Fig. 1.—Mummy of Thothmes IV.
Before the war Mr Davis had completed his share of the work. He imagined that he had found the tomb of Tutankhamen, and in the preface of the last of his series of magnificent reports he makes the remark: “I fear that the Valley of the Tombs is now exhausted.” But it is a fortunate thing that Mr Howard Carter did not share this idea. After the war the late Lord Carnarvon, with whom Mr Howard Carter had been working since 1907, applied to the Antiquities Department, and was granted a concession to be allowed to continue in the Valley of the Tombs the work which the late Mr Theodore Davis had abandoned. The work carried out by Lord Carnarvon and Mr Howard Carter before they took over Mr Davis’s concession led to some important discoveries, the chief results of which were published in 1912, in a magnificent volume Five Years’ Exploration at Thebes.
In the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings they carried out real and thorough exploration, as no previous workers had done. Instead of making mere exploratory openings into the masses of rubble they began systematically to clear the ground, moving vast quantities of material—they are said to have moved as much as 200,000 tons—in the process. In spite of the discouragement of doing work of so exhaustive and expensive a kind with no further reward than a few unimportant pots, they pressed on, until on 5th November 1922 their indomitable persistence was rewarded with the most wonderful discovery ever made in the history of archæological investigation.
The day before he left London last January to return to Egypt Lord Carnarvon gave this account of the discovery. In the famous tomb of the Vizier Rekhmara no burial shaft could be found, and after searching for it near the tomb-building it was decided to try in the Valley of the Tombs. While cleaning the floor of the valley for this purpose, Mr Carter found a step cut in the rock and after further clearance he found a wall in the cement upon which was impressed the seal of the Royal Necropolis. Further examination revealed the presence of a tomb that had been entered soon after the burial. It bore the cartouche of the King Tutankhamen.
The story of the amazing treasures that have so far been discovered in the tomb has been told in the daily press day by day from November 1922 until April 1923, and Mr Harry Burton’s photographs have given us a realistic idea of their appearance.
The plan of the tomb presents a marked contrast to the more familiar Theban burial places; but it becomes more intelligible when it is compared with those which were made at the heretic king’s capital during the time of Akhenaton.
Of the four chambers in the tomb only one has up to now so far been examined, and when the inventory comes to be made of the annexe, which is now packed with furniture, and the room leading out of the burial chamber, the largest and most wonderful collection of ancient furniture that has ever been made will be revealed.
But the most marvellous revelations of all await the investigator next season when the shrines in the burial chamber are opened and the sarcophagus and the coffins within it are made to reveal to us how a royal mummy was prepared for its eternal home.
The plan of the tomb of Rameses IV, made more than two centuries later than the time of Tutankhamen, is the only evidence we have of the arrangement of the coffins within the shrines; but the coffins of Yuaa and Tuaa, the great-grandparents of Tutankhamen’s wife, and especially the wonderful coffin made for Akhenaton, his father-in-law, have prepared us for what we are to find next winter. But the artistic inspiration revealed in the design of Tutankhamen’s funerary furniture and the craftsmanship are so vastly superior to those displayed in other tombs that we cannot predict what gems of art will be found when the inner coffins are exposed.