British archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarphon, spent years and a lot of money searching for a tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings that they weren't sure still existed. But on November 4, 1922, they found it. Carter discovered not only an unknown ancient Egyptian tomb, but also a tomb that lay almost undisturbed for more than 3,000 years. What was in Tutankhamun's tomb shocked the world.
British archaeologist Howard Carter (1874 – 1939), whose discoveries include tutankhamun's tomb (1922).
Carter worked in Egypt for 31 years before discovering Tutankhamun's mausoleum. He began his career in Egypt at the age of 17, using his artistic talents to reproduce frescoes and inscriptions. Eight years later ( 1899 ) , Carter was appointed Inspector General of Monuments in Upper Egypt. Carter quit his job in 1905 and worked for Lord Caernarfon in 1907.
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, the fifth earl of Carnarphon, loved to drive the newly invented car around. But a car accident in 1901 left him in poor health. In 1903, when britain's wet winter was fragile, Lord Caernarfon began spending the winter in Egypt. To pass the time, he made archaeology a hobby. Lord Caernarphon found only one mummified cat (still in a coffin) during his first season, and he decided to hire a knowledgeable man for the following season. To do this, he hired Carter.
Tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, West Coast, Egypt
After several relatively successful seasons of cooperation, World War I brought their work in Egypt to near no halt. However, by the autumn of 1917, Carter and Lord Caernarfon began digging in earnest in the Valley of the Kings.
Carter said several pieces of evidence had been found — a faience cup, a piece of gold leaf, and a box of funerary items bearing Tutankhamun's name — that led him to believe that King Tutankhamun's grave had yet to be discovered. Carter also believes the location of the items points to a specific area where they may have found King Tutankhamun's mausoleum. Carter was determined to systematically search the area by digging into the bedrock.
Aside from some of the old workers' huts at the foot of the tomb of Ramses VI and the 13 calcite jars at the entrance to the Tomb of Melempta, Carter has nothing to show after five years of excavation in the Valley of the Kings. Therefore, Lord Caernarfon decided to stop the search. After discussions with Carter, Carnavin backed down and agreed to last season.
By November 1, 1922, Carter began his final season working in the Valley of the Kings, where he had his workers uncover the ancient workers' hut at the bottom of the mausoleum of Ramses VI. After exposing and documenting the huts, Carter and his workers began digging into the ground beneath them.
On the fourth day of work, they found something—a step that had been cut into a rock.
Around 1923, crates were removed from the newly discovered Tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor
From the afternoon of November 4 until the next morning, work was in full swing. By the late afternoon of November 5, 12 stairs were found leading down, and in front of them was the upper part of a blocked entrance. Carter looked for a name on the stuccoed door. But of the readable seals, he found only the imprints of the royal necropolis. Carter was so excited that he wrote:
"The design was definitely from the Eighteenth Dynasty. Could it be the tomb of the nobles that the royal family agreed to bury here? Is it the royal family's hiding place, a hiding place where the mummy and its equipment were removed for safety? Or is it the tomb I've been looking for for so many years? ”
To protect the discovery, Carter had his workers fill the stairs and cover them with no one showing up. When several of Carter's most trusted workers stood guard, Carter left to prepare, first contacting Lord Carnafon in England to share news of his discovery.
On November 6, two days after finding the first step, Carter sent a telegram: "At last there has been a marvelous discovery in the valley; a magnificent tomb, intact; a re-lid for your arrival; congratulations." ”
Nearly three weeks after finding the first steps Carter was able to take. On 23 November, Lord Caernarfon and his daughter, Mrs. Evelyn Herbert, arrived in Luxor. The next day, the workers cleared the stairs again, now revealing the full picture of all 16 steps and sealed porches.
Now Carter had found something he hadn't seen before, because the bottom of the doorway was still covered with rubble: at the bottom of the door were several stamps bearing Tutankhamun's name.
Now that the door was fully exposed, they noticed that the upper left corner of the doorway had been breached by tomb robbers and resealed. The tomb is not complete, but the fact that the tomb was resealed suggests that the grave was not emptied.
First glance at Tutankhamun's tomb. They saw the sight when Lord Cahnafon and Howard Carter broke the sealed doorway separating the tomb front chamber and the grave hall.
On the morning of November 25, the door of the seal was photographed and the seal was indicated. Then the door was removed. A passage emerged from the darkness, piled high with limestone fragments.
Upon closer inspection, Carter could see that the grave robbers had dug a hole in the upper left part of the passage. (This hole was refilled in ancient times with larger, darker rocks than other fillers.) ）
This means that the tomb may have been stolen twice in antiquity. The first was within a few years of the king's burial, before which there was a sealed door and filled the passage. (Scattered objects were found under the filler.) The second time, the robbers had to dig up fillers and had to escape with smaller items.
