TAA i.3.9.26

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it was doubtful if much of the sepulchral hall was still sterile.

One has to remember the circumstances. In a letter Mr. Lucas

said:- <">The doorway is a large opening, some three metres high

by two metres broad and half a metre dd/<e>ep. This was filled up

with masonary (limestone blocks) and plastered over with a thick

coating of morat<a>r – like material, on the surface of which, when

wet, the seals were impressed. To demolish this construs/<c>tion

naturally took some time (about 2 hours) and meanwhile there were

those engaged in the demolition, sundry workmen, and about twenty

visitors watching the operation and hence millions of bacteria

and a certain amount of dust (not large however). When the door-

way was opened, Mr. Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon and others went in.

          <">I took the swabs in a far corner of the room at the

end of a narrow passage between the large shrine and the wall

and several metres away from where anyone had trodden. The room

is almost entirely filled up from floor to ceiling with the shrine.

          <">All the swabs were taken from the N.W. corner of the

sepulchral hall and are marked.

          <">I took six swabs and the rest of the tubes </> I am keeping

in the hope that I may be able to use them profitably. The shrines

and the sarcophagus inside will not be opened until next year.

(that is this season) also various closed boxes, so I may be able

to do something mor<e> for you then".

          Mr. Lucas enclosed a sketch, and says that no one ex-

cept himself entered this passage at all.

          Even in the life of a bacteriologist there are romantic

moments, and I must confess to a feeling of ill-suppressed ex-

citement when the six swabs tubes arrived, containing dust from

the inner chamber of the tomb,/<.> – a/<A>fter three thousand years

these gragments^sic of material handled by the kings servants had