Tutankhamen (11 page)

The doorway blocking – limestone masonry covered in gypsum plaster – was dismantled on 25 November, revealing a descending passageway packed to the ceiling with light-coloured rubble and limestone chips. Here, again, were the unmistakable signs of robbery: a tunnel cut through the upper left corner of the fill, directly aligned with the breach in the outer door, had itself been filled with dark rubble. Two days were spent clearing the passageway, and checking its fill. Again, this revealed a curious assortment of finds, including pottery fragments, jar seals, broken and intact alabaster vessels and the water skins abandoned by the ancient workmen who plastered the inner tomb door. Meanwhile the practical Callender was busy constructing a wooden grille to protect the now-exposed tomb.

By 26 November Carter and Carnarvon – plus Lady Evelyn, Callender and a small group of workmen – again found themselves standing in front of a blocked and plastered doorway bearing the seal of the necropolis and the seal of Tutankhamen. Again, there was unmistakable evidence of tampering and re-sealing in the upper left corner of the door. Carter – who was to class this as ‘the day of days, the most wonderful that I have ever lived, and certainly one whose like I can never hope to see again' – was about to discover just how much damage the ancient robbers had wrought. It seems only right to leave the exact moment of discovery to him:

The following day the doorway was officially opened and a power line was connected to the Valley supply. The harsh electric light confirmed what Carter's flickering candle had suggested. The Antechamber was crammed with a vast assortment of goods: dismantled chariots, three golden beds carved to resemble exotic animals, and numerous chests, boxes, vessels and packages all, presumably, filled with treasures. All of the larger objects, and many of the smaller ones, bore the name of Tutankhamen. There was, however, no sign of a sarcophagus or coffin. The southern wall was living rock, but a small, once-sealed doorway in the western wall, which had been breached by robbers and not repaired, offered the possibility of more treasures beyond. The northern wall, guarded by two imposing statues of the king himself, was even more promising: an obvious partition wall, it housed the blocked and plastered entrance to a chamber, or multiple chambers.
However, a very obvious hole, just large enough to admit a boy or a slightly built man, had been restored and resealed by the necropolis officials. It was therefore by no means certain that Tutankhamen still rested within what was now clearly his tomb.

All doubt was removed when, shortly after the official opening of the Antechamber, Carter, Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn re-opened the robber's hole and crawled into what proved to be the Burial Chamber beyond. Curiosity satisfied, they then retreated, reblocking the hole and concealing the modern plaster behind a carefully placed basket lid, which is clearly visible in contemporary photographs. Although it has been suggested that they did this on 26 November, immediately after the ‘wonderful things' moment, it seems far more likely that they waited until the evening of the 27th, when the inner doorway had been unblocked. By waiting, they would have made less mess at the doorway and would have had less trouble progressing through the artefact-packed Antechamber; their actions would therefore have been less obvious.
²

There is no official record of this nocturnal adventure but Lady Evelyn told her half-uncle, Mervyn Herbert, about it immediately prior to the official opening of the Burial Chamber. Herbert, sworn to secrecy, recorded their conversation in his journal and concluded, rather optimistically: ‘The only others who know anything about it are the workmen, none of whom would ever breathe a word to a soul about it.'
³
In fact, the unofficial inspection was a widely known ‘secret'. The chemist and conservator Alfred Lucas certainly knew all about it: he spotted the modern plasterwork as soon as he saw it:

Opening the sealed chamber privately, without inviting the Antiquities Service to attend, was both discourteous and a breach of Carnarvon's permission to excavate. It would certainly not be considered acceptable behaviour on any excavation today. However, given that Carnarvon was paying for the excavation, that he was responsible for guarding the tomb and its contents, and that he fully expected to retain a portion of its artefacts, his curiosity is perhaps understandable. Carter had a more personal reason for wanting to know exactly what lay behind the partition wall. In 1898 he had discovered the ‘Tomb of the Horse', so called because his horse had quite literally stumbled over it. Excavating in 1900, and uncovering what appeared to be a large and unviolated tomb, he planned a grand opening of the sealed ‘burial chamber', inviting, amongst other illustrious guests, the British Consul General, Lord Cromer. Unfortunately, when the chamber was opened it held just three wooden boats and some pots. Archaeologically the Tomb of the Horse is very interesting – it also yielded a wooden statue which suggests that it may have been part of the mortuary provision of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Nebhepetre Montuhotep II – but the visitors did not trouble to hide their disappointment. Carter never forgot this humiliation.

However much we may sympathise with Carter and Carnarvon's motives, the furtive inspection was bad archaeology for which there can be no real excuse. The opening of the sealed Chamber should have been fully documented, and nothing in the Antechamber should have been disturbed before it had been fully recorded. Now, not only was the position of the basket in front of the robber's hole falsified in the official photographs, some of the Chamber contents had been displaced. Lucas was confident that he could identify an artefact that had been taken from the Burial Chamber on that first clandestine visit, and then restored in a slightly different place:

There is no reason to doubt the veracity of Lucas's statement: he is writing as Carter's friend and colleague, and he is clearly not overconcerned about the incursion into the chamber. His account leaves two lingering questions. Just how accurate is the official record of the Burial Chamber contents? And, perhaps more importantly, was anything else taken from the chamber?

The official opening was followed by a series of open days for the great and the good. Already, the excavation was taking on the air of an elite jamboree, as the report in the
Illustrated London News
of 16 December shows:

The accompanying photograph shows a formal dining table improbably set out in the Valley. As enterprising locals started to hawk Tutankhamen-themed Christmas cards,
The Times
prepared to break the news to the world. The article, written with Carter's help in the Valley of the Kings and sent to Luxor by runner, was published in London on 30 November 1922:

The Times
was quite right. The packed Antechamber would have to be cleared before the Burial Chamber could be officially opened. Fortunately Carter had a proper understanding of archaeology's greatest paradox – that the excavator who clears a site necessarily destroys it – and he knew that he had to work slowly and methodically in order to preserve the original layout of the chambers in his records. Every single object would have to be recorded
in situ
– numbered, photographed, marked on the tomb plan, described and drawn – before being removed to a conservation lab for immediate treatment and further photography. Then, everything would have to be packed securely for the long journey to Cairo. Further conservation may even be required in Cairo, before the artefacts could be put on display. This was clearly not a task that any excavator, no matter how determined, could tackle alone. He would have to seek professional assistance, and supplies, and for that he would have to go to Cairo.

Security had to be Carter's top priority. A metal gate would have to be fitted to protect the tomb, as the wooden gate constructed by Callender was simply not strong enough to deter robbers. Meanwhile Carter's absence from the Valley meant that the electricity supply would have to be disconnected, the entrance to the tomb blocked with heavy timber baulks, the stairway re-buried under an estimated 1,700 tons of sand, rock and rubble, and the whole site put under guard. This time-consuming procedure would have to be followed every time the tomb was closed down, and reversed every time it was re-opened, as an essential protection not just against thieves, but against the floods that had the potential to sweep into the tomb and destroy everything.

As Carter boarded the train for Cairo, Carnarvon set sail for
England. Interviewed by
The Times
special correspondent in Marseilles on 16 December
,
he was persuaded to reveal his plans: