The Murder of King Tut Read online

  Behind him stood the very attractive Lady Evelyn, along with her father, and Arthur Callender. Farther up the hallway a handful of diggers waited, all hoping for the financial reward that would come if a great discovery was made here today.

  Notably absent was Trout Engelbach, the man whose job it was to enter the tomb first. He had left to inspect another dig site several miles away. Carter was supposed to await his return before entering a chamber or tomb. But that was not to be.

  When the hole was cleared from the ceiling down to eye level, Carter lit a candle and held it to the opening, checking for foul gases. The candle flickered as air that had been trapped for millennia whooshed from the chamber.

  When the flame stopped sputtering, Carter slid the candle through the hole. Next, he pressed his face to the opening, feeling the dust of the centuries against his skin. With one arm inside, holding the candle steady, and his face now looking directly into the chamber, he studied what he could make out in the darkness.

  “At first I could see nothing,” wrote Carter. “But presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details from the room within slowly emerged from the mist. Strange animals, statues and gold-everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment-an eternity it must have been to the others standing by-I was struck dumb with amazement.”

  “Can you see anything?” Lord Carnarvon asked impatiently, his head close to Carter’s ear.

  “Yes,” Carter responded. “Wonderful things.”

  Chapter 88

  Valley of the Kings

  November 26, 1922

  “LET ME HAVE A LOOK,” the earl demanded. “It’s my turn to see. It’s my turn now.”

  Carter not-so-politely ignored him. He had waited too many years for this incredible moment. If anything, it was even better than he could have imagined. He had finally done it! Wonderful things.

  Carter handed the candle to Callender, exchanging it for a flashlight. He played the beam slowly over the contents of the chamber, spellbound. “Never before in the whole history of excavation,” Carter wrote, “had such an amazing sight been seen as the light of the electric torch revealed to us.”

  “Wonderful things.” Carter taking his first look inside the tomb of Tut.

  This tomb-or cache or whatever it was-did not merely hold a few stray pieces of antiquity. Rather, it overflowed with gold and other priceless treasures.

  Carter’s eyes now began to distinguish shapes, and he mentally cataloged the amazing contents.

  Straight ahead were “three great gilt couches, their sides carved in the form of monstrous animals, curiously attenuated in body, as they had to be to serve their purpose, but with heads of startling realism.”

  “Next, on the right,” he would later write, “two life-sized figures of a king in black facing each other like sentinels, gold kilted, gold sandaled, armed with mace and staff, the protective sacred cobra upon their foreheads.”

  There was so much more: inlaid baskets, alabaster vases, bouquets of golden flowers and leaves, and a gold and wood throne with a delicately carved inlay.

  The room was packed floor to ceiling with furniture, statues, pottery, and all the accoutrements of a wealthy Egyptian.

  Then, even as Carter tried desperately to maintain his vigil, he felt a pair of wiry hands yanking him backward, “like a cork from a bottle.”

  It was Carnarvon.

  Planting his feet firmly on the stone floor, the surprisingly powerful earl took hold of Carter’s shoulders and finally muscled him aside. The earl was not in good health, so the effort left him breathless.

  Yet all was forgotten as he snatched the flashlight from Carter’s hand and pressed his nose through the opening.

  Once again, Carnarvon was rendered breathless.

  Behind Carnarvon stood Carter, slouched against the wall and beaming at Lady Evelyn. Her eyes were riveted on Carter, in awe of the great discovery, but even more, of Carter’s passion for his work. Lady Evelyn was one of England ’s leading debutantes, a woman destined for a life of wealth and status. Howard Carter was many steps beneath her on the social ladder. Yet as she had become her father’s companion on trips to Egypt over the previous two years, the attraction between Carter and her had become intense. Lord Carnarvon had taken to keeping a close eye on them.

  Only now he wasn’t looking. So Carter and Evelyn locked eyes in the dank hallway, “the exhilaration of discovery” bubbling between them. They were struggling to hide their emotions from Callender.

  A dazzled Lord Carnarvon finally turned round, gesturing that it was Evelyn’s turn to look inside. “Come, come. It’s amazing, my dear! You must see for yourself.”

  Only then did Carter’s focus return, allowing him to ask himself the most obvious question: If this is a tomb, then where is the mummy?

  Chapter 89

  Valley of the Kings

  November 26, 1922

  UNFORTUNATELY, THERE WOULD BE a major problem in looking for the mummy.

  The wording of Lord Carnarvon’s concession to dig in the valley implied that a tomb’s discoverer had the right to enter first. However, as Trout Engelbach had made abundantly clear two days earlier, the Antiquities Service’s understanding of the wording was quite different.

  Acting under orders from his boss-a Frenchman named Pierre Lacau-Engelbach now demanded that a member of his staff be on hand for the opening of any chamber. The penalty for ignoring that order was severe-Carter and Carnarvon could forfeit much of their claim to the treasure inside.

  After all those years of searching, impatience now could mean they’d end up with nothing.

  And though Engelbach had left Carter’s dig site, he had designated his Egyptian deputy, Ibrahim Effendi, to carry out that task in his absence. But as Carter and his group stood before the second doorway, Effendi too was no longer in the valley. He had returned to Luxor, awaiting news from Carter.

  Now Carter and his group were faced with a dilemma: send for Effendi, or break on through to the other side without him.

  Carter did both.

  Swearing everyone in the tunnel to secrecy, including the Egyptian diggers, Carter wrote a hasty note informing the Antiquities Service of what he’d found. Then he handed the note to one of the diggers and ordered him to wait until nightfall before delivering it.

  Next, he again turned his attention to the wall. He enlarged the hole even more.

  He was going inside to find the mummy.

  Chapter 90

  Valley of the Kings

  November 26, 1922

  LADY EVELYN WAS the smallest of the bunch and was the first to wriggle through the opening. She found herself transfixed by ghostly alabaster vases, and Carter enlarged the hole so Lord Carnarvon and Arthur Callender could also squeeze through. Then he entered what would become known as the antechamber.

  The room was a small rectangle, twelve feet deep by twenty-six feet wide. The ceilings were low to the point of claustrophobia, and the walls undecorated, which was odd, Carter thought. Why hadn’t the chamber been properly finished?

  The air smelled not just of dust and time but also of perfumes and exotic woods. “The very air you breathe, unchanged through the centuries,” marveled Carter.

  The group was jumpy now, as if the chamber were haunted.

  Carter was surprised to find himself humbled by the timelessness of the moment. There were footprints in the dust from thousands of years earlier, and a container still held the mortar used to build the door. “The blackened lamp, the finger mark upon the freshly painted surface, the farewell garland dropped upon the threshold-you feel it might have been just yesterday,” Carter mused.

  The four modern-day intruders shone the flashlight about the room, setting aside all historical propriety to hold the golden relics in their bare hands.

  Carter opened a small casket painted with images of a pharaoh-Tut?-slaying his enemies in battle. Inside were a pair of ancient sandals and a robe festooned with brightly colored beads.

  Lady Ev
elyn gasped with delight as she came across a golden throne with images of a pharaoh and his queen depicted in lapis lazuli. The pair were obviously very much in love, as demonstrated by the tender way the queen seemed to be touching her king.

  To Carter’s eyes, it was “the most beautiful thing that has ever been found in Egypt.”

  Outside, darkness fell. The workers and any remaining spectators had finally left for home. Inside the antechamber, Carter’s group continued to revel in discovery after discovery.

  But Carter was still not satisfied. A great mystery remained unsolved. He probed the walls, searching for signs of other chambers.

  At one point he came upon a tiny hole and pointed his flashlight through the opening. On the other side lay a very small room, also overflowing with treasure.

  There was no sign of a mummy, so Carter resisted the urge to tear down the doorway.

