Julian Barnett
Egypt, Part 3: Wonderful Things: The Discovery of Tutenkhamun’s Tomb
Julian Barnett - Egypt, Part 3: Wonderful Things, The Discovery of Tutenkhamun’s Tomb
- Thank you very much, Emily. And good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone out there, wherever you are. And thank you very much indeed for joining me on this third of four in the series about Egypt. We started off, you’ll recall, looking at pharaonic Egypt and Egypt of the Copts, the Christian minority within Egypt. Last time we moved on, on the 6th of November, to looking at Islamic Egypt, particularly concentrating on Cairo and that being the centre of the Islamic world, in my opinion, and I partly justified that in the lecture I gave then. Today it is going back to pharaonic Egypt as something very, very particular, and that is because of the anniversary in these recent days. And let me start off with two words, and they are, “Wonderful things. "I see wonderful things.” These are the words uttered by Howard Carter on the 26th of November when Carter, in the presence of Lord Carnarvon, his sponsor, finally pushed through into the inner chambers of the tomb of Tutankhamun, the only pharaonic tomb ever found undisturbed. And this week commemorates a number of anniversaries connected with that. We have to go back a little bit in time to November the 4th, ‘cause it was on November the 4th that Sidi Ali Mohammed, the very close confidant and friend of Howard Carter, the archaeologist, found the very first step unexpectedly that eventually led down to the underground tomb of Tutankhamun. And we’ll have a look at those steps a little later.
On November the 23rd, after Howard Carter had telexed Carnarvon, his sponsor back in England, that we have found the tomb of Tutankhamun, the only pharaonic tomb that was unaccounted for that had not yet so far been discovered, Carnarvon rushed at top speed from England to Egypt, and on November the 23rd they broke down the outer door to get into that tomb. Again, a little bit more on that later. On November the 26th, they broke the final bit. Candles were pushed through into that inner burial chamber that had not been seen for 3,000 years, over 3,000 years. And Carnarvon said to Carter reputedly, “What do you see? What do you see?” To which he said as he turned his candle through the room, through the little hole in the wall that he’d made, “Wonderful things. I see wonderful things. "The glint of gold everywhere.” So that’s the magical start to this story, but I suppose it’s the end of the story because now we’re going to go back and have a look at who Tutankhamun was. Who were his parents? Where did he come from? Why was his tomb so undiscovered for so long? And how had it remained so near miraculously intact for Carter and Carnarvon and others to discover it in November of 1922, a century ago this week. So Emily, over to you now with the pictures. We’re going to have a look at these pictures now, and we’re going to start off with this first one. This is Nefertiti. Nefertiti was for a long time called the mother of Tutankhamun. We now know that she was not the mother, she was the stepmother. Tutankhamun was also married to his stepsister, so she was also the the mother-in-law of Tutankhamun.
The reason I’ve started off with this very beautiful limestone stucco painted bust dated round… I should say it’s 48 centimetres tall and it weighs an incredible 21 kilos, very heavy piece, dated around about 1345 B.C., 3,000, over 3,000 years old, and found in Tell el-Amarna. More on that very shortly. The reason I’ve started with this is because it is such a thing of beauty. It was discovered in 1912 in Tell el-Amarna by an Egyptian archaeologist and made its way back to Egypt, back to Germany, a German Egyptian archaeologist, I should say, made its way back to Germany where it has been ever since. The centre, as you can well imagine, of quite a lot of friction between the Egyptian and German governments over what should be done with this absolutely stunning piece. The length of the neck, the elegance of the cheekbones, the nose, everything about Nefertiti really conveys to us what this beautiful woman was meant to have looked like. She was also a very powerful woman and she almost co-shared power with her mighty husband. I’ll come to him very soon. Next picture, please, Emily. And there is a closeup of this really beautiful thing. The condition is almost immaculate. The ears are damaged. It was found within the workshop of Thutmose, who was one of the stone and limestone and stucco chief workers in Tell el-Amarna. It’s just a very beautiful thing to see and could be seen by all if you go to Berlin to the museum there.
There is much dispute and discussion about her eyes. You can see, as you are looking at the picture, the right-hand eye has no eyeball. It seems to be, you know, almost like an empty socket. Indeed, the bare limestone is right inside that eye. There were two theories about this. One theory is that she did actually suffer from an eye disease and she had lost one eye and that this sculpture was an honest version of what she looked like. The other version is that there were in fact painted enamelled eyes within, but they have been damaged over time. Nevertheless, it is one of, you know, the most iconic, to use a much overused word and I’m going to use that later as well, but it really is an iconic image and admired image from ancient Egypt. And considering its age and considering the importance of who this is, this was a mightily dramatic find in 1912. To the next picture, please. And there is Akhenaten. Akhenaten is very, very interesting. What was he, and who was he? He was the father of Tutankhamun. Some people consider him a heretic, a lunatic, insane. Others considered him brilliant and innovative, an original heroic figure. And I’ll get straight to the centre of what this man was all about. We do not know why, we do not know what provoked him into doing this, but midway through his 17-year reign he decided that he was going to abolish the entire panoply of polytheistic symbols and gods and rituals and practises in pharaonic Egypt. Now when you bear in mind that he came to the throne in 1353 B.C. in ancient Egypt, you know, he is New Kingdom, Old Kingdom is 2600 B.C. onwards. So already there had been 1,000 years of Egyptian polytheism and Egyptian pagan, what we would now call pagan worship.
At a stroke, literally overnight, he announced that these gods were going to go and there was only going to be one god and that was going to be Aten, the sun god. He has therefore been called by many the very first monotheist. Although Judaism is the oldest of the monotheistic faiths, there was definitely some form of very brief experimentation with monotheism in the reign of Akhenaten. Some people consider him monolatry. In other words, maybe he was not a pure monotheist as we understand it, but instead he chose one god around which all the other gods would revolve and that the whole of worship in Egyptian society would evolve around that one main god upon which all powers were concentrated. So there is a debate between theologians and between historians whether he was as pure as a monotheist as has often been said. But of one thing there is no doubt, that Akhenaten brought in a radical change, it’s difficult to overstate it, a radical change into Egyptian society. Not only did he bring about this worship of one main God, but he also moved the entire Egyptian court, the entire pharaonic capital, out of its old centres up where we now know as Fustat and other places, and he moved it to a place called Tell el-Amarna right back in the middle of the Egyptian desert.
It is still as isolated now as it was then. And if we now go to the next picture you can have an idea of what Tell el-Amarna looks like. It’s not what we’re used to from the point of view of Egyptian ruins. The building on the right is actually a 19th century reconstruction. Tell el-Amarna is a vast site pretty much in the middle of nowhere. One has to take a boat and a train and a bus and a taxi to get to this spot. It’s a huge site. There are always archaeological digs going on. But in effect, Tell el-Amarna was the new Egyptian capital just for those 10 years of Akhenaten’s 17-year reign because by 1336 he had died and the old polytheistic form of worship was restored. There were many that say that he was assassinated because, of course, what he did was destroy so many vested interests. So upon his death, the good old polytheistic pagan multi-god system with its thousands of priests and all the vested interests that that brings in with it was restored. To the next picture, another picture of Tell el-Amarna, and you can begin to get the idea of the size of the site, top of the hill looking down. You can just see the trees in the far distance, which are the edge of the belt of trees, the Nile all the way down from the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt all the way down to Luxor and Aswan in Upper Egypt. Remember, Upper is south and Lower is north. So there’s very little to see in Tell el-Amarna, although we have a very good idea of where the buildings were and what the layout of the place was. To the next picture, please.
Even after the destruction of Tell el-Amarna, it was made sure that any trace of Akhenaten was wiped out, which is why it’s extremely rare to come across the images of Akhenaten that I’ve showed you. It’s one of only three images known. You see images of pharaohs all over the place, hundreds of images of Ramses and Amenhotep and Seti and all the other, many, many dozens of pharaohs. There was hardly anything left from Akhenaten, the reason being obvious. Those in polity wanted to, in a sense, wipe clean the slate of what they considered to be this dangerous and heretical experiment that he had tried to carry out by inventing an entirely new Egyptian culture and Egyptian religion. So even when you get to the best, in inverted commas, “preserved remains” in Tell el-Amarna, Akhenaten’s capital, they’re no better than what you’re looking at there. Very faint things from that time. And to the next picture. So now we’re looking at a map of Egypt, which we have come hopefully quite used to over the last two or three weeks. And you can see there Cairo in the north, the current day capital, Aswan right down in the south, the south being Upper Egypt, the Nile following all the way through. Immediately you can see it’s no surprise, practically every single major town in Egypt, in ancient Egypt and indeed in current Egypt, hugs the Nile because the Nile is the life blood of the country.
Those other places such as Siwa Oasis right near the Libyan border and other settlements are there because they are natural oases. But the Nile is what always has and still does dominate where people live in Egypt. Now I’m going to take you down very shortly to Luxor. So if you see Cairo, which is the red dot at the top, or the red square, just follow that Nile down and it goes through Al Minya and Asyut, and all the way down there you can see Luxor in that second bend of the river because Luxor is where the whole centre of ancient Egypt had moved to by the time we get to the time of Tutankhamun. And to the next slide, please. Now closeup looking at Luxor itself. It’s on a straight bend of the Nile. There you can see it. And on the one side of Luxor, one side is the town of Luxor itself, Luxor Temple, as you can see, Luxor Museum, the Temples of Karnak, which are some of the largest religious sites ever constructed. And then on the West Bank you can see the Valley of the Queens, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Nobles, the places we’re going to visit today, and indeed where Tutankhamun was found. And to the next picture. Here is an aerial view of part of that massive site of Karnak.
It’s difficult to convey how huge Karnak is. The large rectangular pool was the pool of ritual cleanliness for the thousands and thousands of priests that worked at these temples to constantly clean themselves. Priests in ancient Egyptian times had to be totally clean shaven, no bodily hair anywhere on the body. So they fastidiously and obsessively were constantly shaving their entire bodies and then bathing in this enormous manmade almost like a reservoir lake in order to then purify themselves afterwards. What you’re looking at on the right-hand side is one of the many temples at Karnak, and to the far left is the actual town of Luxor itself. Just want to say one thing here. Luxor is remarkable. I mean, I’m going to be giving in the new year four lectures on ancient Rome, dates yet to be announced. And ancient Rome is remarkable enough. Many of us have been to Rome and it is absolutely the most awe-inspiring place to visit. But Egypt, ancient Egypt, which predates ancient Rome by 2,000 years, is on a different scale altogether. Within Luxor Temple, which is 4,000 years old, the Romans, when they took over Egypt in 30 A.D., or 30 B.C., I should say, they built their own temple within the ancient Egyptian temple. In any other place on earth that Roman temple would’ve looked spectacular. In Rome it would look spectacular. In Britain, in France, in Libya, in Albania, any other places where the Romans settled and conquered. But in Egypt it looks positively paltry, such is the scale of these buildings that the ancient Egyptians constructed. That gives you a sense.
Now you can see the very top end of the picture is a thin band, which is, of course, the river Nile. And then you can just see far right the beginning of the valleys, the Valleys of the Kings, the Queens, and the Nobles. To the next picture, please. So now we have a map of the Valley of the Kings. Valley of the Kings is a remarkable thing. 63 pharaohs buried there. In the Valley of the Queens, 91 wives of the pharaohs. And the Valley of the Kings was in use somewhere around about 1550 B.C. to 1069 B.C. So we see a long period of construction. Again, it’s important to bear in mind these lengths of time. We are closer to the life of Jesus in the year 2022 than Jesus was to Old Kingdom pharaonic Egypt. So the length of the Egyptian civilization is so immense it’s difficult sometimes to get your head around how long these things were going. So in that time tomb construction was changing, the religion was changing, the deities and the beliefs were changing. We’re looking at quite a dynamic ancient civilization that runs for 3,000 years, or 2,800 years to be precise, before the ancient Greeks even get there in the fourth century B.C. and take over ancient Egypt, the Ptolemaic period. And then, of course, after that the Romans follow, and they’re there in effect 'til the Byzantine period in the sixth century.
