Council of Antiquities, as he leaned over the body for a long first look. Carter—Howard Carter, that is — was the British archaeologist who in discovered Tut’s tomb after years of futile searching. Its contents, though hastily ransacked in antiquity, were surprisingly complete. They remain the richest royal collection ever found and have become part of the pharaoh’s legend.
Stunning artefacts in gold, their eternal brilliance meant to guarantee resurrection , caused a sensation at the time of the discovery — and still get the most attention. But Tut was also buried with everyday things he’d want in the afterlife: board games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine. After months of carefully recording the pharaoh’s funerary treasures , Carter began investigating his three nested coffins. Opening the first, he found a shroud adorned with garlands of willow and olive leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers, the faded evidence of a burial in March or April.
When he finally reached the mummy, though, he ran into trouble. The ritual resins had hardened, cementing Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. “No amount of legitimate force could move them,” Carter wrote later. “What was to be done?” The sun can beat down like a hammer this far south in Egypt, and Carter tried to use it to loosen the resins.
For several hours * See map on next page (map not to scale) AFRICA ASIA River EGYPT Nile he set the mummy outside in blazing sunshine that heated it to degrees Fahrenheit. Nothing budged. He reported with scientific detachment that “the consolidated material had to be chiselled away from beneath the limbs and trunk before it was possible to raise the king’s remains.” In his defence, Carter really had little choice. If he hadn’t cut the mummy free, thieves most certainly would have circumvented the guards and ripped it apart to remove the gold.
In Tut’s time the royals were fabulously wealthy, and they thought — or hoped — they could take their riches with them. For his journey to the