by Tom Bane
A single steel door slid smoothly to one side, and, led by the professor, they walked through to the cool, quiet room beyond. Piper tapped a button by the door and it closed with a quiet hiss, isolating them. The students followed the professor across the room and gathered around a long beech table. On each side of the walls were full height modern grey cabinets, marked with small, efficient labels but Piper ignored these and instead pulled a small, well-thumbed book from one of his bulging jacket pockets. Having opened it at a pre-marked page, he looked at them over his glasses while clearing his throat, like a vicar seeking his congregation’s attention before delivering a sermon.
“These are the words of Howard Carter, from his diary,” he said, and his audience fell silent around him as he started to read.
“I peered into the tomb of the boy pharaoh. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment—an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by—I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, ‘Can you see anything?’ it was all I could do to get out the words, ‘Yes, wonderful things.’”
Absentmindedly fingering her locket, Suzy heard her father’s voice inside her head, reciting exactly the same passage that he’d read to her a hundred times. She remembered how she used to long to one day make such discoveries herself, to live a life like Howard Carter, and, like her wise and beloved father, to see ‘wonderful things.’ She took a deep breath and forced herself to listen to what Piper was saying now.
“The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb was the most astounding archaeological find of the twentieth century. And to give you an idea of the immensity of his task even after locating the tomb, I want you to imagine it was you uncovering this extraordinary find. Close your eyes and picture yourself there, impatient to uncover its hidden treasures but anxious lest anything get damaged. To actually get to the body of Tutankhamun you would first have had to smash through four sealed stone doorways, then dig a thirty-foot tunnel through a corridor full of rubble, all stacked above head height, before then having to penetrate an incredible four wooden shrines. You would have to cut with diamond-tipped drills through a solid red quartzite sarcophagus and then lift three successive inlaid gold coffins in the shape of the pharaoh that surrounded the mummy, like a Russian matryoshka doll. The last coffin, or sarcophagus as it is known, was made from solid gold.
“Using a velvet touch, you would then have needed to unwrap the bindings of his mummy one by one, no easy task as interlaced, buried or woven in were no less than 143 different precious ornaments. If you were strong enough, you might finally have been able to remove the famous golden death mask and touch Tutankhamun’s face.” Looking up, Piper saw how many of his entourage had indeed closed their eyes and were intimately involved in their own imagining.
“There were so many artifacts in the tomb that it took Howard Carter nearly a decade to document everything. And it’s thanks to his dedication that we know as much as we do about Tutankhamun.”
“Thanks to his thievery!” muttered Suzy. She shared her father’s view that, despite his archaeological brilliance, Carter in the end was nothing more than explorer turned grave robber. Piper either didn’t hear or shrewdly chose not enter into debate at this point. Instead he continued.
“There is much more, however, that we don’t know.” Piper gestured around the wide oak and metal filing cabinets that stretched to the ceiling in every direction. “This is just the tip of an iceberg, and the mystery hidden beneath the surface means that every quack, charlatan and soothsayer this side of Atlantis has a theory to explain the boy king. To separate fact from fantasy, you will have to question every presumption you have about him and seek proof and evidence in every avenue of investigation you employ.”
Piper pulled on a dainty pair of white gloves and, with a magician’s flourish, opened a pair of huge cabinet doors.
“Here,” he said, almost in a whisper, “are some of the original notebooks of Howard Carter.”
He rested them on the table in front of Suzy and the other students jostled round behind her, eager to catch a glimpse of history. Piper was continuing to talk but Suzy hardly heard his words. Whatever she thought of Carter, these records were the closest one could get to the actual experience of first encountering the tomb, untouched and unseen by countless generations. She stared at the notebooks which her father might once have handled, longing to touch them but knowing she wouldn’t be allowed to without special permission and gloves like the professor’s.
“Carter and his team of Egyptian workmen eventually dug for fifteen years before they found what they were looking for.” Piper delicately turned the crusty pages of the leather bound diary, and Suzy leaned close, breathing in the musty aroma and trying to read Carter’s virtually illegible handwriting. “First steps of tomb found,” she managed to decipher before the professor turned the page.
“Carter’s workmen discovered a step cut into the rock that had been hidden by debris left over from the building of the tomb of Rameses IV,” Piper explained. “Then they found fifteen more steps leading to an ancient sealed doorway. The last six steps had been cut away, then redone, presumably to allow large objects like the shrine to get into the tomb. On the doorway was an official necropolis seal and the name Tutankhamun. Carter knew he had found his prize and—”
“Carter had a pet canary,” Suzy interrupted, without meaning to. The professor’s warning about superstitious fantasy had triggered the memory of one of her father’s tales. “When he arrived home that night his servant met him at the door. In his hand he clutched a few yellow feathers. The man’s eyes were wide with fear and he told Carter that the bird had been killed by a cobra. He was terrified and was jabbering that the pharaoh’s serpent had eaten the golden bird because it had led them to the hidden tomb. He was wailing at Carter, ‘You must not disturb the tomb!’”
Suzy’s words hung in the silent air for a few moments.