  He continued searching, running his hands along the smooth walls, looking for signs of a concealed opening. At last, he found one! On the far right wall, two statues loomed on either side of yet another sealed doorway.

  The statues were apparently sentinels, standing guard over the opening, as they had for centuries. “We were but on the threshold of discovery,” he would write, still trying to wrap his mind around the stunning evidence. “Behind the guarded door there would be other chambers, possibly a succession of them, and in one of them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in all his magnificent panoply of death, we shall see the pharaoh lying.”

  Once again, Carter was faced with the dilemma of whether or not to wait before making a hole in the wall.

  Once again, Carter chose to ignore the possible political consequences and see what was on the other side. He only hoped his decision wouldn’t prove disastrous at some future time.

  But of course, it would.

  Chapter 91

  Valley of the Kings

  November 26, 1922

  AT THE BOTTOM right corner of the hidden doorway, Carter found a three-foot-tall hole that had been plastered over at some time in antiquity. This was a sign that tomb robbers had preceded him.

  For the third time that day, Carter chipped away at some thief’s ancient plasterwork, pulled back the stones that had been used to build an impromptu wall, and shone his light through.

  At first it didn’t look like much. A narrow hallway?

  Carter slid through ahead of the others. He went feetfirst, dropping down into a sunken room.

  He scanned the narrow walls with his flashlight.

  At first it appeared that the light was playing a trick on him.

  Then he realized that one of the walls was not a wall at all. He was inside a stunning square chamber, not a narrow hallway.

  The low wall that confused him was actually a shrine. It was decorated in blue faience and gold.

  He had found the burial chamber.

  Chapter 92

  Valley of the Kings

  November 26, 1922

  AS LADY EVELYN and Lord Carnarvon hurried to join him-Callender was too portly to squeeze through-Carter examined the shrine.

  He was facing a pair of mighty wooden doors secured with an ebony bolt. Inside, as Carter well knew, would be several smaller shrines like this one. Only after each shrine had been opened would he be able to see the sarcophagus, coffins-and the mummy itself.

  At this thought, Carter’s heartbeat quickened. There was definitely a mummy here. There was no way tomb robbers could have stolen the body without destroying the shrines, and these shrines were in pristine condition.

  With Carnarvon’s help, Carter slowly and carefully slid back the bolt. The doors swung on their hinges. A linen shroud decorated with gold rosettes was draped over the next shrine. One rosette fell away as the door was opened. Carter slipped it into his pocket without a second thought.

  Now he lifted the shroud and saw further evidence that the mummy had not been disturbed: on the bolts of yet another opening, to yet another shrine, was a royal seal. It was the royal necropolis stamp, with a jackal and nine bound captives, signifying that a pharaoh lay within.

  By now, it was almost morning. The group explored a while longer, but soon they left. The Carnarvons needed rest. They weren’t used to the heat or the manual labor. Even Carter needed a break, though for him a short one would suffice.

  They climbed the steps, walking from the ancient past to the cool predawn air of the present in just a few seconds.

  Carter’s men were still standing guard. They helped secure the tomb for the night and would remain there to protect it from possible invaders.

  The greatest day of Howard Carter’s life was done.

  Chapter 93

  Valley of the Kings

  December 1922

  BACK AT “CASTLE CARTER”-as the news of his discovery sped around the world via cable and telephone-Carter took a moment to think about what he had found and the consequences of that discovery.

  The specter of Tut’s death hung over Carter as he peered out at the valley from his home’s lofty viewpoint. He struggled to make sense of the findings inside the tomb-the toy sailboats, the chariots, the golden shrines and shabtis and jeweled amulets-and wondered how a young man so full of life had come to die. Even more mysterious to Carter: Why was the tomb located where it was? And where was the queen buried?

  “Politically we gather that the king’s reign and life must have been a singularly uneasy one. It may be that he was the tool of obscure political forces working behind the throne.”

  Carter couldn’t help mentally cataloging the valuable artifacts he had found. He wrote of a “painted wooden casket found in the chamber, its outer face completely covered with gesso.” He noted cosmetic jars portraying “bulls, lions, hounds, gazelle, and hare.” Most touching, he thought, were “episodes of daily private life of the king and queen.” But where was her coffin?

  He was struck by a painting that depicted Tut accompanied by a pet lion cub and shooting wild ducks with bows and arrows, “whilst, at his feet, squats the girlish queen.” Another such scene showed the young queen offering Tut “libations, flowers, and collarettes.” Still another showed the pharaoh pouring sweet perfume on his queen as they rested together. He had the sense of how young they both were-and how much in love.

  Carter was astounded by the gold and jewels found inside the tomb, but he was also stunned by what seemed to be an arsenal.

  In the room off the burial chamber, the one with unpainted walls that Carter referred to as the treasury, and in the small room off the antechamber known as the annex, he had discovered an enormous stockpile of weapons: thirteen composite bows, three self bows, and two quivers, one made of linen, and one of durable leather; two hundred seventy-eight arrows, many with bronze arrowheads; and an elaborately carved bow case decorated in gold leaf.

  The tomb of King Tut. Because it was small in comparison with many other royal tombs, each room was packed with Tut’s belongings.

  The largest bow suggested that Tut was a man of some strength, as it was more than six feet in length.

  Certainly, Tut was no peaceful king. And just as certainly, he had a fondness for pursuits other than archery. The annex also contained throw sticks; several shields; a leather cuirass that would have been fitted to protect Tut’s chest and shoulders; as well as swords, boomerangs, clubs, and daggers.

  Tut clearly was not his father’s son. “The possessor of the bow could bring down the fleetest of animals and defend himself against the enemy,” Carter noted.

  In one corner, lost amid the towering bows of the hunt and war, was one Tut would have shot as a child. It was just a foot and a half tall, and its lone arrow was six inches long.

  Carter again found himself wondering about the circumstances surrounding Tut’s death and concluded that it might not have been an accident. “The sense of premature loss faintly haunts the tomb. The royal youth, obviously full of life and capable and enjoying it, had started, in very early manhood-who knows under what tragic circumstance
s?-on his last journey from the radiant Egyptian skies into the gloom of that tremendous Underworld,” he wrote.

  Chapter 94

  Valley of the Kings

  February 16, 1923

  TIME TO OPEN the burial chamber.

  Carter had never told Trout Engelbach that he had already entered the chamber, so when the day of the “official” opening arrived, he had to pretend to be curious about what might be inside. And he had to be more convincing now than ever. As news of the great discovery had spread around the world, pandemonium had erupted in Luxor. Suddenly, Howard Carter was a star and a significant historical player.

  Beyond that, a certain divisiveness had set in, with Egyptian bureaucrats and foreign hangers-on all trying to get a piece of the action.

  “Telegrams poured in from every quarter of the globe. Within a week or two the letters began to follow them, a deluge of correspondence that has persisted ever since,” noted Carter.

  Letters of congratulation gave way to “offers of assistance; requests for souvenirs-even a few grains of sand from above the tomb would be received so thankfully; fantastic money offers, from moving picture rights to copyrights on fashions of dress; advice on the preservation of antiquities; and the best methods of appeasing evil spirits and elementals.”

  For a man like Carter, so fond of introspection and relative quiet, things were getting completely out of hand. No one could have predicted this, least of all himself or his detractors in Luxor.

  “The Winter Palace is a scream,” noted Egyptologist Arthur Mace, whom Carter had recruited to join the excavation party. “No one talks of anything but the tomb; newspaper men swarm, and you daren’t say a word without looking around to see if anyone is listening. Some of them are trying to make mischief between Carnarvon and the Department of Antiquities, and all Luxor takes sides one way or the other. Archaeology plus journalism is bad enough, but when you add politics, it becomes a little too much.”