Petrie tutored Carter and developed hiim into an archaeologist while still using his artistic skills.
In 1908 he was introduced to the Fifth Lord Carnarvon, a man who funded many
archaeological projects.
He became the Supervisor of the Excavations funded by Carnarvon in Thebes.
This relationship between Carter and Carnarvon made Carnarvon very wealthy
because he owned one of the most valuable, private collections of Egyptian
artifacts.
Carter had his sights set on finding the tomb of a fairly unknown pharoah
at the time, King Tutankhamen.
There were few clues that led to the existence of the tomb.
After he removed that, Carter fell into the most important discoveries
of the twentieth century, King Tut's Tomb.
All of the artifacts took a decade to catalogue.
Lord Carnarvon was bit by a mosquito and eventually died of pneumonia.
The media caught wind of this news and said he died because it was
King Tut's curse.
That find was obviously the height of his archaeological career.
Howard Carter then died on March 2, 1939.
Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb had many valuable artifacts
within the tomb.
This is one of the main reasons why King Tut's tomb is so famous!
The Treasures of the Tomb
To begin, here is a map of King Tut's Tomb.
Carter first went up the stairs, then through a short corridor.
The first room that he came to was the antechamber. This is the room where
many of Tut's household items for his eternal voyage was kept.
Most of the antechamber was filled with a huge shrine, made of cedar, and
covered with gold. This shrine was seventeen feet by eleven feet and stood
nine feet high.
Besides the shrine, there were many objects that had ritual and personal meaning.
Many of these objects include:
Seven oars
A silver trumpet
A wooden goose
Two rushwork baskets
Then Carter went into the burial chamber.
This was guarded by statues that represented the royal Ka or soul and a statue
named Osiris who symbolizes the hope of rebirth. Here is a picture of Osiris:
The burial chamber holds, obviously, Tut's coffin but also his sacrophagus.
The burial chamber contained a total of four shrines.
One of the shrines was a red quartzite sacrophagus.
The others were three different nesting coffins.
King Tut's mummy was in the innermost coffin.
The mummy is constructed of solid gold and weighs about 243 pounds.
King Tut's complete body was wrapped in linen.
His face was covered with a gold mask. This is possibly the most famous mask in
history.
The walls of the burial chamber are painted with scenes of King Tut in the
afterworld. Here is what they look like:
Past the burial chamber was a room called the treasury room.
This room had been boarded up for four years while Carter's archaeological
team cleared the rest of the rooms.
At the entrance of treasury room was Anubis, the Jackal god.
It was a dog-like figure carved of wood and here is what he looks like:
Behind Anubis was the Canopic Shrine. Within this was King Tut's embalmbed
organs.
Behind that 22 wooden shrines that were placed on a number of models of boats.
These shrines were shrines of the Gods. Such as:
This room also contained many wooden boxes that had shawabti figures.
These figures were known as servants to King Tut in the afterworld if he was
required to do any work.
Also in the room was a row of caskets that contained jewelry. Some thieves got
a hold of these caskets, but there was still much jewelry left. Here are some of
the contents:
These are most of the objects and artifacts form the discovery of King Tut's tomb.