A letter found years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, who was a boy king, says that long-held suspicions have been confirmed.
For a long time, it was believed and rumored by Egyptians that Howard Carter taking things before the tomb was opened.
Previously unpublished letter that Carter allegedly handled stolen property.
Sir Alan Gardiner, the author of this article, is a leading philologist. Carter had enlisted him to translate hieroglyphs found in the 3,300-year-old tomb and later gave him an amulet for offerings to the dead as insurance.
Rex Engelbach, the then-British director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, was shown the amulet by Gardiner. He was shocked to learn that it had definitely come from the tomb since it matched other samples – all of which were created from the same mould.
Carter is the recipient of the letter. The letter included a negative reaction from Engelbach, who declared, “The amulet you showed me was taken from Tutankhamun’s tomb.”
“I think it will therefore be prudent to start planning for some reconstruction,” Carter suggests to Heckelman.
He said he would not tell Engelbach he got the amulet from me.
The letters have been in a private collection, but they will soon be published in a book from Oxford University Press.
According to The Observer, many individuals have speculated about Carter collecting treasures for himself, but this can no longer be disputed.
Carter and Carnarvon discovered the tomb on King Tutankhamun and supervised the removal of all his objects to Cairo.
Some Egyptologists have challenged Carter’s claim that the tomb’s treasures had been looted in antique times. They said that he broke open the tomb himself and then resealed it. This was reported in a Cairo journal in 1947, by one of his employees, Alfred Lucas.
As Anthony Brier revealed in his interview about the Tutankhamun exhibit, Carter was convicted for having stolen rare artifacts from the tomb. These letters prove he wasn’t acting alone.
Based on the evidence, they suspect he was stealing from the tomb.
He discusses how Egyptians were unable to take proof of Carter’s suspicion, and so Carter was only accused of planning to steal.
The main character said: “Later, we find objects on the Egyptian antiquities market from his estate that clearly came from the tomb.”
Some entered institutions, notably New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which declared in 2010 that it will return to Egypt 19 pieces purchased between the 1920s and 1940s since they “may be ascribed with confidence to Tutankhamun’s tomb.”
The late Harry James relies on Carter letters in the Griffith Institute at the University of Oxford in his 1992 book on Carter, which refer to a fight with Gardiner that resulted in the return of an amulet to Cairo.
The previously revealed email is significant since the charge came from a respected specialist who was really participating in the first dig.
Brier believes Carter would have struggled to face Engelbach, who had “too much authority and truly understood his thing.”
