A Day Opening King Tut's Tomb, 1922
Time Surfing: Graphic History
Time Surfing: Experience History Firsthand.
Historical Backdrop
In the early 1920s, Egypt was under British control, and the Valley of the Kings near Luxor drew archaeologists hunting for royal tombs. Most experts believed the Valley was emptied out, but one Englishman disagreed. Howard Carter, age 48, was a self-taught archaeologist and skilled artist who had spent years digging with little to show for it. His wealthy backer, Lord Carnarvon, had nearly run out of patience and money. On November 4, 1922, Carter’s young water boy stumbled on a hidden stone step. By November 26, after clearing a narrow stairway and a rubble-filled passage, Carter stood before a second sealed door — about to make history.
November 26, 1922 — 5:40 AM — “Castle Carter,” Carter’s mud-brick house at Elwat el-Diban, near the Valley of the Kings, Egypt
You wake in the gray dark to the crow of a rooster and the cold desert air seeping through the shutters. You light an oil lamp, splash water on your face from a chipped basin, and stare at your tired eyes in the cloudy mirror. Today you will break through the second door. Your hands are not quite steady as you button your waistcoat.
November 26, 1922 — 6:25 AM — Dining nook, “Castle Carter”
You sit alone at a small table eating bread, hard-boiled eggs, and bitter black coffee, but you barely taste it. Your canary chirps in its cage by the window — the bird the local men call a bringer of luck. You check your pocket watch, fold your napkin, and reach for your tweed jacket and felt hat.
November 26, 1922 — 7:10 AM — Donkey track descending toward the Valley of the Kings
You ride a small grey donkey down the dusty switchback path, the rising sun turning the limestone cliffs gold and pink. Your guards and a few workmen walk ahead, their robes snapping in the cool morning wind. The Valley opens below you, silent and vast. Your heart pounds harder than the climb deserves.
November 26, 1922 — 7:50 AM — The dig site, sunken stairway, Valley of the Kings
You dismount at the low stone wall ringing the excavation. Egyptian workmen in robes squat in the shade, waiting. Your foreman, Reis Ahmed Gerigar, greets you with a nod. Lord Carnarvon stands near the pit with his daughter, leaning on his cane. You shake hands, your voice tight: “Today we shall know.”
November 26, 1922 — 8:30 AM — Descending the sixteen steps to the first sealed door
You walk down the cool stone stairway, the temperature dropping with each step. At the bottom you face the plastered doorway again, stamped with ancient royal seals. Workmen begin prying loose the last of the blocking under your sharp orders. Plaster dust drifts in the lamp light. You run a finger over the 3,000-year-old seal impressions.
November 26, 1922 — 9:45 AM — Inside the rubble-filled descending passage
You stoop low in the cramped sloping corridor, choking on stale, dusty air as workmen pass baskets of rubble hand to hand up the line. Sweat trickles down your back beneath the tweed. The passage seems endless. Then your lamp catches something ahead — a second sealed doorway, just like the first.
November 26, 1922 — 1:15 PM — Before the second sealed door, the moment of decision
The rubble is cleared. You stand sweating before the second plastered doorway, trowel in hand. Carnarvon, Evelyn, and your engineer Callender crowd behind you in the tight space, breathing the heavy air. Everyone is silent. You press the point of your tool to the upper-left corner of the seal and begin, very carefully, to make a small hole.
November 26, 1922 — 3:30 PM — The breach widens