So that length of ancient Egypt is absolutely immense, and that’s a very important thing to get one’s head around if one is to understand how that society changed. Now on the left-hand side of the picture you can see the pharaohs that have been buried in the Valley of the Kings. Up until November 1922, 100 years ago this week, every single pharaoh’s tomb had been found and every single pharaoh’s tomb, by the way, had been found cleaned out and robbed. They had been robbed centuries, if not millennia before. The only tomb that was waiting for discovery that Carter and Carnarvon, his sponsor, knew had to be discovered was Tutankhamun because there was a gap. There was a gap in all the periods of pharaonic periods of rule. We knew that there was one pharaoh missing, we knew that it was Tutankhamun, but his tomb was yet to be discovered. That was why the discovery was just waiting to happen, but had not yet happened yet. Let’s move on to the next one, please. And here you can see a wonderful aerial view of one spur of the Valley of the Kings. You can see little rectangular holes there. They are the entrances of the tombs. The tomb construction’s changed over the years, over the many centuries that it was in use, but in effect a pharaonic tomb was more or less as follows: deep tunnel, long steps dug into the hill, then a series of rooms, burial chambers, mummification chambers, chambers that contains all the earthly goods of the pharaoh in order to be ready to take him to the next world, and so on.
Mummification process took a long time, up to a year and a half. The body had to be dried out. All the innards had to be taken out because the Egyptians understood that if you left the innards in the body would rot and therefore the body wouldn’t be perfect. And if it wasn’t perfect, it wouldn’t be able to go to the afterlife. So this was a long, painstaking process. The tomb might start to be built during the pharaoh’s reign, but for the pharaoh then after death to be moved to the tomb and the tomb to be completed and all the pharaoh’s worldly goods was to be moved there, this was a process that could take a year to a year and a half after his death. The interesting thing about Tutankhamun’s tomb, which is one of the reasons why it was never discovered, is that his death and burial were rapid. We’re talking about weeks. And therefore it was a horrid job, and therefore it was a modest tomb, and therefore it was much more hard to find. So in a way, his young death, age 18 after only nine years on the throne, was what saved him from being robbed. I want to say one more thing about Tutankhamun and the circumstances of his death and his burial. After the shock that Akhenaten brought to the pharaonic system and to the system of governance and system of religion in ancient Egypt, it goes without saying that the newly restored priesthood and rulers of Egypt wanted to make sure that they had a pharaoh on the throne that they could control. No more of this nonsense that Akhenaten tried to bring about to reform the system.
So they chose in effect a puppet’s pharaoh, one of the many sons of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun. He was young. He was born, well, he came to the throne age nine. We believe he died age 18. Maybe age 10 he came to the throne. The key thing here is that he was a puppet pharaoh controlled by those that wanted to make sure that they were going to bed down this restored pharaonic system and this restored religious system once and for all. To the next picture, please. So you’re now looking at the Valley of the Kings from the other side, from the Luxor side of the Nile. But you can get a really now good idea of where that valley sits. It sits on the other side of the Nile and it sits amid these hills. And once these tombs were constructed, they were then covered up and hidden. But as I’ve mentioned before, most of them were found in Antiquity and were robbed in that time. To the next picture. In comes Howard Carter. Let’s talk about Howard Carter. That is the man that discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. Carter was an interesting one. He was an outsider in many ways. He was a man that was not Oxford educated. He was self-trained. He was very talented.
Here we have him looking like an English gent, but he came from a very different class altogether. He grew up, how could I put it, in Gentile poverty. Father was an artist, mother was a seamstress. They weren’t poverty stricken from the point of view of living on the streets and starving, but they were poor. They had a tiny house, and he was a sickly child. He was moved out of London because he came close to death on a number of occasions and moved him with an aunt in Norfolk. The aunt was a good aunt and a kindly aunt, and she clothed him and she fed him, but he was left to his own devices and he was absolutely fascinated by the natural world, tremendously skilled draughtsman and a tremendously skilled painter of natural scenes. He’s self-taught everything that came to be known as his great skills, and he developed this fascination with ancient Egypt. He secured a position to go out on a boat to Egypt and made his name by being the official drawer of all the many hundreds and hundreds of tombs that were being discovered even further down from Luxor in Aswan and beyond. And indeed he went down to Sudan and made his name creating the most beautiful, beautiful sketches of birds and of valleys and of natural phenomenon in ancient Egypt. So every time a tomb was uncovered he would be called, and he gained a reputation for being an amazingly accurate drawer and sketcher. And one of the things that has been almost forgotten about Howard Carter are the tens of thousands of sketches and paintings that he did of the walls of tombs, not of pharaohs, not of kings and queens, but of nobles and of accountants and of the second-ranking people within Egyptian society and ancient Egypt.
And he fastidiously produced thousands of sketches that most of which survived to this day. That is how he made his name and that is how he built up a huge web of contacts within Egypt that then enabled him to move on to other things because he was ambitious. And what Howard Carter really wanted to get involved with was digs in the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. But that was a closed shop at that time. It tended to be really well-connected French, English, German archaeologists from much better stock than Carter who had contacts, who had wealth, and who had the ability just to turn up, palm the right hands with the Egyptian authorities so they could start digging. But Carter had to work for this. He had natural talent, so that certainly gave him the name, but what Carter needed was a sponsor because he didn’t have his own money. He had his ideas. He had latched onto the idea that there was one tomb still to be discovered, Tutankhamun. To cut a long story short, he found his sponsor in Lord Carnarvon. Totally different to Howard Carter, more sophisticated than Carter, more polished than Carter. He came from the finest of British aristocratic stock. George Herbert Edwards was his name, the family name, and he was the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, truly your English aristocrat from the ruling class.
Well, Carter and Carnarvon got together, and indeed it was a really interesting friendship because it wasn’t just a professional relationship, it became a friendship. So therefore, moving on, we will see a picture of another one of Carter and some of Carnarvon to give you the idea of these two men. This was where Carter lived. It was nicknamed Castle Carter. It was a house that was built right near the Valley of the Kings because, again, unlike so many of his contemporaries who were digging around the Valley of the Kings, Carter got to know the local people because he understood that if he wanted to hear the local gossip, the local information about where people maybe thought this lost tomb, this only undiscovered tomb of Tutankhamun was to be found, then he get had to get to know the local people. It was a very unorthodox way of doing business then because then if you were a European archaeologist, a researcher, you only saw your own type and you drank and met in hotels with your own type. Carter didn’t stay in the posh hotels. He stayed here out near the Valley of the Kings in this what then was considered ludicrously rough and ready accommodation, and he got to know the locals. And the locals would bring him things from tombs all over the Valley of the Kings that were being found. And therefore, when Carter was ready to start digging for Tutankhamun, he had this huge web of contacts that he could draw about, and that was the part of the reason why he was so successful. Let’s move on.
And you can see in the next picture Carnarvon himself. Lord Carnarvon, every bit your betweeded English aristocrat out in Egypt, three-piece tweed suit, hat, books. Carnarvon’s a very interesting man, and the chemistry between Carnarvon and Carter was fascinating because they became great friends. It wasn’t just a personal, it wasn’t just a professional relationship, it became a personal relationship. And if we move on, you can see something else. And here you can see Highclere Castle, which was the country seat of the Carnarvon family. Still is to this day. It’s just outside Newbury. It’s in Berkshire near the border with Hampshire. And many of you might notice and might have already noted that that has been the inspiration, as in is the filming spot for, yes, “Downton Abbey.” That’s what’s used for “Downton Abbey,” your classic English Victorian Edwardian Georgian country house. To the next picture, please. There we see the two men together, Carter on the right, Carnarvon with his daughter on the left. And to the next one. And the Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor. Take a good look at that picture. This is where Carnarvon was staying. This is where any English gentleman stayed and almost all the archaeologists stayed, except for Carter who stayed right near the Valley of the Kings for two and a half years. Note that picture. Now look at the next picture, please, because the Winter Palace has really hardly changed at all. There’s the Winter Palace from the Nile. Still a lovely hotel, still sitting on the banks of the Nile. An idyllic place. To the next picture, please. Now we come to the steps of Tutankhamun. So that is the entrance to the tomb. Of course it was completely covered up for 3,000 years. To the next picture.
You can begin to see what’s happened on that day, early November, November the 4th, 1922. They were digging around looking for other things and they found a step at the top, one step. These steps, as you can see, are rock-hewn steps. They are just literally carved out of the bedrock. We know that by 11:30 that morning when digging would normally stop because it was so hot, digging would start at about four in the morning and end at about midday, by midday they had uncovered almost all the flight of steps. Carter knew he had found the long lost tomb of Tutankhamun. I mean, just remarkable. Let’s move on to the next picture. And you can see a view of that, the only pharaonic tomb ever found unbroken. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the thrill of finding the door at the bottom of the steps and that door had not been broken? In fact it had been broken, but it had been resealed, and the grave robbers had in fact got into Tutankhamun’s tomb, but because the tomb, as I’ve mentioned before, was so rushed and were so hurriedly packed with things, they hadn’t realised that there were other rooms hidden beyond the room that they found. They broke into the tomb we think round about 1000 B.C. They didn’t find much of value. What they were looking for was gold and gemstones. They found none of that. They therefore resealed it and left it. What they hadn’t realised was they had just missed all the golds, which was in two rooms later on, which they had overlooked. To the next picture.
The moment Carter had found the seal, he sent a telex back to England, “Come, come. We have found the tomb.” Now you have to bear in mind the high drama of this situation, that this was the last month that Carnarvon was willing to fund Carter. He’d been funding Carter for three and a half years, digging, digging, digging. Carter had made a lot of money for Carnarvon because he’d found lots of other things, but what the money was being plunged into was hundreds of people trying to find Tutankhamun’s tomb. This was now the last season. Remember that digging seasons were very short. We are talking about a three-month, about a 12-week gap for the digging season, somewhere from October to January, and then the season would end. So it was a very short period each year where they could dig, and this was going to be the last year. And how about it, on that last year they found it. Now this is a map of what that looked like. You can see the stairs that leads into a passage, the passage to an antechamber and a annex, and then, of course, into the burial chamber and the treasury. What happened was Carter went down to the passage, he went into the antechamber, he then broke into that and found huge amounts of things piled up, but then, of course, waited until his sponsor came out, Lord Carnarvon came out. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Carnarvon told him, “Don’t go any further. "I want to be there when the tomb is opened.” If we go to the next picture, you can see again an idea of the layout. So there we have, if you look at the annex on the left, the annex is on the left, the antechamber ram-packed full of things. And then look at the chamber of the coffins. Like Russian dolls. I’ll go into this in detail shortly. One doll, one sarcophagus within another within another. The sarcophagus of Tutankhamun literally filled that chamber. This was not like the tombs of Seti or Ramses or Thutmose or Amenhotep or many of the other dozens of tombs in the Valley of the Kings which were vast, absolutely vast with dozens of rooms with massive chambers, almost cathedral-like in their chambers.
Here, as you can see, a much more rushed collection rammed in like no one’s business at high speeds before the tombs would be sealed. This was a rushed burial. The reason for that is that we know that the priests were keen to remove that whole family from the memory of ancient Egypt and move on with a different dynasty. Let’s go to the next picture. And there you get an idea of how packed it was. There is a huge structure, number 35 there, which is the bed of Tutankhamun. Look at number 32 at the bottom, a little chest, which some people rather excitedly have compared to the lost Ark of the Covenant. Chairs and tables and all types of wooden things just piled one up against another. Remember the age of this. We’re talking about, you know, we’re talking about 3,300 years old. It’s absolutely incredible just piled in there. All of these would’ve been things that Tutankhamun would’ve used. These weren’t just things from ancient Egypt. These were the personal belongings of this boy king. Let’s go to the next picture. You can now see chariot wheels, beds, boxes just crammed in there. The actual chariot of Tutankhamun is there, and you’ll see that reconstructed very shortly. And again, look at the small size of the room. This is an entire pharaoh’s life crammed into a few small rooms. To the next picture. And again you see more things crammed in.
And just in that far wall you can see the plaster colour has changed. There was a square there with two pharaonic figures of Tutankhamun made out of wood painted with gold leaf guarding this wall. Now in the candlelight that the grave robbers would’ve used, they didn’t see that. They didn’t see that that wall had been hurriedly plastered because on the other side of the wall is what they missed. Let’s move to the next picture. Now we see the other side of the wall, which they wouldn’t have seen. There you can see Anubis, the god of mummification, the jackal god, tall ears. Look at the structure behind him, which we’ll look at shortly. There he is sitting on top of a chest with staves. Now Anubis is wearing, as you can see there, a sort of shroud. Let’s go to the next picture for a closeup of that because although Anubis has been found in many tombs and there are many Anubises which we have, this is the only example of the shroud of Anubis that has survived. But I’m sad to say it didn’t survive because when they brought out the remains of many things from Tutankhamun’s tombs, they were as careful as they could be, but they still couldn’t appreciate how delicate the things were. And literally when they brought out Anubis, this incredible jackal creature with a shroud over him, when they brought Anubis out of the tomb, the shroud literally disintegrated. The only shroud of Anubis ever found gone forever. Look behind Anubis and you can see just the top of a very elegant figure with her arms outstretched covering a golden box, protecting it. More on that very, very shortly. Next picture.
There is a closeup of Anubis. Look at the stuff piled behind Anubis just hurriedly put in there 3,300 years ago. And Anubis himself, this haunting jackal-like creature. All the numbers you can see are the numbers that the photographer, who is quite a hero of his time, a man by the name of Donald Henry, the photographer was taking amazing pictures, these beautiful black and white pictures, hundreds and hundreds of pictures. You also have to bear in mind that we are talking about 5,317 objects that were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb during that period of recovery. And the period of recovery took three years. Although the tomb was finally opened on the 26th of November when Carnarvon and Carter were together, they only had a few weeks to start taking things out. Then the tomb was sealed again to the next year. It was a very brief window of time when they could take things out. They were also finding so many amazing things, 5,000 objects, they couldn’t restore everything quickly, so they had to open the tomb, take things out, spend a year restoring things if need be, close the tomb, wait for another year. The whole process took some years to complete to the end. The image people had was they were just bringing everything out day after day, hour after hour. It wasn’t like that. It was a meticulous, slow, patient process, as is all archaeology. Let’s go to the next picture because now we’ll see a closeup of Anubis himself in the Egyptian Museum.
Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. The best preserved Anubis ever found. Everything in Tutankhamun’s tomb was the best preserved ever found in ancient Egypt simply because it hadn’t been uncovered. Let’s go to the next one. And you can see there this absolutely gorgeous thing. This is one of the key discoveries in the tomb of Tutankhamun. It’s the four goddesses of Isis, Nephtys, Serket, and Neith, arms outstretched, covered in gold leaf around a golden box. It’s a shrine, and within that shrine were the canopic jars. I said to you that every pharaoh had his innards taken out, otherwise he would’ve rotted, and then the pharaoh was stuffed with all types of things to preserve the body. Let’s now look at what is in that huge container. Those goddesses, there you can see a closeup, are almost life size. They’re 2/3 life size. Look at the beauty of her. That is Serket, one of those four goddesses. Move to the next picture, please. And you can see what was in that because within that were the remains of the pharaoh. So now you see an alabaster chest beautifully painted, beautifully sculpted. Go to the next picture and you can see a closeup of those gorgeous faces. These are now in the Egyptian Museum. Now what those heads are, are lids. The lid lifts off and within are the remains of Tutankhamun. His heart, his liver, his kidneys, all of his innards were preserved and put into these canopic jars. To the next picture. There’s a closeup of one of those heads. Absolutely beautiful. To the next one, please.
And now what we’re looking at is foetuses that were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, recently X-rayed. These were in effect Tutankhamun in miniature, the foetuses from his wife that we think had died. The wife had died and subsequently been buried there, and then the foetuses were buried with her. If you go to the next picture, you can see that the foetuses were themselves encased in tiny little Tutankhamun-looking outer golden chest. These are exquisite. So that golden chest is simply the size of a foetus. Look at the detail of it. And there is the foetus itself. Mummified itself just as their father was. To the next picture. Now we come to the actual sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. It’s Russian dolls. Firstly this magnificently carved basalt, massive basalt chest. And within that you have a series of coffins, as I say, almost like Russian dolls. Let’s have a look at what I mean in the next picture. So it’s one within one. There within that basalt case would’ve been this massive golden, solid gold chest. To the next picture. And you can see one is within the other within the other. And if we go to the next picture, you’ll see what I mean again. Each chest, now in the Egyptian Museum, one within the other within the other. That huge basalt sarcophagus at the very end, the far side, then the gold one, then the gold and lapis lazuli one, then a gold one again. One within the other within the other, each exquisite in their own way. And to the next picture.
And that is Carter with Sidi Mohamed again, he was with him on all the digs, starting to untangle the mummified remains of Tutankhamun. Let’s move on, please. The mask of Tutankhamun himself, one of the most iconic images on the planet. It is stunning. You can stand right in front of it. It’s in the Egyptian Museum. It beggars belief the beauty of the piece, the craftsmanship of the piece, the condition of the piece. The only pharaonic mask ever found. Now as I keep saying, Tutankhamun was a young king on the throne, died age 18, on the throne for nine years. If you’re now looking at the quality of the workmanship for this very young and quite unimportant king, we can only begin to imagine the richness and the wealth and the size of the contents of all the other pharaonic tombs long gone. To the next picture. You can see the rear of his mask, the delicacy of that, lapis lazuli and gold and gemstones encrusted. And to the next one, please. And a closeup. Just look at that. It’s the poignancy, it’s the beauty, it’s the dignity. It’s the absolute breathtaking workmanship. To my mind, I have never seen anything manmade as beautiful as these items from Tutankhamun’s tomb, of which, of course, I’ve just given you a tiny taste. But they’re all on the Egyptian Museum website and you can just spend hours and days and weeks looking through these absolutely breathtaking things.
They’re heart-stoppingly beautiful. You look at them time and again in Egypt and you just simply cannot believe that you’re looking, number one, it’s the age of them, number two, it’s the quality, and, of course, they’re miraculous survival, but it’s the fact that the quality of this workmanship and the sense of beauty, and we’re talking about something that is 1,800 years before ancient Rome. It’s just remarkable. Let’s move on, please. This is now the mummified remains of Tutankhamun. And if we go to the next picture, you can see his head. When again you consider his age, the teeth are preserved, he’s not the best preserved of mummies. There are mummies that are far, far better preserved with their hair and so on. But again, that’s possibly the result of the fact that this was quite a quick burial because of the nature of the political situation at the time. And the next picture shows what we believe he would’ve looked like from the bone construction and from the eyes and from everything we have on him. This is a modern day construction of what we think Tutankhamun would’ve looked like taking into account all those things that we have from his mummified remains. Let’s move on, please. His throne that he would’ve sat on and ruled from. And the next picture. And a closeup of the throne with Tutankhamun with his wife. And the next picture. His bed. And the next one, please.
A closeup of one of the faces on that bed. Look at the beauty of one of those bed posts. And the next picture. His slippers that Tutankhamun would have worn. And the next one, please. His chariot reconstructed. You saw all the wheels shoved into one corner in one of those early black and white pictures. This is now the chariot reconstructed, put together, but all original, what Tutankhamun would’ve ridden it. And to the next picture. One of his necklaces with an extremely rare gemstone from a meteorite in the middle. Very, very rare. And the next one. Again, the workmanship glorious. Next picture, please. And a wonderful picture in one of the tunnels of Howard Carter, there he is on the right looking straight into the camera with a moustache, and Carnarvon on the left. There they are dining in full suits with wines and white linen napery, wooden chairs to credible find that they had pulled off. To the next picture. Carnarvon died out in Egypt. He had a mosquito bite in his hotel, and the result of that was that it got infected and he later died. But this is his ancestor. This is the modern day Lord Carnarvon standing in Highclere. And to the next picture. You will actually see the grave of Howard Carter. Now Howard Carter is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery. Oh, there it is, there we go. So there is his grave, Putney Vale Cemetery, which is in southwest London, not far from Wimbledon, where also Kerensky is buried in England, quite the hero about what he had discovered.
But what is so remarkable about all of this story is that that enduring relationship between Carter and Carnarvon carried on through the years, well, the Carnarvon family, I should say, carried on through the years. Carter continued digging around Egypt. He continued to carry out things, and he then gave many, many lectures about his finds within Egypt. And that, if you go around London today and the following pictures when we catch up with him when the internet strengthens a bit, because there are many buildings around London that are of pharaonic style. Ah, there’s the closeup. There we are. Egyptologist, there we are. For example this in Islington in London. So obelisks and sphinxes. And if we move on again, please, to the next picture. Ah, the internet has come back. This wonderful thing up in Yorkshire actually, but again influenced, clearly influenced, of sort of Babylonian pharaonic design with a Georgian house next to it. And to the next picture, please. The wonderful, if memory serves me correctly, ah, the entrance to the Abney Green Cemetery near N16 Stamford Hill in London. All of these things were built as the craze for Egyptology was sweeping across Europe. Onto the next picture, which I think is the Carreras Cigarette Factory in Camden Town, the most magnificent building. And again, built just within a couple of years of 1922 because of this huge interest that swept across Europe and indeed America after the discovery of Tutankhamun.
There was always, if we can move on to the next picture, but it could again be the internet. We’ll give it a go. Ah, there we go, Cleopatra’s Needle. Now Cleopatra’s Needle was brought to London in the 1790s, but these bronze smiling sphinxes were put there shortly after 1922 after the discovery of Tutankhamun. To the next picture, please. And there it is. Oh sorry, no, this is a cinema on the Essex Roads. But look at it, it’s the Mecca Cinema and Bingo House, but just look at the design, pharaonic. Built 1924 when everybody, everybody, was into Tutankhamun and ancient Egypt. To the next picture, which I think will be, there it is, the Carreras Factory. Wonderful thing just in front of Mornington Crescent, Camden Town. And if we go to a closer up picture on the next picture, you can see a closeup of the cats in front of the Carreras Cigarette Factory. So this was sweeping London and sweeping Europe and sweeping America this fascination with ancient Egypt. And the discovery of Tutankhamun was so much a result of that. If we can just move on, I believe to the last couple of pictures. There it is that iconic picture again of Tutankhamun. He’s there for you all to see if you get to Egypt.
