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Chicken, perfumes, an iron dagger and a hundred pounds of gold

The telegram Lord Carnarvon received on November 6, 1922 sounded euphoric: 'Have finally made wonderful discovery in the valley.

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Chicken, perfumes, an iron dagger and a hundred pounds of gold

The telegram Lord Carnarvon received on November 6, 1922 sounded euphoric: 'Have finally made wonderful discovery in the valley. A magnificent tomb with seals untouched. Everything covered again until your arrival. Congratulations,” archaeologist Howard Carter wrote to the man who had financed his digs in Egypt for 13 years through adversity and disappointment. Now the Briton sensed that he was about to make a great discovery. That would prove to be an understatement: Pharaoh Tutankhamun's pristine tomb became a global event.

Even 100 years later, Carter's find has lost none of its fascination. Whether in the original or as a reconstruction, the grave goods in exhibitions attract crowds of spectators. They fuel the Egyptomania of high culture and Hollywood and form the core of the Great Egyptian Museum near Cairo, which will be the largest archaeological museum in the world when it opens in a few months (the exact date is not yet known). The Egyptologist Nadja Tomoum ​​has now dedicated a kind of manual to the phenomenon of the Golden Pharaoh (“The Secret of Tutankhamun”, C. H. Beck, 303 pages, 23 euros). It tells the adventurous rediscovery and cuts a trail through the analyses, studies and speculations that continue to provoke Tutankhamun and his treasures.

The search began in the early 1890s. Then Howard Carter received the offer to make drawings on site for the Egypt Exploration Fund of British Egypt lovers. The son of a London artist presented himself as an ideal candidate, showing talent and low standards. The quality of his pictures convinced the chief excavator of the find, Flinders Petrie, to take the temporary draftsman on his staff. From him Carter learned the basics of Egyptian archeology.

With this armamentarium, Carter rose to become chief inspector of antiquities for the Nile Delta. But stubborn as he was, he lost the job over a diplomatic faux pas - French tourists felt offended by him. Fortunately for him, he soon made the acquaintance of George Herbert, fifth Earl of Carnarvon.

This Englishman, as wealthy as he was whimsical, had been advised by his doctors to ease the pain of his injuries sustained in a car accident in Egypt's warm and dry climate. Like many gentlemen, he liked the idea of ​​passing the time looking for archaeological treasures. In 1909 he employed Carter as excavation director.

The goal was to set the spade in the Valley of the Kings near Thebes, where numerous tombs of pharaohs and high officials had already been discovered. After all, since the New Kingdom, i.e. from around 1550 BC, the place was BC, the preferred necropolis of the Egyptian upper class. However, it was blocked by the American Theodore Davis, who had acquired the excavation license in good time. Some finds with names led him to believe that he had discovered the tomb of a little-known pharaoh named Tutankhamun. In 1912 he decided "that the Valley of the Kings was now exhausted" and withdrew.

Carter wasn't convinced. For the tomb of a king of the 18th dynasty, the alleged chamber of Tutankhamun presented by Davis was "simply ridiculous". The Briton based this on the conviction that somewhere between the tombs identified so far, all of which had already been emptied by tomb robbers, there must still be the mortuary chamber of the pharaoh. Carnarvon wrote the checks willingly.

However, the lord's trust was put to a severe test. First the outbreak of World War I stopped the work, then the Egyptian administration opposed it, and finally the finds did not justify the enormous costs - Carter even had a light railway built to transport the rubble. The archaeologist found it difficult to persuade his patron to finance a sixth, final excavation campaign in 1922.

Meanwhile Carter had staked out a triangle in the middle of the valley which he was systematically examining. On November 4, 1922, eight days after the start of the work, his people reported to him a sensational find that a young water carrier had made. "The step (was) the beginning of a steep excavation cut into the rock ... of the type of a descending stairway entrance to a tomb of the 18th Dynasty construction type," quotes Nadja Tomoum ​​from the excavation log.

Two days later, Carter had worked his way to a door whose seals were still intact. Through a hole he spied a corridor filled with rubble. "Anything, literally anything, could be behind that hallway," he wrote. "It took all my self-discipline not to force the doorway open."

Instead, Carter sent the telegram quoted above to Carnarvon. Until its arrival, he inspected the 433rd find he had made in the valley since he began digging - and discovered traces of holes that grave robbers had left in the wall. However, they had been closed again in good time. Lord Carnarvon arrived on November 25th and the next day the solution was to come.

"At first I saw nothing, the warm air escaping the chamber making the candle flame flicker," Carter wrote. "But then, as my eyes adjusted to the light conditions, I saw details of the room emerge from the dust, strange animals, statues and gold, everywhere the shine of gold shone." The archaeologist and the lord stood in front of the only intact pharaoh's tomb , which has been recovered to this day.

The official opening of the sarcophagus on February 16, 1923 did not take place in a small circle, but in front of 20 selected guests. The unknown pharaoh had long since triggered worldwide media hype, since his gold seemed to be the fantastic stuff to brighten up the sadness of the post-war period; the inner coffin alone consists of 110 kilograms of precious metal. The death of Lord Carnarvon after a mosquito bite a few weeks later also gave rise to wild speculation about a "curse" on the rudely awakened king.

"No other excavator of his time would have had the tenacity and perseverance to keep the salvage work on the most sensational, but also most nerve-racking archaeological find of the 20th century going for a decade," says Nadja Tomoum ​​of Carter's achievement. He still found the time to document his finds up to his death in 1939. In doing so, he opened up numerous new perspectives for Egyptology. Because the more than 5300 grave goods in KV62, such as Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV=Kings Valley), are counted, offer the whole spectrum of life in the pharaonic state.

Its inhabitants were convinced that the welfare of their community in this world would depend on the endowment of their deceased leader in the afterlife. Therefore, Tutankhamun alone was given 31 seats, from the golden throne to simple stools. 145 robes, kilts, tunics and loincloths guaranteed a befitting appearance, as well as gloves, belts and long-haired wigs and of course insignia such as a crosier and scepter as well as 35 pairs of shoes and 130 walking sticks, which he probably needed in life because of a deformity in his left foot.

Researchers have calculated that the precious vessels must have contained around 350 liters of perfumes, oils and ointments. While mountains of jewelry made for a fine appearance, the 116 baskets with food showed which fruits and spices were served on the Nile country table. Barley and wheat could also be used to make beer. 48 vessels prove the popularity of beef and poultry.

Six floats ensured mobility, while games and musical instruments provided entertainment. The armory of eight shields, two swords, 44 bows and hundreds of arrows gives an idea of ​​how the armies of the New Kingdom were equipped. A dagger was made from the iron of a meteorite, because the preparation of the element from earthly sources had not yet been invented.

This abundance was crammed into an 80 square meter tomb that was not intended to house a pharaoh. But since the ruler was probably not even 20 years old, a complex was quickly rebuilt, which a high official had had driven into the rock in good time. The small size and rubble of higher tombs gave Tutankhamun's dead house a chance to remain unrecognized.

The small tomb fits the political role played by the youthful pharaoh during his lifetime. According to recent DNA studies of mummies, he was the biological son of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, known as Akhenaten, and a concubine who was also a sister of his. According to this, Akhenaten's main wife Nefertiti would not have been the mother. However, the identification of the mummies is by no means unequivocal.

This gave British archaeologist Nicholas Reeves the chance in 2015 to assume that Nefertiti was behind Tutankhamun's burial chamber. Ground radar investigations have made the existence of cavities probable. However, since the painted walls would have to be torn down for their analysis, it remains a matter of speculation for the time being. So you can continue to dream of the pharaoh's undiscovered secrets.

The 18th Dynasty New Kingdom was an empire that stretched from Sudan to Syria. Pharaoh Akhenaten had initiated a religious revolution by making the sun god Aten the sole god of the empire. After a reign of several years, his son Tutanchaton ("living image of Aten") arrived at the age of eight around 1332 BC. on the throne. Under him, the powerful Amun priesthood was able to restore the old gods, which is reflected in the adoption of the name Tutankhamen ("living image of Amun").

The affairs of state were conducted by the grand vizier and the commander-in-chief of the army. The young pharaoh was probably married to a sister, two female fetuses in the grave could be his unborn children. There are many theories about the cause of the pharaoh's death - from a disease to an accident and gangrene to murder.

Nadja Tomoum: "The Mystery of Tutankhamun. The golden pharaoh and his adventurous rediscovery”. (C. H. Beck, Munich. 303 p., 23 euros)

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