“Carter wired Caernaevon, who had agreed to pay for one more year, and he hustled over and they opened it...”
That’s the official story. However, the “sealed” door showed signs that an opening had already been made and then closed again. Carter, of course, attributed that to “ancient tomb raiders”, but there is a lot of evidence that this is just a story Carter concocted because it put them in a more favorable position regarding the find in light of Egypt’s recent laws on antiquities. If the tomb hadn’t been looted previously, then they would get nothing at all out of the discovery.
“That doesn’t mean they went all the way back into the inner shrine — it took years of careful handling and catalogueing of everything to empty the outer room.”
Well, they did go all the way in, according to letters we now have from Carnarvon and his daughter that contradict Carter’s account. We also know that Carter had even removed artifacts from the tomb before the “official” opening, and there are quite a few artifacts that could only have come from the tomb that mysteriously were never seen by the Egyptian authorities and ended up in western museums.
It shouldn’t be a problem pointing out a picture of one, somewhere on the web. I’d love to see that.
The tomb was robbed twice in antiquity.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tutrobbery.htm