“Quite right,” Piper said. “But Carter never believed in Tutankhamun’s curse of the tomb and neither should you.”
“Well, what about Carnarvon’s death?” Suzy asked.
“You must believe only in the facts. The fact is that, although Lord Carnarvon died from a mosquito bite five months later, Carter lived another seventeen years until the ripe old age of sixty-four. A recent study of journals and death records indicates no statistical difference between the age at death of those who entered the tomb and those on the expedition who did not. Indeed, most lived past the age of seventy. The curse is a myth generated by the media, and you must please treat it as such; it bears no place in serious archaeology.” Piper usually delighted in lively argument about the question of curses but he was determined that his students speculate on the basis of fact, not sensationalist theory. Taking a deep breath, he continued.
“On discovering the tomb, Carter covered up the stone steps to obscure them and telegraphed Carnarvon in England. He was worried about tomb raiders and he had to give his boss exclusive access first.”
Piper turned the pages of Carter’s diaries, which were surprisingly sparse, until he reached the entry for the twenty-third of November, where Carter had written; “L.C. arrives.”
“In fact Lord Carnarvon had arrived in Cairo on the twentieth of November with his daughter, Lady Evelyn,” Piper said, “and what happened in the eight days that followed has led to much speculation about the conduct of the archaeologist and his sponsor, and about the authenticity of Carter’s account. You see, even the most disciplined explorer is still a human being, and who can say whether the primary drive is to discover wonderful treasures—or to own them?”
Knowing this was a rhetorical question, Suzy clenched her teeth to prevent another outburst. She shar
ed the conviction of her late father that either Carnarvon or Carter were nothing but thieves who used barefaced deceit to steal a priceless part of Egypt’s unique history. Anticipating another interruption, Piper continued.
“Having returned to the site, it took Carter a day to reveal the tomb’s steps again, and he broke through the plaster covering the tomb doorway and cleared the corridor of rocks and dust. It looked to him like the doorway had been broken into before and then resealed; perhaps tomb raiders had gotten inside, but the officials of the Kings’ Valley discovered them and resealed the doorway with thick plaster thousands of years ago. On the twenty-sixth, they reached the second sealed doorway. A small opening was made in the plaster at the top left of the doorway and it revealed a room. A candle was inserted into the hole and Carter peered in and saw those sights that he wrote about, things that had remained unseen for three thousand years: gilded couches, ornamental caskets, flowers, vases and strange ebony statues of the pharaoh with a pyramid sun ray skirt and a crook, a loti form wishing cup in translucent alabaster, a statue of the cow god, Hathor and many quite ordinary-looking white, egg-shaped boxes.
“The interesting thing in Carter’s account,” Piper continued, “is his description of the treasure in the rooms as being piled up and sloppily ordered, evidence of a previous break-in. The tomb-raiders had apparently stolen some items but curiously had left thousands of gold and precious objects behind. So, the big question is—”
“Lord Carnarvon had an agreement with the Egyptian authorities,” Suzy interrupted again, this time talking with all the authority of a lecturer. “If the tomb had been raided before, then Carnarvon could claim half of the treasure, but if the treasure was intact then the Egyptians would have had the right to keep it all.” She glanced at Piper, realizing he might think her interruption presumptuous but he was listening to her with a somewhat paternal expression.
“Precisely!” he replied. “This agreement suggests that the evidence of a raid centuries before was in fact planted by Carter so that Carnavon could claim half the treasure for himself.”
The professor stepped toward Suzy, almost as if the two of them were having a private conversation, the others in the group forgotten. “Some have indeed suggested that, while Carnarvon was en route to Egypt, Carter secretly infiltrated the tomb again and faked an ancient robbery by knocking over objects, breaking the plaster seals on the doorways and then resealing them. But we know this cannot be true. Why? Because photographic evidence shows that the ancient Egyptian officials had at some time resealed the doorways and then embedded official seals in the plaster, clearly indicating that there had been ancient tomb raiders. Look.”
He pointed at a photograph that lay beside the diaries. “There—an ancient seal on the plaster pressed into it like a date stamp, a jackal with nine bound captives, the necropolis seal. That proves it, yes?” The students looked uncertain, not sure if Piper was being sincere or not. “Well, just remember that, up to this point, no one of any independent authority had yet seen the interior of the tomb or any of the objects reported by Carter.”
“But aren’t there also mismatches between ancient records of the burial and the number of items in the tomb?” Suzy insisted.
“Well, Carter also found treasury dockets from the actual burial and estimated that sixty percent of the original objects in the tomb had been stolen. In the rubble in the corridor, he also found stone jar lids, a bronze staple and some razors that had been dropped by the fleeing robbers, but, again, there was no independent verification so no one can prove or disprove Carter’s claim.”
By now the other students who had again grown restless, feeling more and more like uninvolved bystanders, perked up with the topic of conspiracy back in the air. Piper could see them contemplating the integrity of Carter’s version of events, weighing up the fragments of actual and circumstantial evidence. Suzy also welcomed this change in the atmosphere, having felt increasingly uncomfortable with the professor’s demands on her attention.
