Howard Carter

British Egyptologist, and artist. He was born in Kensington, London, 9 March 1874, son of Samuel John C., artist, and Martha Joyce Sands. Owing to delicate health, he was educated privately and later taught to draw and paint by his father who was an animal painter.

On the recommendation of Lady Amherst (1857–1919), he joined the staff of the Archaeological Survey under Percy E. Newberry (1868–1949) in 1891 aged seventeen, and so began his career in Egyptology. He trained under William M. F. Petrie (1853–1942), Francis L. Griffith (1862–1934), and Édouard Naville (1844–1926). After some preliminary training for the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF) in England, he did drawings for the EEF Survey at Beni Hasan and El Bersheh in 1892–1893. In 1892 he joined Petrie in excavating at Amarna where he worked for Lord Amherst (1835–1909) under Petrie’s supervision. He was then made draughtsman to the Deir el-Bahri expedition under Naville where he worked for six years in 1893–1899, his pencil drawings being reproduced in collotype in the six published volumes. This gigantic task, undertaken with the help of other artists, involved the copying of all the scenes and inscriptions then visible on the temple for the folios, and showed him to be the equal of the greatest copyists.

In 1899 he was appointed Chief Inspector of Antiquities of Upper Egypt in the Antiquities Service of the Egyptian Government, and he reorganised the antiquities administration for Upper Egypt under Sir William E. Garstin (1848–1925) and Gaston C. C. Maspero (1846–1916). In this capacity he installed electric light for the first time in the Tombs of the Kings and at Abu Simbel. From 1902 he supervised the excavations of Theodore M. Davis (1835–1915) in the Valley of the Kings. In 1904 he was given the inspectorate of Lower Egypt. He was at Saqqara in January 1905 when a dispute with some French tourists led to his transfer to new headquarters at Tanta. His dissatisfaction with his treatment in this matter led to his resignation from the Service in November 1905.

He spent the next four years as a watercolour painter and guide, returning to work in the Theban necropolis for Lord Carnarvon (1866–1923) in 1909. In all, at different times he discovered no fewer than six royal tombs, including his most famous find, that of Tutankhamun. The first in chronological order was the dummy tomb of Neb-hepet-re Mentuhotep, followed by Queen Hatshepsut's later tomb, the tomb of Thutmose IV, a tomb identified as that of Amenhotep I, and finally that of Hatshepsut when consort; he also discovered the valley temple of Hatshepsut. After the war he spent the winters from 1917 to 1922 searching the Valley of the Kings, but found little until the dramatic discovery of Tutankhamun in November 1922, the greatest archaeological discovery ever made in Egypt.

The clearance of the tomb, and the packing and removal of its contents to Cairo Museum, took Carter and a staff of experts a full ten years to complete. The extensive records, a body of material much of which remains unpublished, together with Carter’s diaries and papers, are preserved in the Griffith Institute, Oxford, to which they were given by his niece Phyllis J. Walker (1887–1977). He was unable to bring out a definitive report on his discovery and did no further archaeological work.

He published a number of articles in journals, particularly Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte, and the following books: The Tomb of Thoutmôsis IV, with Newberry (1904); The Tomb of Hâtshopsîtû, with Davis and others (1906); The Tomb of louiya and Touiyou, with Maspero and Newberry (1906); Five Years Explorations at Thebes; a record of work done, 1907–1911 ..., with Lord Carnarvon (1912); The Tomb of Tut. ankh. Amen, in 3 volumes (1923–1933), with Arthur C. Mace (1874–1928); his 1924 privately circulated statement The Tomb of Tut-ankh-amen: Statement with documents, as to the events which occurred in Egypt in the Winter of 1923–24 leading to the ultimate break with the Egyptian Government was published in 1998 as Tut.ankh.amen: The Politics of Discovery.

He died in Kensington, London, 2 March 1939 and was buried in Putney Vale cemetery, London.