He discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb, unearthed Egypt’s greatest secret and then faded into obscurity
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 was one of the biggest of the 20th century but the man behind the find chose to retire from the limelight.
Over one hundred years ago Howard Carter, a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, made the discovery of a lifetime. On 26 November 1922 he punched a small hole in the doorway of a tomb and peered through to get the first view of the treasures that adorned the late pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb.
He spent the next ten years meticulously cataloguing the numerous artifacts almost perfectly preserved that were inside the nearly intact tomb. After which he disappeared from the limelight, never performing another archaeological dig.
Who was Howard Carter, the man who discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb?
Born in 1874, in Kensington on the westside of London, Carter was sent as a youth to live in Norfolk with extended family due to the poor health that he experienced. That gave him the opportunity to visit the Amherst family’s Didlington Hall, which was a treasure trove of Egyptian artifacts sparking his passion in the ancient civilization.
He went on his first Egyptian expedition in 1891 at the behest of Lady Amherst, who was impressed by his artistic talent, a skill he learned from his artist father Samuel Carter. He quickly impressed others with his ability to make near lifelike sketches, giving him more opportunities to go on excavations in Egypt.
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb
In 1907, Carter went to work for Lord Carnarvon, supervising the excavation projects the English aristocrat financed in Egypt. Seven years later Lord Carnarvon received a concession to dig in the Valley of Kings. Carter sought to find the tomb of Tutankhamun; however, work was interrupted until 1917 due to World War I.
By 1922, Lord Carnarvon was dissatisfied with a lack of discoveries and told Carter that this would be the final season digging in the Valley of Kings. As luck would have it, in November he came across the first signs that he had found something important.
He sent for Lord Carnarvon who arrived two weeks later upon which he opened the tomb. The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb became a sensation around the world, sparking renewed fascination in the ancient culture.
However, Lord Carnarvon died on 5 April 1923 from blood poisoning. This generated rampant rumors that there was a curse for breaking into the pharaoh’s tomb which only grew when other members of the excavation died mysteriously. These began to overshadow the discovery itself.
Carter fades into obscurity
Carter continued his work of meticulously cataloging the thousands of items in the tomb and those found on Tutankhamun’s mummified body. These provided a wealth of information that are still being studied today.
In 1932, after the final objects were cleared from the tomb Carter retired from actively excavating archaeological sites and the limelight. He instead became an antiquities dealer, working with museums and collectors as well as giving lectures and writing to share his knowledge of ancient Egypt.
He died single and without children in 1939 of Hodgkin’s disease. The legacy of his work at the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb lives on with his notebooks, sketches, diaries and diagrams held in the archives of the Griffith Institute at Oxford University.
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