Tutankhamun, a Newspaper Curse and a Book That Was Never a Book: Where Legacy of Dead's Egypt Comes From
Valley of the Kings, Egypt, November 1922. Howard Carter's workers uncover a step cut into the rock, then a staircase, then a sealed doorway carrying the name of Tutankhamun, a minor king who had died young more than three thousand years earlier. Within weeks, the tomb was one of the most reported archaeological finds in the world. A century later, its imagery still sits on slot reels: the gold mask, the sarcophagus, the scarab, and a book that the ancient Egyptians never actually called a book. A tomb that became a news event The facts of the discovery are well documented. Carter, working for his patron George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, found the entrance to tomb KV62 in early November 1922. On 26 November, Carter and Carnarvon looked into the antechamber by candlelight. The most quoted line from that evening, "wonderful things", comes from the account Carter published afterwards; notes written closer to the moment record the exchange in slightly different ...