Howard Carter

For other people named Howard Carter, see Howard Carter (disambiguation).

Howard Carter
Howard Carter
Born	(1874-05-09)9 May 1874 Kensington
Died	2 March 1939(1939-03-02) (aged 64) Kensington, London
Nationality	English
Known for	Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun
Scientific career
Fields	Archaeologist and Egyptologist

Howard Carter (9 May 1874–2 March 1939) was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist, noted as a primary discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

In 1891, at the age of 17, Carter, a talented young artist, was sent out to Egypt by the Egypt Exploration Fund to assist Percy E. Newberry in the excavation and recording of Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hassan. Even at that young age he was innovative in improving the methods of copying tomb decoration. In 1892 he worked under the tutelage of William Matthew Flinders Petrie for one season at Tell el Amarna, the capital founded by the pharaoh Akhenaten. From 1894 to 1899 he then worked with Edouard Naville at Deir el Bahri where he recorded the wall reliefs in the temple of Hatshepsut.

In 1899, Carter was appointed the first Chief Inspector for Upper Egypt by Gaston Maspero, Director General of the Egyptian Antiquities Service (EAS). He supervised a number of excavations at Thebes before he was transfered in 1904 to the Inspectorate of Lower Egypt. Carter resigned from the Antiquities Service in 1905 as a result of a dispute between Egyptian site guards and a group of French tourists.

Tutankhamun's tomb

Tomb of Tutankhamun

In 1908, after three hard years, Carter was employed by Lord Carnarvon. In supervising Carnarvon's excavations Carter imposed modern archaeological methods and systems of recording.

KV62 in the Valley of the Kings

Carnarvon financed Carter's work in the Valley of the Kings from 1914, but it was interrupted by World War I until 1917, when serious work was resumed. After several years of fruitless searching, Carnarvon became dissatisfied with the lack of results and, in 1922, he gave Carter one more season of funding to find the tomb he was searching for. On 4 November 1922, Carter's water boy found the steps leading to Tutankhamun's tomb (subsequently designated KV62), by far the best preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings. He wired Carnarvon to come, and on 26 November 1922, with Carnarvon, Carnarvon's daughter, and others in attendance, Carter made the famous "tiny breach in the top left hand corner" of the doorway, and was able to peer in by the light of a candle and see that many of the gold and ebony treasures were still in place. He did not yet know at that point whether it was "a tomb or merely a cache", but he did see a promising sealed doorway between two sentinel statues. When Carnarvon asked him if he saw anything, Carter replied: "Yes, I see wonderful things".

Carter's house in the Theban Necropolis

The next several weeks were spent carefully cataloging the contents of the antechamber. On 16 February 1923, Carter opened the sealed doorway, and found that it did indeed lead to a burial chamber, and he got his first glimpse of the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. All of these discoveries were eagerly covered by the world's press, but most of their representatives were kept in their hotels; only H. V. Morton was allowed on the scene, and his vivid descriptions helped to cement Carter's reputation with the British public.

Carter's own notes and photographic evidence indicate that he, Lord Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn Herbert entered the burial chamber shortly after the tomb's discovery and before the official opening

Later work and death

The clearance of the tomb with its thousands of objects continued until 1932. Following his sensational discovery Howard Carter retired from archaeology and became a part-time agent for collectors and museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. He visited the United States in 1924, and gave a series of illustrated lectures in New York City and other cities in the United States which were attended by very large and enthusiastic audiences, sparking egyptomania in the United States. He died of lymphoma, a type of cancer, in Kensington, London, on 2 March 1939 at the age of 64. The archaeologist's death, so long after the opening of the tomb despite being the leader of the expedition, is the most common piece of evidence put forward by skeptics to refute the idea of a "Curse of the Pharaohs" plaguing the party that violated Tutankhamen's tomb. His living descendants include Valerie Darroch, née Carter, and her family.

Howard Carter is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery in London. On his gravestone is written: "May your spirit live, May you spend millions of years, You who love Thebes, Sitting with your face to the north wind, Your eyes beholding happiness" and "O night, spread thy wings over me as the imperishable stars".

In popular culture

Film and Television

Carter has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions;

• John Cleese in the 1970 TV sketch comedy Monty Python's Flying Circus: Archaeology Today.
• Robin Ellis in the 1980 Columbia Pictures Television production The Curse of King Tut's Tomb
• Pip Torrens in the 1992 Lucasfilm TV movie Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal.
• Pip Torrens in the 1995 Lucasfilm TV movie Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye
• Timothy Davies in the 1998 IMAX documentary Mysteries of Egypt
• Stuart Graham in the 2005 BBC docudrama Egypt

In the game Atlantica Online, Howard Carter is one of the wandering NPC's that you can turn artifacts into and have them appraised..

Literature

He appears as a character throughout most of the Amelia Peabody series of books by 'Elizabeth Peters' (a pseudonym of Egyptologist Dr Barbara Mertz). He appears as a character in much of Arthur Phillips's The Egyptologist.

Music

In Search of the Pharaohs - a 30-minute cantata for narrator, junior choir and piano by composer Robert Steadman, commissioned by the City of London Freemen's School which uses extracts from Carter's diaries as its text.

Finnish metal band Nightwish mentions Carter in the song Tutankhamen on their debut album Angels Fall First: "For Carter has come / To free my beloved"

Art

A paraphrased extract from Howard Carter's diary of 26 November 1922 is used as the plaintext for Part 3 of the encrypted Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Further reading

• James, T.G.H. Howard Carter: The Path to Tutankhamun. London: Kegan Paul International, 1992 (hardcover, ISBN 0710304250); London: Tauris Parke, 2001 (paperback, ISBN 1-86064-615-8)
• Reeves, Nicholas; Taylor, John H. Howard Carter: Before Tutankhamun, London: British Museum Press, 1992 (hardcover, ISBN 0714109525); New York: H. N. Abrams, 1993 (hardcover, ISBN 0810931869)
• Vandenberg, Philipp. The Forgotten Pharaoh: The Discovery of Tutankhamun. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980 (hardcover, ISBN 0340246642)
• Winstone, H.V.F. Howard Carter and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Manchester: Barzan Publishing, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 1905521049; paperback, ISBN 1905521057)
• Peck, William H. "The Discoverer of the Tomb of Tutankhamun and the Detroit Institute of Arts", Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, Vol. XI, No. 2, March, 1981, pp. 65-67

External links

• The Search for Tutankhamun– from the Griffith Institute website, Howard Carter's records of the five seasons of excavations, financed by Lord Carnarvon, in the Valley of the Kings 1915–1922.
• Tutankhamun– The Anatomy of an Excavation
• Grave of Howard Carter
• Transcripts of Howard Carter's excavation diaries
• Swaffham, Norfolk museum - Howard Carter exhibit
• Carter's ‘wonderful discovery’