153a: The Tomb of Tutankhamun (Part 1)
The History of Egypt
The Crucial Moment
Howard Carter and his companions broke through the door of Tutankhamin's tomb. The legendary moment is remembered, romanticised and mythologised. At this point, no one knew what lay beyond - maybe a chamber? Maybe another corridor? Maybe a hole? Maybe nothing. In the final moments, Carter still thought he had probably found a cache. With so much excitement, perhaps hindsight was murky.
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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