“Now, where were we? Ah, yes, Carter and Carnarvon were excavating. So, by now they’ve completed their exploration of the first room, the Antechamber, and then, at last, arrange an official tomb opening to be held on the twenty-ninth of November. They invite all the dignitaries of Egypt along with the British High Commissioner in Egypt, the provincial governor and the chief of police, together with a number of Egyptian notables.
“Meanwhile, before the day of the official opening, they continued to excavate in secret, breaking the legal terms of the concession. In the L-shaped tomb Carter discovered, beneath a couch on the west wall, an entrance to a second chamber, the Annexe. This was full of precious objects as well as about two thousand everyday objects, such as model boats, fans, shields, wine and two pots of honey, the nectar of the gods. Incidentally, the honey was still good to eat after three thousand years; bacteria can’t grow in honey, which is why it is synonymous with purity.
“Carter and Carnarvon then spotted another false plaster wall in the antechamber. It looked like the plaster had been refilled, and resealed at some point as well, so they dismantled the sealed section and secretly entered the next two rooms, the burial chamber and the treasury. They found the shrine in the burial chamber which attracted everyone’s attention, believing that deep inside it lay the undisturbed mummy of the boy king.”
Out of a wooden box, Piper lifted a document and laid it on the table. The students drew in closer; it was a letter from Lord Carnarvon dated the twenty-eighth of November, the day before the official opening.
“I have got Tutankhamun (that is certain),” Piper read aloud, “and, I believe, intact.”
“So,” he said, putting the letter down, “An incredible achievement for Carter and for Carnarvon, but one they managed rather undiplomatically. In fact, Carter made three big mistakes that alienated him from the Egyptian authorities, and later cost him access to the tomb. Firstly, a certain gentleman, Pierre Lacau, was snubbed by being left off the guest list for the official opening. Now, why was this a faux pas? Who was Pierre Lacau?”
“The director-general of the Egyptian Antiquities Service,” Suzy announced, knowing that the question was directed at her. She felt her anger rising once again as she remembered the passion with which her father, a proud Egyptian, used to talk about the incident, furious that his country had been plundered in such a high-handed manner. “He was deeply offended that the official opening of the tomb was announced before he had even been to see it for himself. As a consequence, the Antiquities Service and the Egyptian Ministry deliberately examined the legal option of considering the treasures as an ‘intact unit,’ meaning they should stay in Egypt.”
“Exactly,” Piper said. “And what was Carter’s next big mistake?”
“He gave exclusive media coverage to the London Times newspaper,” Suzy said. “He denied the Egyptian newspapers any access, as well as the rest of the world. When the official discovery of Tutankhamun’s undisturbed mummy was declared, the only way pictures of the treasure could be seen inside Egypt was to buy the London Times.”
“That’s right,” Piper said. “Carter and Carnarvon then started to argue. Carnarvon was determined to fend off the Egyptian authorities, and neither could agree what to do with the contents of the tomb. Carter grew so frustrated with Carnarvon that he told him he was never welcome to enter his house again. Carnarvon died forty days later. Carter and Lacau continued to snipe at each other, and, after lifting the final sarcophagus lid to reveal the golden death mask of Tutankhamun, Carter downed tools and left the tomb, disgusted with the whole tainted enterprise. Of course, this was his third and biggest mistake because under the terms of the concession he had agreed not to stop work, so he had given the Egyptians the perfect excuse to throw him out. It was two years before he managed to get back into the tomb and continue his work.”
Piper bent down underneath the table and brought up two slim wooden boxes. Placing them on the table, he opened one and pulled a shimmering necklac
e from it.
“We all know of the superlative golden death mask, by far the best item of Tutankhamun’s tomb, but unfortunately it has often overshadowed many of the other items. For instance, just take a look at this. It’s an exact replica of the necklace found around Tutankhamun’s neck—and isn’t it exquisitely beautiful?”
As he laid it on the table, a glowing circle made up of hundreds of yellow, green, blue and white beads, Suzy felt the familiar longing to see the real pieces. She had yearned to go to Cairo for as long as she could remember but had never had the money for the trip and had had to be satisfied with looking at replicas for a little longer.
Piper was now bringing out an object from the second box and the other students were pushing in around her in their efforts to see.
“This is the falcon ornament with outstretched wings from a jewel box in the Treasury. It is clutching in its talons the Shen, meaning eternity, and the Ankh cross, meaning life.”
While the students peered in close to admire the ornament, Piper reached under the table again and brought out a third box, this one containing a carefully folded piece of cloth.
“Howard Carter found a chest that he thought would be filled with papyrus sheets about King Tut’s life, but it was actually filled with underwear! This is an exact replica of his loincloth and it shows that he had huge hips, 42 inches. That means that the stylized representations of his father, Akhenaten, and the relatives shown in the murals of Amarna with pear-shaped hips are probably true and that Tutankhamun inherited those same physical characteristics. Tut also had an elongated skull when scientists CAT scanned his mummy, which probably means that his father had the same features. This loincloth was only recently discovered by me, and it means that the Amarna paintings may depict the reality of their appearance—a strange looking bunch.
