Posted on 11/04/2006 5:09:50 AM PST by yankeedame
The British Egyptologist Howard Carter (employed by Lord Carnarvon) discovered Tutankhamun's tomb (since designated KV62) in The Valley of The Kings on November 4, 1922 near the entrance to the tomb of Ramses VI, thereby setting off a renewed interest in all things Egyptian in the modern world.
Carter contacted his patron, and on November 26 that year both men became the first people to enter Tutankhamun's tomb in over 3000 years.
After many weeks of careful excavation, on February 16, 1923 Carter opened the inner chamber and first saw the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun.
Lord Carnarvon financed Carter's search for the tomb of a previously unknown Pharaoh, Tutankhamun, whose existence Carter had discovered. After a few months of fruitless searching, Carnarvon was becoming dissatisfied with the lack of return from his investment and, in 1922, he gave Carter one more season of funding to find the tomb.
On November 4, 1922 Carter found the steps leading to Tutankhamen'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 Lord Carnarvon to come, and on November 26, 1922, with Lord 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.
The next several weeks were spent carefully cataloguing the contents of the antechamber. On February 16, 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....
...For many years, rumors of a "curse" (probably fueled by newspapers at the time of the discovery) persisted, emphasizing the early death of some of those who had first entered the tomb. However, a recent study of journals and death records indicates no statistical difference between the age of death of those who entered the tomb and those on the expedition who did not. Indeed, most lived past 70.
Howard and Carnarvon
Howard Carter c. 1938
Coincidence?
LOL! Well, it does make one think....
My great-great Aunt Helen Bachert Aldrich and her husband, National Geographic photographer Edgar Aldrich, were both there that day. Edgar took many of the photos of the event which subsequently appeared in National Geographic.
Edgar and Helen died together in a mysterious auto crash having no apparent cause in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in 1928.
The curse of the tomb?
We'll never know.
Ping Tut.
Thanks!
BOOK FEATURE: The man who really found Tutankhamen (British Corporal Spy)
Middle East Times/World peace Times | March 31, 2005 | Desmond Zwar
Posted on 03/31/2005 4:45:59 PM EST by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1374884/posts
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ping
KV 62 (Tutankhamen), Theban Mapping Project
http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/browse_tomb_876.html
Theban Mapping Project (Valley of the Kings etc)
Theban Mapping Project | 1980s to present | Kent Weeks et al
Posted on 01/13/2005 11:03:55 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1320504/posts
How interesting to have a direct family connection to such an important and famous archeological find.
“…a recent study of journals and death records indicates no statistical difference between the age of death of those who entered the tomb and those on the expedition who did not. Indeed, most lived past 70.”
This may be true and premature deaths at that time were not uncommon as life expectancy was perhaps shorter than today and accidents happened then as they do now but there were some very strange and unusual deaths and tragedies surrounding those who first entered the tomb. I am not a superstitious person but I find it all very strange and interesting.
Do you have any links to your great aunt’s husband’s National Geographic photographs?
My greedy self asks you...
Do you happen to have a working link to the virtual tour?
:-)
Cara,
I have hard copies of the May, 1923 NG in which many of Edgar's photos appear. Have not investigated the web for any of them but your question prompts me to do so.
Will let you know if I find any.
Thanks
Howard Carter
Howard Carter was born in 1874 in Norfolk, England. Through his father, Samuel Carter, he was introduced to the world of art. His father was a painter himself and expected his son to follow his footsteps and become a painter. Howard Cater had the artistic skill but was not interested in making art his career. He had other interests, and one of them was archaeology.
In 1891, at the age of 17, Howard Carter went to Alexandria, Egypt to work for the Egyptian Exploration Fund as a tracer. Carter was a hard worker full of energy and skill. Carter became an archaeologist at a later job while working with Flinders Petrie, an excellent archaeologist at the time. Carter was appointed Principle Artist to the Egyptian Exploration Fund for the excavations of Deir el Babri, the burial place of Queen Hatshepsut. Through this job Carter improved his drawing skills and techniques of excavating and exploration.
Carter was offered the job of inspector general of Monuments for Upper Egypt at the age of 25 in 1899. In 1905 Carter resigned from the Antiquity Service because he was assigned to work in Delta town of Tanta, a place where there was very little historical findings.
In 1908 Carter returned to archaeology when he was partner with the Fifth Lord Carnarvon by Gaston Maspero. Together they made a great team and were successful. Although Carter's partnership with Maspero seemed to be going well, Carter was determined to find the tomb of King Tutankhamen.
In search of King Tutankhamen Howard Carter found less artifacts, Maspero saw this and gave Carter a deadline in 1922. After the deadline he did not want to invest into the search of King Tut's tomb.
Under this pressure Carter did not give up and continued to search with more enthusiasm. This was when Carter discovered the staircase on November 1, 1922. By November 26 the staircase was unearthed, and the entrance was open, the discovery of King Tutankhamen was now official.
Howard Carter couldn't keep the artifacts himself, instead he had to turn them to the Egyptian museum in Cairo when King Tut's corpse was studied. After the discovery of King Tut, Carter retired from archaeology. Instead he became a collector of Egyptian antiques. In 1939 Howard Carter returned to England and died of natural causes at the age of 65.
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC00112/carter.htm
I was watching a TV quiz last night and one of the questions was; Who was the 'painter' who discovered the tomb of King Tut?
You wrote that forever ago. But wanted to say hello. We are cousins. Helen’s sister Fannie was my great great grandmother. Her daughter Dorothy was my great grandmother. I have some of Helen and Edgar’s things as do most of family members.
Helen and Edgar died quite violently in a car accident. Unfortunately there are photographs of it. The driver was unharmed but aunt and uncle quite smashed and tossed from car. As far as National Geo... The pictures are in the May 1922 (1923?) Issue which is Almost always available at a library for viewing. Edgar and Helen were also founding members of the Ohio historical society.
My grandmother remembered Helen and Edgar laughing about the curse, talking about it in the kitchen before they later died in Europe. The didn’t take it very seriously.
Dear Patricia, I have many of Edgar’s photos from his and Helen’s other trips together. They were in the possession of my late aunt Barbara Bachert and I scanned them to digital If you’ll shoot me your email addy to richard.bachert@comcast.net, it would be my pleasure to send them to you if you’d like to see them. Most from Africa and China.
Thank you for your post and hope this finds you well.
Regards,
Dick
Note: this topic is from 11/04/2006. Thanks yankeedame. Nearly 95 years ago, on the 26th Nov '22, Carter and Carnavon entered the tomb, and found the inner shrine still with its wax seals intact. When the outer coffin was finally revealed, the smell of the flowers, long dead and dessicated on top of the box, was still in the air.
Some topics selected from the Howard Carter keyword, one of our fine line of FR keywords related to GGG.
Got buried in his jammies...
Oops...I forgot. We are no longer supposed to sing “King Tut” as it has been deemed cultural appropriation and racist...
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