The Mystery of the First Chamber of King Tutankhamun

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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