Howard Carter was the son of an artist who specialized in painting pictures of animals. He inherited his father's artistic abilities. His talent in that area was, in fact, what led him to his career in archeology. When he was seventeen years old, he was introduced by the wife of his father's patron to an Egyptologist named P.E. Newberry. He went to work for Newberry inking over tomb tracings. During the next few years, he worked for many famous people. Later he became the "Inspector-in-Chief of the monuments of Upper Egypt and Nubia." While he was doing this, he discovered wonderful things. He added iron doors and electric lights to tombs in the Valley of the Kings. He was given the job of "Inspectorate of Lower and Middle Egypt," and soon after his career took a major downturn. After a skirmish with some unruly Frenchmen, he was told to apologize and refused. This led to his dismissal, and in the four years that followed he lived by selling watercolors that he did which depicted scenes of Egyptian life. This is what he was doing when he was brought to the attention of Lord Carnarvon who was in need of someone experienced in the archeology of Egypt (Carter, x-xii).

Carter was a man with very little formal education who, by an accident of chance ended up with vast knowledge of how to remove holy items from tombs. It can never be said that he was not good at what he did. Carter never claimed to be a fabulous linguist, nor did he say that he understood all the complex inner workings of the ancient Egyptian religion. He was there for the sole purpose of picking up the articles, documenting exactly where they came from, preserving them, and moving them to a museum where tourists with no idea of what they are looking at can walk by and see them.

Lord Carnarvon funded the excavation. He started excavating with little knowledge about what he was doing. In the process he botched a dig pretty badly, and the Egyptian officials suggested that he find someone a little more experienced to help him. Someone suggested that Carter might be a good choice, and a relationship ensued that would last until Lord Carnarvon's death.

Carter was most interested in objects that were valuable monetarily. Things that were made of gold, he valued most highly. He stated that his favorite object in the tomb, the one he thought most highly of, was the golden statuettes of the "tutelary goddesses of the dead." These statuettes were placed in the tomb to stand guard over the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen. Actually, this could have been one of the most prized possessions of the ancient Egyptians as well. It was created to protect the Ka. This was all-important because of the role the Ka played in the afterlife (Carter, 184).

The artist in Carter also leaned toward the objects of great artistic beauty, and he spent much time describing the painted trunk. While this piece was obviously important enough to be included in the objects placed in the tomb. The ancient Egyptians probably did not hold it in extremely high esteem. While it was a very pretty box, it was after all, just a box. Tutankhamen's afterlife would not be greatly affected by its absence.

Let's take into account the Egyptian view of the afterlife. They believed that when a person died his Ka was incredibly important. The Ka is the life force that people are born with and that remains inside the body after death. If something happens to that body then the Ka is destroyed. The Ka is like the fuel, to use an analogy, that keeps everything in the afterlife running. This includes the Ba which is the part of the spirit of a deceased person that goes through the trials of the afterlife. These trials are very complicated. However, the Ba has a book of instructions that it can call upon when a problem arises. This is the Book of the Dead, and a copy of the book was usually placed between the legs of the deceased. The Ba travels through the labyrinth that makes up the Hall of Maati. During its travels it faces forty-two gods. Each god asks the Ba to reveal its name. If the Ba can do so, all is well; but, if it cannot, then the person dies for a second time. After that the Ba claims that the deceased has committed no sin and, the deceased is judged. The heart of the deceased is weighed against the feather of truth, and, if the scale balances, then he is considered worthy. If not, Anubis, the god of embalming, eats him. These trials are very difficult, and only the most deserving survive. However, those who do are given great rewards. Their bodies become like those of the gods. They receive a body part from each of the gods until they themselves become as gods. Once this happens, they may go to "the happy place." Here the wheat grows tall, and everything is as it should be.

Once they get to this land of plenty, all the items that were entombed with them become vastly important. Everything inside the tomb is a symbol of what is going on in the afterlife. If there is a chariot in the tomb then the deceased has a chariot in the afterlife. They create miniatures of every facet of life, from flax-making factories to servants needed to work the fields. If something happens to these replicas then their counterpart in the afterlife is destroyed.

Getting back to Tutankhamen and Carter, you have to wonder what poor Tut's spirit was thinking as Carter was removing things from his tomb, because each time something was taken out of the tomb, it disappeared from his world in the afterlife. If that were not enough, his mummy was damaged which meant that the Ka was also damaged. If the Ka wasn't completely destroyed when the body was damaged then his spirit was damaged in proportion to his body. This means that poor Tutankhamen is walking around the afterlife with none of his belongings and with his head off.

Carter considered the "modern" Egyptians to be mysterious, dark creatures who were not that intelligent and certainly not refined. He doesn't look for knowledge from the ancient Egyptians which can again be taken many ways. Either he didn't believe there was any knowledge to gain from them, or he wasn't able to gather the information himself.

Carter completely disregarded the hieroglyphics etched in the walls of the tomb. It was as if he did not care about their value to the knowledge of ancient Egypt. This, however, can be contradicted by the fact that he believed an object was practically useless unless one knew where it had come from. So maybe it was just that he knew his limits and realized that it was best to leave the deciphering of these objects up to the experts. It could even be said that he did not believe, when he was writing the diary, that his audience would care about or understand the complex information provided by these artifacts.

Carter did his job, and he did it very well. Surely he didn't realize that, in the eyes of the people who created the artifacts that he treasured, he was destroying their "heaven." Their paradise. If he had known would he have cared? We can never tell the answers to these questions because Carter has gone to join the same kings whose tombs he excavated in whatever afterlife there is. 

Sections from E. A. Wallis Budge, trans., The Egyptian Book of the Dead (1967 edition)

Howard Carter and A. C. Mace, The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen (1923)

August 26, 1997 Lecture: The Early History of Egyptology (Coon)

August 28, 1997 Lecture: An Historical Overview of Ancient Egypt (Coon)

September 2, 1997 Lecture: Egyptian Funerary Cults and the Formulae for Going out by Day (Coon)

September 4, 1997 Lecture: The Pyramids (Goodstein)

September 9, 1997 Lecture: An Overview of Egyptian Temple Tombs (Goodstien)

September 11, 1997 Lecture: The Egyptian Revival (Goodstien)

Barbara S. Lesko, "Woman of Egypt and the Ancient Near East," in Becoming Visible: Women in European History (1987), 41-58

Christian Norberg-Schulz, "Egyptian Architecture," in Meaning in Western Architecture (1980), 6-20