the one-of-a-kind excavation was dogged by controversy.
Written by ABC AUDIO on November 27, 2022
“Everywhere the glint of gold.” This is how the British archaeologist Howard Carter infamously recalled his first impression of the dazzling, treasure-filled tomb of Tutankhamun.
On 26 November 1922, he had held up a candle to peer through a tiny breach chiselled in a doorway sealed for three millennia. His patron, Lord Carnarvon, waited anxiously nearby.
The tale of the pair’s incredible archaeological discovery, after years of digging in Luxor with little to show for it, enthralled the world and has been repeatedly retold.
Now, the move of the boy-king’s thousands of treasures to the soon-to-open, state-of-the-art Grand Egyptian Museum is allowing fascinating new research.
And a century on, there are fresh questions about how Tutankhamun became a political icon, whether Carter robbed his tomb and why Egyptians got little credit for helping to find it.
From the start, the one-of-a-kind excavation was dogged by controversy.
Although the rules of the time dictated that the contents of an intact royal tomb should stay in Egypt, it was widely believed there would be efforts to spirit them overseas.
Meanwhile, Carter and Carnarvon, struggling with the global media frenzy, cut a deal with a British newspaper that kept other journalists, including Egyptians, out of the tomb. It created animosity.
Historian Christina Riggs says the pair ended up being seen in Egypt as “very old school, very much aligned with racist attitudes and the powers that be”.
The country had been occupied by British forces in 1882 but gained partial independence in early 1922. Tutankhamun became part of the ongoing struggle to be free of imperial influence.
“This is a powerful symbol, that this king is being reborn just as Egypt is being reborn,” comments Dr Riggs, who wrote Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century.
“Egypt is the mother of civilisation, and Tutankhamun is our father,” sang the Egyptian diva Mounira al-Mahdiya in the 1920s. Meanwhile, the celebrated poet Ahmed Shawqi wrote defiantly: “We refuse to allow our patrimony to be mistreated, or for thieves to steal it away.”
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGESImage caption,
Howard Carter inspecting the innermost coffin of Tutankhamun
Egyptology’s most famous find owed much to good fortune. Dug into the floor of the Valley of the Kings, debris had long hidden the tomb entrance from robbers and archaeologists alike.
However, the luck of Lord Carnarvon ran out in early 1923. He died, apparently from an infected mosquito bite, although many in the media were quick to attribute it to a pharaonic curse.
Over the next decade, it was left to Carter to unpack the precious treasures in the tomb with his team. He was known as a stubborn, undiplomatic man and his relations with the Egyptian antiquities service, which oversaw the work, could often be antagonistic.
From early on, rumours swirled that he had tried to steal. Now Egyptologist Bob Brier has uncovered firm evidence of thefts.
In his book, Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World, he quotes letters from the philologist Sir Alan Gardiner in which he complains about his “awkward” position after being told by an expert that an amulet and tomb seals Carter had given him were stolen.
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“I found Carter was giving things away as souvenirs,” Dr Brier tells me. “He just thought he owned it.”
