter made one of the most famous archeological discoveries,nanywhere, ever: n

nHendiscovered the only intact tomb of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh thatnhas ever been discovered, before or since. n

nOfncourse, I’m talking about the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

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n Andnhe found it in the Valley of the Kings, even though all the expertsnsaid that there were no more tombs to be found there.

Here’sna brief version of Carter’s story:

nHowardnCarter was born on this date in 1874 in London, England. His dad wasnan artist, and Carter learned about drawing and painting from him. Asna matter of fact, Carter ended up getting into archeology throughnart!

nHenhad no desire to stay in his little English town and paint portraitsnof families and pets. Instead, he got a job working for the EgyptiannExploration Fund as a tracer—one who carefully copies drawings andninscriptions from tomb walls, sarcophagi, and other ancient sources.nThese careful copies are used by scholars in their studies of AncientnEgyptian history and culture.

nAndnso, at age 17, he left England for the first time and sailed tonAlexandria, Egypt. n

nItnturned out that he was willing to work hard. He was enthusiastic. Henwas even brave! Get this – sometimes, after working all day copyingnthe scenes of the walls of a tomb, he would spend the night in thentomb. I’m talking all alone, by himself. Except for the bats.

SoonnCarter began to work for a skilled archeologist named FlindersnPetrie. He learned excavation skills while keeping up his artisticnskills. n

nUpnand up he climbed in responsibility and knowledge. Illustration,nexcavation, restoration. When he was just 25 years old, Carter wasnoffered the job of First Chief Inspector General of Monuments fornUpper Egypt. At this point, he supervised and controlled all ofnarcheology along the Nile Valley!

nUnfortunately,nCarter lost his position when a bunch of drunken French tourists werenviolent toward the guards who protected the archeological sites.nCarter allowed the guards to defend themselves—which seems like anpretty normal thing to me! But the French tourists were really madnand called on their important connections to demand an apology fromnCarter.

nCarternstood his ground and refused to apologize for what he thought was thenright thing to do.

nOutnof a job, Carter made a bit of a living by selling watercolornpaintings and by giving people tours in Egypt. I’m sure this seemednlike a very bleak time in his life. I bet a lot of people would’venthought that Carter should have caved in and apologized.

nButnif he had, he probably wouldn’t have met Lord Carnarvon.

nLordnCarnarvon was a rich English nobleman who was staying in warm, drynEgypt while he recovered from an automobile accident. He was borednand restless, and he became very interested in what Carter told himnabout the Ancient civilization that had built the sphinx and thenpyramids.

nThentwo became partners. Soon, thanks to Carter’s hard work andnknowledge, Carnarvon owned one of the most valuable privatencollections of Egyptian artifacts in the world. But Carter had seen anname of a little-known pharaoh several times—here on a cup, therenon a piece of gold foil, over here on a few funerary items. The namenwas Tutankhamun,nand Carter knew that no tomb for a pharaoh of that name had ever beennfound.

nAndnthat meant that there was an as-yet undiscovered tomb somewhere.

nCarternused his smarts to look for a tomb of a King Tutankhamun. He searchednfor about six years with no results. Lord Carnarvon was getting a bitndissatisfied—after all, he was paying the bills, and there wasnlittle more than a few artifacts turned up in those six years.nCarnarvon informed Carter that the 1922-23 season would be the lastnthat he would fund.

nAndnin November, 1922, the top of a staircase was discovered. n

It took ten years for Carter and others
to catalog the tomb’s 2000+ artifacts.

nInnthree weeks, the entire staircase was excavated. Of course, at thatnpoint Carter and Carnarvon didn’t know for sure that they had foundnwhat Carter had so long searched for. Not until November 26, 1922,nwhen Carter broke through a plaster wall and made the find of thencentury!

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nCurse? What curse?

nLordnCarnarvon died from an infected mosquito bite in Egypt in 1923, justnabout half a year after the discovery of the tomb.

AfternCarnarvon’s death, a rumor began that the mummy of King Tutankhamunnhad put a curse on all who dared enter the tomb. As conspiracyntheorists always do, the people who whispered about this so-calledncurse seized on the deaths of several visitors to the tomb, anradiologist who x-rayed Tutankhamun’s mummy, and Carter’s personalnsecretary—even though they all died in different ways (one wasnkilled by his wife, for example, and several died of variousndiseases)—

nandnmost died years later.

nOfncourse, a lot of people who had visited the tomb had nice long lives.nOf the 58 people who were present when the tomb and, later,nsarcophagus were opened, only 8 died within the next dozen years.

nAndnHoward Carter himself died of lymphoma at 1939, many years after hisndiscovery. There was no mummy’s curse!

nFindnout more…

n…aboutnCarter and King Tut in this earlier post.

nAndnhere isna very short video about Carter’s amazing discovery.

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nAlsonon this date: