Howard Carter - The Tomb of Tutankhamun: Volume 2: The Burial Chamber

The Tomb of Tutankhamun: Volume 2

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The Tomb of Tutankhamun: Volume 1 , Howard Carter and A. C. Mace

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A PORTRAIT OF TUTANKHAMEN

The beaten and burnished gold mask of the young king representing him at the age of deathabout 18 years old.

(See Plate LXXIII)

The Tomb of Tutankhamun: Volume 2

The Burial Chamber

Discovered by the late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter

By Howard Carter

Bloomsbury Academic

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in 1923, by Cassell & Company Ltd. Reprinted in 2003 by permission of The Griffith Institute, Oxford.

1923, 2014 Howard Carter

Foreword 2003, 2014 Nicholas Reeves

Illustrations from Photographs by Harry Burton.

Publishers Note

The publishers wish to record their thanks to the French Ministry of Culture for a grant towards the cost of translation.

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ePub ISBN: 978-1-47257-764-1

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On 4 November 1922, Howard Carter and his sponsor, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, made a discovery in Egypts Valley of the Kings which would change the face of archaeology for good. For the first time in recorded history, diggers had stumbled upon the virtually intact burial of an Egyptian pharaoh the boy-king Tutankhamun, son and successor of the heretic Akhenaten; and it was a tomb piled high with funerary treasures and gold. The popular perception of Egyptology changed overnight: no longer the worthy pursuit of dusty academics, it was now seen as high-stakes adventure. Without the excitement engendered by Tutankhamun, it is doubtful that Indiana Jones would ever have been born.

The story of the find reads like a fairytale fiction: how Carter dug for years with little success in pursuit of the impossible dream; how, in his final season, the tomb he sought was found; how the tomb impacted upon the world, and turned its discoverers into celebrities overnight; and how, with the unexpected death of Lord Carnarvon (supposed victim of pharaohs curse), the triumph turned sour.

The careful documentation and clearance of Tutankhamuns tomb, and the transportation to Cairo of the objects interred there, took Howard Carter the best part of a decade, with the excavators personal narrative of the work appearing in three wonderfully written, self-contained volumes published between 1923 and 1933. This, the second in the trilogy, appeared in 1927, and describes the investigation of pharaohs burial chamber: the opening of the four protective shrines, the extraction of the kings three anthropoid coffins (the innermost of solid gold), and the final examination of the kings splendidly bejewelled mummy. The stuff of fantasy, it is difficult to take in, even today.

For all his riches, Tutankhamun had in life been a relatively insignificant king, too young to impose his personality on the state he ruled and intentionally forgotten by those who came after. With the finding of his tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon, Tutankhamuns name was at long last made to live: today, more than three thousand years after his death, Egypts boy-king stands as a veritable icon not only of Egyptology itself, but of archaeological endeavour as a whole.

Contents

It was then that the wonder and magnitude of our last discovery more completely dawned upon us. This unique and wonderful monumenta coffin over 6 feet in length, of the finest art, wrought in solid gold 2 to 3 millimetres in thicknessrepresented an enormous mass of pure bullion.

How great must have been the wealth buried with those ancient Pharaohs! What riches that valley must once have concealed!

HOWARD CARTER

On 4 November 1922 a discovery was made in Egypts Valley of the Kings which would change for good the popular perception of the ancient world. Here for the first time in recorded history Egyptologists found themselves on the threshold of an undisturbed royal tomb. The burial proved to be that of the boy-king Tutankhamun, son and successor of the heretic Akhenaten, filled to overflowing with strange animals, statues, and goldeverywhere the glint of gold.

The story of the discovery reads today like a fairytale fiction: how two English excavators, Howard Carter and the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, pursued with absolute conviction a seemingly impossible dream; how, against all the odds, in their final season the tomb they sought was at last brought to light; and how, within a matter of months, triumph would turn to tragedy with Lord Carnarvons unexpected death and the unleashing of a political whirlwind which threatened to consume even Carter himself.