By the afternoon of the next day, the padding along the 26-foot-long passage had been removed, revealing another sealed door that was almost identical to the first. Again, there were signs that a hole had been opened in the doorway and resealed.
Carved details of the gilded chapel of the tomb of King Tutankhamun of Egypt.
If there's anything inside, it would be a lifetime discovery for Carter. If the tomb were relatively complete, it would be something the world has never seen before. Carter writes:
At this moment—which seemed eternal to the others next to me—I was stunned with astonishment, and when Lord Kanaphon could no longer bear the suspense, he asked anxiously, "Can you see anything?" "All I can do is say something like, 'Yeah, wonderful thing.' ”
The next morning, the stuccoed door was photographed and the seal was recorded. Then the door opened, revealing the vestibule. The wall opposite the entrance wall was almost piled up to the ceiling, and it was piled up with boxes, chairs, sofas, etc. – most of which were gold – "organized chaos".
On the wall on the right stand two life-size statues of kings, looking at each other as if to protect the closed entrance between them. The sealed door also showed signs of being broken, but this time the robbers entered through the middle of the bottom of the door.
To the left of the door in the corridor was a pile of parts from dismantled chariots.
As Carter and the others took the time to look at the room and the things inside, they noticed another sealed door behind the couch on the wall in the distance. This sealed door also had a hole in it, but unlike other doors, it was not resealed. They carefully crawled under the couch and illuminated their lamps.
In this room (later known as the annex) everything was a mess. Carter deduced that after the robbers' robbery, officials had tried to straighten out the vestibule, but they had not tried to level the annex.
He wrote:
"I think the discovery of the second room, which was packed with stuff, had some sobering effect on us. So far, we've been excited and haven't stopped to think, but now for the first time we're starting to realize what an amazing place this is. The task before us, the responsibility it brings. This is no ordinary discovery, dealt with in normal seasonal work; nor is there any precedent for us to tell us how to handle it. This matter is beyond all experience, it is dizzying, and for now, there seems to be more work to be done than any human institution can. ”
The bust in Tutankhamun's tomb shows the god Horus as a falcon.
Before the entrance between the two statues in the vestibule can be opened, items in the vestibule need to be removed or they could be damaged by flying debris, dust, and movement.
Recording and preserving every item is a daunting task. Carter realized that the project was beyond his ability to bear alone, so he asked for and received help from a large number of experts.
To begin the cleanup process, each item is photographed on site, with and without a designated number. Each item is then sketched and described on the appropriately numbered record card. Next, the item is noted on the floor plan of the tomb (only in the vestibule).
Carter and his team had to be very careful when trying to remove any objects. Because many items are in an extremely fragile state (e.g. the thread of beaded sandals has disintegrated, leaving only 3,000 years of habit of sticking beads together), many items require immediate disposal, such as celluloid spray, to keep the item intact.
Moving items also proves to be a challenge. Carter writes,
"Clearing objects from the vestibule is like playing a huge splash game. They are so crowded that moving around without risking serious harm to others is an extremely difficult problem, and in some cases they are so inextricably entangled that elaborate props and support systems must be designed to hold one object or group of objects in place while the other is removed. At times like these, life is like a nightmare. ”
Once the item has been successfully removed, place it on a stretcher and wrap the item with gauze and other bandages to protect its removal. After some stretchers were filled, a group of people would carefully carry them out of the grave.
As soon as they came out of the mausoleum carrying stretchers, they were greeted by hundreds of tourists and journalists, who waited for them on top. Since news about the tomb quickly spread around the world, the site was very popular. Every time someone came out of the grave, the camera went out.
Traces of stretchers were taken to the conservation laboratory, which is located not far from the tomb of Seti II. Carter appropriated the tomb as a conservation laboratory, photography studio, carpenter's shop (the boxes needed to make items for transport), and storage rooms. Carter assigned Tomb 55 as a darkroom.
After being protected and recorded, the items were very carefully packed into crates and then transported by rail to Cairo. Carter and his team spent seven weeks cleaning up the vestibule. On February 17, 1923, they began to remove the sealed door between the statues.
King Tutankhamun's sarcophagus.
The interior of the burial chamber is almost entirely filled with a large shrine that is more than 16 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 9 feet high. The walls of the temple are made of gilded wood and inlaid with bright blue porcelain.
Unlike the rest of the tomb, rough rocks (unpolished and unpolished) were left on the walls of the burial chamber, and the walls of the burial chamber (excluding the ceiling) were covered with plaster and painted yellow. These yellow walls are painted with funeral scenes.
