153a: The Tomb of Tutankhamun (Part 1)
The History of Egypt
The First Step to a Monument
On the 4th of November 1922, a stone staircase leading to a monument had come to light. An exciting tale was about to unfold. In those early days, no one knew what they had found. A step could be anything. It could be a tomb, or an unfinished monument,. something abandoned mid-construction. On this first day, all they had were a couple of steps. What lay ahead? That was still a mystery.
Seek and Discover. In this episode, we begin the tale of the most famous tomb in history. KV62, a small monument, in the lower reaches of the Valley of the Kings. Overlooked for three thousand years, the tomb finally emerged thanks to a persistent excavator and a stroke of good fortune. However, the Tomb of Tutankhamun has built up its own mythology. In this episode, we begin to explore the tomb, and its discovery, including some lesser-known questions...
Episode Chapters
- Chapter 1: A Long-Expected Pharaoh 04:15
- Chapter 2: The Stairway to the Past 27:36
- Chapter 3: The Door Goes West 46:51
- Chapter 4: Candles in the Dark 1:08:40
- Chapter 5: The Antechamber Unmasked 1:22:52
- Conclusion: 1:38:55
Episode Links
- Howard Carter and George Herbert (Lord Carnarvon), Five Years' Exploration at Thebes: A Record of Work Done 1907-1911 by The Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter, 1912. Available at Project Gutenberg and Archive.org.
- Christina Riggs, "Waterboys and Wishful Thinking," https://photographing-tutankhamun.com/2020/06/20/the-water-boy-who-wasnt/
- For the full archive of Harry Burton’s photographs, showing the tomb of Tutankhamun in its original state, see the Griffith Institute website.
- Date: 1922 CE.
- Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com.
- Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast.
- Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments.
- Logo image: A statue of Tutankhamun, from the antechamber of his tomb. Photo by Skip Howard.
- Music by Keith Zizza https://www.keithzizza.net/
- Music by Michael Levy http://www.ancientlyre.com/
- Music by Ancient Lyric http://www.bettinajoydeguzman.com/
- Sound interludes by Luke Chaos https://twitter.com/Luke_Chaos
- Audio mixing/editing by Vincent Cavanagh.
Select Bibliography:
- H. Assaad and D. Kolos, The Name of the Dead: Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of the Treasures of Tutankhamun Translated (Missisauga, 1979).
- H. Beinlich and M. Saleh, Corpus der Hieroglyphischen Inschriften aus dem Grab des Tutanchamun (Oxford, 1989).
- E. C. Brock, ‘A Possible Chariot Canopy for Tutankhamun’, in A. Veldmeijer and S. Ikram (eds.), Chasing Chariots: Proceedings of the First International Chariot Conference (Cairo 2012) (Leiden, 2013), 29–44.
- H. Carter, The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen, II (London, 1927).
- H. Carter, The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen, III (2000 Reprint edn, London, 1933).
- H. Carter and A. C. Mace, The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen, I (London, 1923).
- T. M. Davis, The Tombs of Harmhabi and Toutânkhamanou (2001 Reprint edn, London, 1912).
- E. S. Edwards, ‘Some Reflections on the Tutankhamun Exhibition’, The Burlington Magazine 114 (1972), 202–8.
- Z. Hawass, Discovering Tutankhamun: From Howard Carter to DNA (Cairo, 2013).
- Z. Hawass and S. Vannini, Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb (London, 2018).
- T. Hoving, Tutankhamun: The Untold Story (New York, 1978).
- T. G. H. James, Howard Carter: The Path to Tutankhamun (Tauris 2001 edn, New York, 1992).
- N. Kawai et al., ‘The Ceremonial Canopied Chariot of Tutankhamun (JE61990 and JE60705) A Tentative Virtual Reconstruction’, CIPEG 4 (2020), 1–11.
- N. Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun (Cairo, 1990).
- N. Reeves, ‘Tutankhamun’s Mask Reconsidered’, Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar: The Art and Culture of Ancient Egypt: Studies in Honor of Dorothea Arnold 19 (2015), 511–26.
- N. Reeves and J. H. Taylor, Howard Carter Before Tutankhamun (London, 1992).
- N. Reeves and R. H. Wilkinson, The Complete Valley of the Kings (London, 1996).
- The Griffith Institute, ‘Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation’, The Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, <http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/discoveringTut/> accessed .
- Theban Mapping Project, ‘KV 62 The Tomb of Tutankhamun’.
- Unknown Author, ‘Work at the Tomb of Tutankhamun’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 33 (1975), 96–108.
- K. R. Weeks, ‘The Component Parts of KV Royal Tombs’, in R. H. Wilkinson and K. R. Weeks (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Valley of the Kings (New York, 2014), 98—117.
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