I remember just going to see the exhibition in 1972 when he came to London on his world tour. I don’t think there will ever be a world tour of the mask and the key exhibits from Tutankhamun again, although from time to time objects do come. But if ever you are able to get to Egypt to see these things, go there. I’m going to take questions now coming up to seven minutes to six. And of course the next lecture is on the 12th of January, which will wind up this series of Egypt looking at Coptic Egypt, again a little bit summarising what we did in Islamic Egypt, and then asking those big questions: where is Egypt heading in the following 100 years after I’ve just introduced the country to you in the last four lectures? I’m going to go now to Q and A. I can see there’s quite a few there.
Q&A and Comments:
“Wonderful.” Thank you, Dennis.
“As a supplement, American viewers might like to know "that most PBS stations are showing a two-part show "on King Tut this coming Wednesday.” There you go, Wednesday the 23rd. Doesn’t surprise me, the 26th being the anniversary.
I’m not sure, Francois, what your question means, “Is it the Philip Glass opera?” I’m not sure what you are referring to. Ah, to there, Akhenaten, again, I’m not sure what that question is asking. If you can just clarify that, Francois, and I’ll try to answer it.
Yes, we do know how the Egyptians mummified their dead, Arlene, and I think actually my lecture, yes, I would’ve now covered that. You asked that at 5:22 and I was talking about that before. In effect, removing all the innards normally through the nostrils through long hooks, removing the innards, removing the brain through the nostrils, then cracking open the body, taking out the innards, drying out the body, then in effect stuffing the body, and all the innards will be put in those canopic vases.
Q: “Were the ancients Egyptians Black?”
A: Excellent question. There was a lot of Nubian blood in ancient Egypt, but they were of their own gene pool, so we think that they were very, very dark, darker than Mediterranean, but not Black. They’re from a different ethnicity. But even to this day, if you travel down to Aswan, it feels like Africa. If you’re in Cairo, it feels like the Middle East. So the ancient Egyptians were a mixture of Nubian, which was heavily Black genes within them, but also other groups as well.
Q: “What’s the reason for Tut’s speedy burial? "Because the priests and government wanted to eliminate "the line as soon as possible?”
A: In effect, yes, he had been a puppet king. They wanted to in effect now set up their own new dynasty to bring back the old power structures. But his death was also sudden, so that was part of it as well. Most pharaohs, a lot of pharaohs lived to quite an old age, so the death could be anticipated and the tomb could be planned. Tutankhamun’s death was sudden. There are, of course, various theories. Was he assassinated? Was he murdered? But he was also injured. There was a broken femur and there were other broken bones, so we think that he might’ve died from an infection to a breakage.
Q: “When did the pharaohs start being buried "in the Valley of the Kings as opposed to the pyramids?”
A: I mentioned that the Valley of the Kings we’re looking at something like 1800 B.C. onwards through to 1300 B.C. So that’s the sort of period there. Thank you, Francois.
“There’s an interesting immersive show "in New York City about King Tut "and the experience of the mummification process. "Great stuff.” Yes, there’s loads of stuff out there. And thanks for those two links, Rita.
Q: “How do such well-exposed photos exist? "Were these recreations?”
A: No, when the tomb was discovered in 1922, Carter and Carnarvon knew the immensity of this discovery was so great, the high drama discovery was so great that they had photographers there. They brought in really fine photographers that took black and white pictures, and then they then added colour to those black and white pictures later on down the line. So they employed the best of the best to get a record of this absolutely extraordinary discovery.
Francois, in some pharaohs, the heart was left in the body, but not in all. But the heart was still taken out and dried and then put back in. Some bodies therefore had the dried heart put in, other bodies, the heart was kept out.
Q: “On the cubic sarcophagus, are that many hieroglyphics? "What story do they tell?”
A: They would tell the main events of the reign of Tutankhamun. They would talk about his family. They would talk about his achievements. They would also contain prayers and wishes for the afterlife to come for Tutankhamun.
Wonderful that you’ve got, Margaret, the catalogue from the 1972 British Museum. That’s fantastic. The cylindrical long beard goes back to ancient times, well, obviously, but it goes back to that whole thing to do with the marriage of Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt, and the beard was a symbol of majesty and was linked also to those symbols on top of the pharaonic mask as well. The two snakes of Tut’s headdress is again that linking of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Upper and the Lower kingdoms, which had occurred way before Tutankhamun. So it was a symbol of the fact that every pharaoh since the unification of Egypt, of Upper and Lower Egypt, was the pharaoh of Upper and Lower, thus the double snakes. “
We lost some of your comments on the Carter grave. "It was an extra…” Thank you. That’s when the internet went slightly weaker. The Carter grave is in Putney Vale Cemetery in the same cemetery as the tomb of Kerensky. No connection to Tutankhamun. Kerensky being the provisional government in Soviet Russia.
Rod, “The robbers robbed, "but wasn’t Carter in effect desecrating "Tutankhamun’s grave?”
A: Excellent question. Well, there go the debates, and there have also been lots of rumours of whether Carter actually took some objects for himself. There were rumours they’re in Highclere castle. There were some objects from Tutankhamun’s grave that were taken without the permission of the Egyptian government at that time. And, of course, there lies all these debates over what archaeologists should be doing. Should they be digging? And if they are digging, what do they do with the remains? Tutankhamun’s remains, I believe, they have been returned to his grave. So the grave is completely cleared out, everything is in Cairo, with the exception of his actual bodily remains, which I believe are back in his tomb.
Yes, most of the gold came from Nubia in current day upper Upper Egypt and even further down in Sudan and Ethiopia. That is where the gold came from.
Q: “What were generally the arrangements with ownership "of the finds?”
A: The ownership of the property of the Egyptian government, and that’s why the Egyptian government was very, very keen to have very short digging periods, digging seasons, so they could keep a close eye on everything that went on with when things were taken out.