There are many items on the ground around the temple, including part of two broken necklaces that look like they were thrown away by robbers, and "magic oars used to transport the king's sailing ship through the waters of the underworld." ”
In order to dismantle and inspect the temple, Carter had to first remove the partition wall between the vestibule and the burial chamber. Nevertheless, the space between the remaining three walls and the temple is not large.
Carter and his team discovered that this was just an outer temple when they dismantled the temple, with four shrines in total. Each part of the temple weighs up to half a ton. In the narrow confines of the burial chamber, the work was both difficult and uncomfortable.
When the fourth temple was dismantled, the king's sarcophagus was found. The sarcophagus is yellow and is made of a piece of quartzite. The lid does not match the rest of the sarcophagus and cracks in the middle during ancient times (an attempt was made to cover the crack by filling the crack with plaster).
Lift the heavy lid to reveal a gilded wooden coffin. The coffin is a distinctly humanoid, 7 feet 4 inches long.
A year and a half later, they were ready to lift the lid of the coffin. Priority has been given to the protection of other items that have been removed from the grave. Therefore, the expectation of what is below is extreme.
Inside, they found another smaller coffin. Lifting the lid of the second coffin reveals the third, made entirely of gold. On top of this third and final coffin, a black material that was once liquid, fell on the coffin from hand to ankle. Over the years, the liquid has hardened, sticking the third coffin firmly to the bottom of the second coffin. Thick residues must be removed by heating and hammering. Then the lid of the third coffin was lifted.
Finally, Tutankhamun's royal mummy appeared. It's been more than 3,300 years since humans saw the king's remains. It was the first untouched Egyptian royal mummy ever found since he was buried. Carter and others hoped that King Tutankhamun's mummies would reveal a great deal of knowledge about ancient Egyptian funeral customs.
Although it was still an unprecedented discovery, Carter and his team were frustrated to learn that the liquid poured on the mummy had caused great damage. The mummy's linen wrapper could not be opened as hoped, but had to be dismantled in large chunks.
Many of the items found in the package have also been damaged, and some have almost completely disintegrated. Carter and his team found more than 150 items on the mummy—almost all of which were gold—including amulets, bracelets, collars, rings, and daggers.
An autopsy of the mummy revealed that Tutankhamun was about 5 feet 5 1/8 inches tall and died around the age of 18. Some evidence also attributes Tutankhamun's death to murder.
On the right wall of the burial chamber is the entrance to a storage chamber, now known as the Storeroom. The Treasury, like the vestibule, is filled with items, including many boxes and model ships.
The most striking thing in this room is the huge gilded canopy shrine. Inside the gilded temple is a canopy chest made of calcite. Inside the canopy chest are four cans, each in the shape of an Egyptian coffin, beautifully decorated and containing the embalmed organs of the pharaohs: liver, lungs, stomach and intestines.
Two small coffins were also found in the storeroom, housed in a simple, undecorated wooden box. Inside the two coffins were the mummies of two premature babies. Presumably, these are Tutankhamun's children. (It is not known if Tutankhamun had any surviving children.) ）
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > world-famous discovery</h1>
The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in November 1922 attracted worldwide attention. Requires daily updates to discoveries. A flood of mail and telegrams overwhelmed Carter and his associates.
Hundreds of visitors waited outside the tomb to catch a glimpse. Hundreds of others have tried to use their influential friends and acquaintances to visit the mausoleum, which has created a great obstacle to the work of the mausoleum and endangered the artifacts. Ancient Egyptian-style clothing quickly went on the market and appeared in fashion magazines. Even architecture was affected when Egyptian design was copied into modern architecture.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > curse</h1>
Rumors and excitement about the discovery became particularly acute when Lord Carnarvon's cheek was bitten by a mosquito (which he accidentally aggravated while shaving). On 5 April 1923, just a week after the bite, Lord Caernarfon died.
The death of Kanaphon led to the belief that Tutankhamun's tomb had a curse.
The exquisite breastplates from the Tutankhamun exhibition in London are made of gold and studded with silver, glass and semi-precious stones. It depicts the king with the god Ptah and his wife Sekhmet
Carter and his colleagues spent a total of 10 years documenting and cleaning Tutankhamun's grave. After Carter completed his work on the mausoleum in 1932, he began writing an authoritative six-volume work, The Report on the Tomb of Tutankha Amun. Carter died before he could finish, at his home in Kensington, London, on 2 March 1939.
The mystery of the tomb of the young pharaoh remains: as recently as March 2016, radar scans suggested that there may be hidden rooms in the tomb of King Tutankhamun that have not yet been opened.
Ironically, Tutankhamun was so obscure in his own time that his tomb was forgotten and has now become one of the most famous pharaohs of ancient Egypt. After traveling the world as part of the exhibition, the remains of King Tutankhamun once again rest in peace in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings.