Dan Snow's History Hit - 4. Tutankhamun: Inside the Tomb

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

4/4. Dan descends the very same stone steps into Tutankhamun's tomb that Carter did, 100 years earlier. From within the chamber, Dan and Egyptologist Alia Ismail give a sense of the awe Carter and Carnarvon would have felt, of the riches and sarcophagi that housed the mummy of Tutankhamun. Meanwhile, Dr Campbell Price gets into the obsession the discovery sparked- ‘tut-mania’- as the public bought all the rolls of film in Luxor and slept on camp-beds in the grounds of the winter Palace hotel, desperate to catch a glimpse of the treasures emerging from the tomb.From the bustling Luxor souk, Dan reflects on why exactly the boy pharaoh captured the world's imagination and still does to this day.Listen to episode one - Tutankhamun: The Valley of the Kings.Listen to episode two - Tutankhamun: The Discovery of a Lifetime.Listen to episode three - Tutankhamun: The Life of a Boy Pharaoh.This podcast was written and produced by Mariana Des Forges and mixed by Dougal PatmoreIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. On the 26th of November 1922, Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon, his daughter Lady Evelyn and their team

descended the stone steps they'd cleared at the bottom of the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile. They came up to the door, the west bank of the Nile. They came up to the door. The royal seal of Pharaoh Tutankhamun carved into the stone. They forced a crack to peek inside. In his journal, Howard Carter wrote, It was some time before one could see.

The hot air escaping caused the candle to flicker, but as soon as one's eyes became accustomed to the glimmer of light, the interior of the chamber gradually loomed before one. With its strange and wonderful medley of extraordinary and beautiful objects heaped upon one another, when Lord Carnarvon said to me, Can you see anything? I replied to him, Yes, it is wonderful. I then, with precaution, made the hole sufficiently large for both of us to see. We looked in.

Our sensations and astonishment are difficult to describe as the better light revealed to us the marvellous collection of treasures. Two strange ebony black effigies of a king, gold sandaled, bearing staff and mace, loomed out from the cloak of darkness. bearing staff and mace, loomed out from the cloak of darkness. We closed the hole, locked the wooden grill which had been placed upon the first doorway. We mounted our donkeys and returned home, contemplating what we had seen. They were the first souls to step foot in Tutankhamen's tomb for millennia. The artefacts and photographs that came out of the tomb would astound the world. Photos of great treasures, an undisturbed burial chamber, rumours of a curse.

an undisturbed burial chamber, rumours of a curse. From Egypt, we're telling the dramatic story of how the Valley of the Kings, the tombs in this royal cemetery, disappeared under shifting desert sands. It's extraordinary the kind of exploration he had to do. Pitch blackness, bats flying around, dust in your face, not really knowing what you were going to see next or what would happen next. Snakes, the possibility of a ceiling falling down on you. How it became a battleground in a gold rush of adventurers,

robbers and nations who raced to uncover lost tombs and lost treasure. And the discovery that captivated the world, and still does to this day. The awe surrounding the discovery was not simply what was found, it was the fact that you could see inside, you could see the king's throne, you could see the statues,

you could see the objects that had just been found. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is our special mini-series marking 100 years since Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered. Episode 4, Inside the Tomb. I'm standing outside the entrance of the world's most famous archaeological site. It was discovered in November 1922, 100 years ago. Let's go down. I am of course talking about Tutankhamen's tomb, the teenage pharaoh who died over 3,000 years ago. I'm on a set of steps now going into the limestone of the Valley of the Kings. These steps I'm going down were discovered by Howard Carter's team in early November 1922. They were excavated then covered up

because he got to this mud doorway where I'm standing now. The mud doorway suggested an intact tomb lay beyond and Carter called his sponsor, his friend, his patron, Lord Carnarvon, to come to Egypt as soon as possible. Weeks later, he was here and the excavation could continue. They found beyond this mud door, on which there were cartouches, there were the royal signatures of Tutankhamen. is the pharaoh that carter had been looking for objects with his name on having appeared in other sites around the valley of the kings beyond that mud door is the corridor

that i'm in now a shaft going further down into the earth and then they came to the door of the tomb itself let's come through here they ended up in this chamber here. Very plain. Not decorated at all. It was filled from floor to ceiling with magnificent objects and that suggested that beyond the far wall, guarded by those statues, was the burial chamber itself. Carter made a hole in that wall, pushed through and found the burial

chamber of Tutankhamen. He had succeeded where everyone else had failed. He had found the only undisturbed royal burial in the Valley of the Kings. It was the most extraordinary archaeological breakthrough discovery of all time. Egyptologist Alia Ismail joined me in the tomb. What about Carter and Carver?

It was an incredibly dramatic moment. What did they first see when they entered this room? For them to enter this room, it was magnificent because once they saw all the treasures and they were basically cluttered everywhere. This kind of treasure hasn't been found before. But Carter's first thoughts were could this be a cachet or a tomb? So what's a cachet? A royal cachet is a place where priests would hide and stack away all the mummies, tattoos, treasures, everything. And they would only do that when they were scared that these would be harmed.

And they would do it as a form of safety. When you pass through the stone doorway, you enter a smallest chamber with bare walls. No hieroglyphics or murals of the king. Nowadays, when you enter on your left you can see the actual mummy of Tutankhamun wrapped in linen but back then this would have been the room Howard Carter and Carnarvon entered first with the tomb goods and the statues that suggested this was a tomb and not a cache. This is the curator of the Egypt and Sudan collection at Manchester Museum, Dr Campbell Price.

Two of the most striking objects from the tomb of Tutankhamen are the so-called and rather misnamed guardian statues, said to be exactly life-size based on examination of the body of the king in height, but they actually represent ka statues, two forms or manifestations of the king that may in fact have been used in rituals prior to the death of the king and the funeral. The reason they're called guardians is because they're said to hold threatening weapons and they were either side of the doorway into the burial chamber. In fact, this is a standard arrangement and the objects they hold are standard scepters. They're signs of power. They're not threatening weapons.

Other kings were buried with similar statues, but the statues of Tutankhamen have this particular post-Amarna feel, this kind of slightly androgynous, very sensual look to them. And they appeal to us in almost the same way as the mask. So they stand in for the king ritually, but they appeal to modern sensibilities today. This room, there's none of the carvings or the painting that I've seen in other tombs. Why is it this plain? There's none of the carvings or the painting that I've seen in other tombs.

Why is it this plain? We know from the nature of Tutankhamen's story that this was plain because this tomb was not finished. And the whole idea behind finished and not finished tombs is quite interesting because a tomb is actually never finished. But how elaborate it is is because how long that Pharaoh has survived and lived as Pharaoh. The longer you live the more impressive your tomb. Because you just keep adding chambers. Absolutely. And so Tutankhamun was a teenager so he didn't get a chance to build a huge tomb? Exactly, he died all of a sudden and they pretty much had to finish it up quickly. So that's why there's no painting on these walls?

Yes. But the room was full? The room was full of things. Treasures, things that Carter actually described as wonderful things. Wonderful things, so these are the things he saw? Wonderful films, very well. So these are the things he saw. I suppose most excavators would confess to a feeling of awe, almost embarrassment, when they break into a tomb closed and sealed by pious hands so many centuries ago. Thirty-three centuries had passed since human feet last trod the floor on which we stood,

and yet the signs of recent life were around us. A half-filled bowl of mortar a blackened lamp the chips of wood left on the floor by a careless carpenter Tudor and Cammon's tomb really represents the most complete royal burial to date found in the Valley of the Kings. It was stuffed full of things. And Howard Carter records that when he found the tomb, it was like, you know, a prop room of some forgotten opera. And I think that absolutely

gets to the heart of it. These strange objects, which had been known from other tombs in the Valley of the Kings, both in three dimensions from fragments of these types of objects, but also from two-dimensional scenes on walls, suddenly fully preserved, mostly covered in gold, these objects were there, crammed in together. And so what Tutankhamun's tomb represents is the full panoply of what a king would have been buried with. It represents the kind of full set of what you'd expect to bury with a pharaoh. So you have everything from furniture to underwear, you have coffins to contain the body and shrines, which enclose and protect the body. But you also have games, you have tools, you have practical objects like musical instruments, which are not, I don't think, to while away the eternal hours for the king. They are about rituals that happened in this world,

which are being included as a way of transforming the king and launching him and his spirit and spirits into the great unknown. There are also statues. There's a great emphasis on statues representing gods of various forms so they're present and they protect the king but also representing the king himself multiple times doing various things to ensure his eternal ability to be present. The luxurious Winter Palace on the east bank of the Nairn in Luxor where Lord Carnarvon stayed on his trips to the valley became the press centre for the discovery. The Winter Palace has only changed a little since the day Carter told the world about what he'd found by posting a notice on the hotel's bulletin board.

The politics of the announcement of the discovery were fairly fraught because Lord Carnarvon had a concession and Carter was doing the excavation. It was very much done in the manner of the day, which was through the colonial apparatus of elite British experience in Luxor. So the main base for Carter and Carnarvon was the Old Winter Palace on the east bank of the Nile. And so the announcement was made there. It was done with fairly minimal deference to Egyptian authorities. It was presented very much as a British find. Bear in mind again the colonial imperial context of Britain stepping back

earlier in the year, earlier in 1922, from direct rule of Egypt, there was partial independence was granted. So for Egyptian people, it was very offensive to learn of this great significant discovery through the filter of British colonial staging at the Old Winter Palace. Subsequently, news was filtered through the Times of London and that caused a lot of ill will and ill feeling because news of the discovery had to come through a British news service. It wasn't made freely available to, first of all, the Egyptian and secondly, other international news outlets. So people in Egypt felt disenfranchised by the dissemination of news

about the find. As the news reached the furthest corners of the globe the world was captivated. By Christmas of 1922 Luxor was inundated visitors, consumed by what was dubbed tut fever, hoping to take a peek inside the tomb. The telegraph office was overloaded by newspaper dispatches. Tourist shops sold out of their entire stock of cameras and film, and hotel rooms were impossible to find. So impossible, in fact, that the Winter Palace started setting up canvas tents on the grounds, filled with army c cuts for tourists simply grateful to have any better tool. It's really difficult to underestimate the importance of photography and the story of the discovery of Tutankhamun. Not only was the tomb itself absolutely jaw-droppingly

amazing but the reporting of it just in the aftermath of the First World War was something, albeit in black and white, was really glamorous and colourful and sexy and exotic. photographs were wired all around the world via London, and people felt this sense of voyeurism in a way of taking a peep inside that tomb that had been closed for almost 3,500 years. So the awe surrounding the discovery was not simply what was found. It was the fact that you could see inside. You could see the king's throne, you could see the statues, you could see the objects that had just been found. It's fair to say that Egypt was pretty popular on the travel itineraries of the fairly well-to-do in the 1920s

anyway, but the discovery of Tutankhamen absolutely turbocharged that aspect of the tourist industry. People flocked to the tomb, you know, Carter had to build a wall around the entrance to stop people, you know, at risk of really falling into the entranceway. Inside the tomb, the archaeological team began the lengthy process of clearing it, painstakingly documenting the contents. Each object is given a unique number to record it and for help in documentation. So often Harry Burton's photos appear like they've been taken just as they've stepped into the tomb when in fact this was months after dozens if not hundreds of visitors had been in, and everything had been given a unique number. So Burton's photographs are incredibly useful because they are very clear,

but they create this sense of archaeological knowledge, which is perhaps slightly fantastical. It is not that, for example, Carter's shown at one point opening one of the gilded shrines and there's this very theatrical light reflecting from the gold and showing up in his face like some kind of great revelation. These are very theatrical and very staged photos. What Carter is good at, I guess, is being fairly methodical, meticulous. And some of it is very tough. It needs a lot of logistical help, especially from Egyptian colleagues. You listen to Dan Snow's history.

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Meanwhile, journalists prowled the edge of the dig site, waiting for news. Finally, on February 16th 1923, under the watchful eyes of important officials, Carter opened the door to the last chamber, the burial chamber. Inside a golden shrine lay a sarcophagus with three coffins nested inside one another. The last coffin, made of solid gold, contained the mummified body of Tutankhamun. This was the most valuable treasure of all. It was the first and only royal mummy to have ever been found entirely undisturbed. So this sarcophagus is what he saw when he broke through into this chamber? Actually no. Carter would have seen this being in a shrine and another shrine and a shrine and a shrine and he would have only seen the outer shrine which was completely gilded with gold. It was a magnificent sight. So this whole room was filled with a giant golden box inside which were lots of other

smaller boxes. Golden boxes as well. until you get to the sarcophagus and afterwards you would find the golden coffin within. And so he gets into the sarcophagus, he opens it and he must have been thrilled by what he saw inside. Everybody else had been trying. No one had ever found an intact royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Absolutely, and people thought Carter was a madman to go and dig there. And look at him, what he's found. I carefully cut the cord, removed the precious seal, drew back the bolts, and opened the door. None of us but felt the solemnity of the occasion. In a dead silence the huge lid, weighing over a ton and a quarter, was raised from its bed. Light shone into the sarcophagus, but how disappointing, the contents were completely covered by linen shrouds.

But as the last shroud was rolled back, a gasp of wonderment escaped our lips. So gorgeous was the sight that met our eyes. A golden effigy of the young king of magnificent workmanship filled the whole of the interior. of magnificent workmanship filled the whole of the interior. Tragically, Lord Carnarvon never saw that iconic gold and lapis death mask inside the sarcophagus. But on the 5th of April 1923,

he died. The press had whipped up a frenzy around the discovery, with rumours of incredible treasure, but also rumours of a curse. The Times of London and New York World magazine published speculation from the popular novelist Marie Corelli that the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into the sealed tomb. As well as a mummy's curse, there's also been more recent theories of noxious air that Carnarvon may have inhaled when the tomb's seal was broken.

Scientists have tested the mixture of tomb toxins given off from the ancient meat, food, and of course, the body of the deceased inside. They found that under the right conditions, these toxins could be hazardous. But in the case of Lord Carnarvon, his death wasn't a result of deadly particles. Carnarvon had been chronically sick before, he'd even stepped foot in Tutankhamun's tomb, and his death came months after his first foray into it. Lord Carnarvon was bitten on the face by an insect, and later, while shaving during a stay at the Winter Palace, he cut himself where the bite was. It became infected, causing Carnarvon to fall ill.

He was quickly transported back to Cairo, where he passed away in the middle of the night. He had a high fever, pneumonia in both lungs, and eventually suffered heart and respiratory failure. The papers went into overdrive, flogging Carnarvon's death as proof of the mummy's curse after all. Arthur Conan Doyle, the celebrated Sherlock Holmes author, was quoted in the American press saying, an evil elemental spirit protecting the mummy could be responsible. It was a tragedy for Carter and his team, who nonetheless continued their excavations into the burial chamber. In the grand scheme of things, Tutankhamun's tomb, despite its fame,

is actually rather pokey and small. Previous kings and certainly later kings had much bigger, much more elaborate, much more richly decorated tombs. That's probably a historical accident because Tutankhamen died fairly unexpectedly and had to be put in a ready-made sepulchre that was at hand. who had a much larger space, much more interestingly decorated with religious texts, or someone like Ramesses II who had 67 years on the throne and used it to create a big tomb. Even King Seti I, who didn't rule for that much longer than Tutankhamen, had a beautifully decorated, very elaborate tomb that could have held three, four, five times the amount of objects. Whether it did or not is unknown because they don't survive, but it could potentially have held many times more objects than Tutankhamen was buried with. The clearance of the tomb took 10 years from 1922 to 1932.

of the tomb took 10 years from 1922 to 1932. People like Alfred Lucas, a chemist, were brought in to help patch things up, to conserve things before they were taken out of the tomb. And there were things which were difficult from another point of view. So the excavation and atomisation of Tutankhamen's body from that inner golden coffin is difficult hard work and in fact it involved pulling the king's body apart in order to get to the jewelry and to record everything that was in situ. They didn't leave Tutankhamen alone he was just pulled apart in the process of retrieving all those objects he was buried with in that most intimate fashion. Once documented they were transported by steamer up the Nile to Cairo. Prior to the discovery of Tutankhamen in 1922 there had been in force this system, this convention of fines division, where incomplete or disturbed burials were divided between the National Museum in Cairo and the archaeologist who made the discovery.

And so by that means, a lot of material was exported from Egypt to museums and private collections around the world. There was an expectation when Carter and Carnarvon made that discovery that maybe part of the find would be sent to the sponsor, who was Carnarvon. It didn't end up happening. The tomb was essentially intact, so there was a rule that intact burials, certainly of of royalty should belong solely in Egypt. But what actually happened was it was a kind of piecemeal removal where the objects were conserved in the tomb of Seti II, the so-called laboratory tomb higher up in the Valley of the Kings, a spacious tomb that allowed conservators to work on objects and prepare them for the trip to Cairo. There had initially been the expectation objects might be exported. The Egyptian nationalist government put a complete stop to that and most of the material went directly on display

at the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo. This is the echoing, beautiful, neoclassical Egyptian museum in the heart of Cairo. Tourists flocking in here to look at the treasures of ancient Egypt gathered together from all over this country. So we're standing here in the empty gallery surrounded by the most famous archaeological objects ever recovered in history. My name is Eid Mirtah. I am a conservator here in Cairo Museum since 2011. You must be so proud that this is the greatest collection. Yes, of course. This is the greatest collection we have and also we have here also the main masterpiece of the Egyptian collection, the Golden Mask of Tutankhamun and we are so lucky to have all of this nice object with us here as a museum.

How many objects are we talking about? Thousands? Around 5,500 objects. It was discovered inside the tomb of Tutankhamun. What does Tutankhamun and his objects mean to Egyptians today? It really means a lot. It's part of our history. It's part from the history of all the human beings. And we are so happy to represent all of this nice object for all the tourists from all the world to come here to Egypt to enjoy this nice object. By the time Carter finished clearing the tomb by 1932, there were more things happening in the world

that maybe meant that Tutankhamun wasn't as important and you can definitely see interest in him by looking at how often the name Tutankhamun appears in the international press definitely declines through the 1940s into the 1950s. I always say that if we'd found the tomb of another king intact, or at those relative points in Egyptian history, the style, the visual culture of artistic representation of the mummy mask of those kings, although undoubtedly very rich, would not have had this incredible, haunting,

sensuous post-Amarna face. That incredible face of the mask, which of course is not a portrait, it's a highly stylised, divine version of the king's visage. It shows this kind of ageless but young face looking out this kind of pair of lidless eyes, looking out into eternity and striking that chord with people who had lost sons in the First World War. So all of that added significance to the timing of the discovery in the 1920s. And I think really no other king at no other time could have made quite the impact. It was just the right time to catch the mood.

And it was, of course, an incredible discovery in terms of total content, but it told us rather less than we might have liked about ancient Egypt but my god didn't it wow the international community with the quality of the objects that were found. After Howard Carter completed the tomb excavation in 1932 he returned to England where he worked as a collector for various museums. He came back to Egypt occasionally where he stayed at his West Bank home on the outskirts of the Valley of the Kings. He was occasionally seen at the Winter Palace Hotel visiting friends. This is when he met Agatha Christie and her then archaeologist husband Max Maloan. The crime author was later quoted as saying that she and her husband found Carter a sardonic and entertaining character. The trio

could be found playing bridge together at the hotel. Howard Carter continued to live in this house on a seasonal basis at least until 1939, which was the date of his death. I think he was quite bitter at his treatment at various points in his career. The whole controversy about access to the tomb. There was a controversy about the Times being granted an exclusive right to report on the discoveries from the tomb, which a lot of people objected to. His attitude towards allowing visitors into the tomb was also something that was considered to be reprehensible because obviously many Egyptians were interested in visiting the tomb.

And he only allowed, he took the royalty in, but he didn't take other people in. And this ties in with the whole development of Egyptian nationalism, particularly strong after 1918, 19, through the 1920s, coincident entirely with the discovery of the tomb and the beginning, if you like, of another wave of Egyptomania which seized the world. Touch branding on everything from tins of sardines to music to you name it, ashtrays, everything.

It continues to this day. I mean, it's the single most recognizable archeological artifact, the Mask of Tutankhamun, in the world, I think, actually. So I think he was probably quite bitter about the fact that he didn't receive any great academic acclaim for his work. It was a remarkable thing that he did.

I mean, he made an extraordinary contribution to the world, not just through the discovery, but what he made of the discovery. In the middle of the 20th century, interest in Tutankhamun declined, but only briefly. In the 1960s, international tours of the tomb contents gave Tutmania a revival. It's now back at the Cairo Museum, but not for long. It will be housed in its entirety, over 5,000 objects, at the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, the first time the entire collection will be together since it was taken from the tomb 100 years ago. What remains to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings? I'm sure a few significant findings will still emerge from the Valley of the Kings.

I wouldn't like to put my money on it, but there are kings, queens, named individuals whose burials are not known and who most likely were buried in the Valley of the Kings. So perhaps they await discovery in future. We've come to the Souk in Luxor, which is the narrow collection of pedestrianised streets which makes up the traditional street markets. It's the classic feature of any North African, Middle Eastern city. It's bursting with life. People shopping, tourists looking for a bite to eat or to buy some curios. And everywhere I look, Tutankhamen, the golden teenager, is staring out at me.

This shopkeeper here is trying to sell me scrolls of papyrus. I got the images from some of the chests that shows Tutankhamen in his chariot, shooting his bow and arrows, smiting his enemies. Almost certainly didn't happen in real life, folks. I got his death mask, obviously. What is very, very clear here is the importance, the centrality

of Tutankhamen as an image, as a brand to Egyptian identity and certainly tourism. He's on t-shirts, he's on necklaces, he's on the name of restaurants and cafes. Looking around now I'm wondering if Tutankhamun is like a top five most famous individual to have ever lived on this planet. Not because of what he did

when he was alive. No, he was a boy, a teenager who ruled for a few years over Egypt thousands of years ago. But it's his reputation in death that is so pervasive. His royal tomb was found relatively undisturbed and it was found recently enough that newspapers, photographers, a globalized media could become obsessed with him and his image would be broadcast all over the world. Back in the roaring 20s the discovery of Tutankhamen led to an explosion of Egyptomania in fashion and design and tourism. And I think, in a way, that high tide has never really ebbed. For the past 100 years, we have remained enduringly obsessed with Tutankhamen,

and that passion doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. This has been our mini-series telling the story of the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb on its 100th anniversary. If you've enjoyed this, please like, subscribe, and leave Dan Snow's History Hit a review wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dan Snow. This episode was written and produced by Marianna Desforges and mixed by Dougal Patmore.

To see my latest adventure to the Valley of the Kings and entering the tomb of Tutankhamun, go to channel5.com and search for Dan Snow into the Valley of the Kings. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.