And Nanette, I think I’ve now answered your question where the gold came from. Digging season was limited October to January 'cause of the heat. We are talking about Upper Egypt, so that was part of it. It was the heat. It starts to get hot once we get to March. But the Egyptian authorities were extremely keen to keep a close eye on everything and therefore keep a short digging period. Everything would be accounted for. Things would be repaired and restored at a very, very gradual pace, and therefore that will be the case.
And thank you, Helen and Nicky, for your birthday wishes. Thank you, Patricia, for your comments. And just going down there.
Yes, indeed, prominent upper teeth as observed by Jan there. My pleasure, Erica.
And agreed with you, Naomi, the Cairo Museum 10 years ago, absolutely incredible. The wonderful things, Carter’s words himself. We don’t how King Tutankhamun died. We believe it was natural causes possibly brought on from an infection from a number of the breakages that we do see within his bones. And my pleasure to you, Rita. And thank you again, Helen and Nicky.
Q: “The basalt tomb constructed within the burial chamber, "it was built and engraved outside?”
A: No, it would’ve been built outside and brought in, but possibly completed within the chamber. And we don’t know for sure whether that’s the case.
“How fascinating the Akhenaten opera.” I don’t know it. And he is the pharaoh that I mentioned. Thank you, Francois, for that.
Q: “And what do we think happened to the gold masks "of the other pharaohs?”
A: Oh, robbed and melted down, almost for sure. The grave robbers weren’t really interested in the artistic designs and in owning the masks because they were items of beauty. They were interested in getting the gold, melting it down, and making a mint from it. So almost for sure absolutely melted down.
Q: “Did the ancient Egyptians invent the wheel?”
A: Not sure, Barry. Either the Egyptians or the Sumerians. I think it could have been Sumerians. I’m Not sure, so I don’t want to say on that.
And my pleasure, Naomi, to you. My pleasure to you Anne as well. Indeed, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Q: “So how were the craftsmen able to perfect their art "in a short time before the burial?”
A: Well, there was a lot of very skilled craftsmen in ancient Egypt because remember they were burying nobles. They were also burying the wealthy. So there were many people working on these sites. So that was that.
I’m delighted, Norman, that you got there to Egypt in time there.
If I can add one further thing just as I’m zooming down to the bottom of these questions… I’m delighted, Judith, that you’ve enjoyed this lecture. Thank you. My pleasure. If I can say one other thing, if you go into Room 61 of the British Museum, those that of you that live in London or will visit London, go to Room 61, a very little visited room. It’s the tomb of Nebamun. Nebamun was an accountant for one of the pharaohs. Now why do I say this? Because we all know about pharaonic tombs. You all know about to Tutankhamun’s tomb, but there were thousands of other tombs around Egypt where other wealthy Egyptians were buried. So there was an entire industry devoted to building beautiful tombs for wealthy people. And why do I mention that? Because one of the questions were, “How did they make these things so beautifully so quickly?” There was an industry and people did it. This was a highly advanced society. Go into Nebamun’s tombs and you will see beautiful things there. You will see perfume boxes and toys and mirrors and wall paintings, all of which show how well-refined Egyptian society was then.
Alfred and Yoni, you say, “You might explain canopic as a Nile mouth.” Yes, yes, nicely put.
And Nanette, you say, “Medical knowledge must have been forgotten "because people lived much longer in those days.” Well, certainly some of them did, but of course the evidence is that the vast majority of Egyptians lived short and wretched lives because we’ve discovered some of their bones and we’ve seen how not so well they lived. So those that had the money had a better chance of living longer. Slave labour, I looked at in the first lecture about pharaonic Egypt. The current thinking it was possibly slave labour, but also there were a lot of very skilled and very well-fed craftspeople that did the job, mainly craftsmen, because we have found the remains of those people and their bones were bones of healthy people. So the current thinking is it was as much skilled labour as slave labour. And Neville, thank you for your kind comments.
Ah, Rita, “Explain the library of books on your shelf.” Maybe that’s for another time. Happily I’ll do a session on some of the books in my library. And Monica, thank you for your kind comments.
Q: “What was the curse of the tomb of Tutankhamun?”
A: It was the curse as in every tomb, that those that open the tomb will die. And, of course, when Lord Carnarvon died of an infected mosquito bite, many people said that he had died from the curse of the tomb of Tutankhamun. But, of course, what isn’t commented upon are the dozens of people that worked in the tomb of Tutankhamun that didn’t die an unnatural or early death. As with all these things, if one is selective of what happens, one begins to believe in things like the curses or the miracles of this or that. But in reality, the vast, vast majority of people that worked in the tombs came out alive and lived long and full lives. Although there was quite a high death rate of some of the other workers, and it is thought that that was because of fungus that grew within the tomb that had lived there for centuries and centuries. And if people worked in that tomb for a long period of time, the fungus will start to get down their oesophagus and their innards and they would die from that. So there is quite a bit of evidence that there was some form of disease associated with the fungus within some pharaonic tombs that did kill people, and that people didn’t understand that centuries ago or even in the last century, and they considered that was the curse. We now know from the scientific method that it was a fungus killing people. So I hope that answers your question there, Herbert. Glad you enjoyed it, Elliot.
Q: “And are there any digs going on?”
A: Oh yes, Shelly, loads of digs going on in Egypt right now at the moment. There was in fact quite an interesting discovery made about six weeks ago just outside of Cairo, some stone things. So yeah, digs going on all the time.
Rhonda, I’m glad you enjoyed it. My pleasure. Thank you, Sheila, will in fact by the Sumerians.
There you go. I’m going to call it a day there. Thank you all at seven minutes past six on the 12th of January. It is a lecture to overview partly what I’ve looked at in this sweep of Egyptian history, from pharaonic to current times. And then we’re going to look at that question, where is Egypt heading then?
Until then, wishing you a good holidays, a happy 2023. See you on January the 12th.