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The work of modern exploration of the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings can be said to have begun in 1819 when the traveller Belzoni opened and wrote a description of the tomb of Seti I. In 1881 the discovery was made of a collection of royal mummies, many of which had been buried about thirty centuries ago in the Valley of the Tombs, and had been removed about 1000 b.c. and hidden in a chamber in the great cliff (behind Deir el Bahari) that faces the Nile across the Theban plain. This stimulated renewed interest in the famous necropolis, but it was not until 1898 that the work of exploration there was rewarded by the discovery of the tomb of Amenhotep II containing the mummy of that pharaoh himself—the only king’s mummy ever found in his own tomb before the discovery of Tutankhamen’s, in which it is confidently believed the mummy is present and undisturbed, an unprecedented circumstance which will make the investigations next winter peculiarly important. For the mummy of Amenhotep II had been badly plundered like all those discovered before or since until the opening of Tutankhamen’s burial chamber made it practically certain that in it will be revealed for the first time to modern men the undisturbed tomb of an ancient Egyptian king.

When Mr Howard Carter was appointed Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt his chief function was to safeguard the antiquities in the Thebaid. The Egyptian Government through its Archæological Committee has been in the habit (until the present year, when the wise rule that encouraged serious archæological exploration is being revoked) of granting to archæologists whose competence was regarded as satisfactory permission to excavate on ancient sites, and the Antiquities Department allowed such workers to take out of the country half the antiquities brought to light. But the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings was excluded from the operation of this rule, because the Antiquities Department reserved for itself a site of such historical importance. Hence when Mr Howard Carter took charge of the Theban inspectorate he was in a serious dilemma. The deserted Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, in the hidden depths of which was hoarded the remains of the vastest collection of valuable antiquities ever assembled, was in his charge, and alongside it the modern population of Luxor and Sheikh abd-el-Gournah, the most skilful and persistent group of tomb-robbers who had been habituated to the practice of this craft for many centuries. Yet he could not solve the difficulty by the most efficient form of control, that is, by carrying on excavations there, because the Antiquities Department had no funds for such work and, for the reasons already given, private excavators were not allowed to work in the Valley of the Tombs. Mr Carter was fortunate in being able to find a solution of the problem that evaded all these difficulties. Mr Theodore M. Davis, of Newport, Rhode Island, who was visiting Egypt as a tourist in the winter 1902-1903, was persuaded to place at the disposal of the Department of Antiquities the funds for exploration in the Valley of the Tombs without claiming any reward beyond the kudos which his action brought. Hence in 1903 Mr Howard Carter began excavating in the Valley at Mr Davis’s expense and discovered the tomb of Thothmes IV. The mummy of this pharaoh, which had been found in 1898 by M. Loret in the tomb of Amenhotep II, was unwrapped after its original tomb was found; and at Mr Carter’s suggestion, M. Maspero asked me to investigate it. Mr Davis published a magnificent volume giving a report of the work in the tomb and the results of the investigation of the mummy. In the following years the expedition financed by Mr Davis found six other important inscribed tombs, those of Queen Hatshepsut, Yuaa and Tuaa (the parents of Queen Tiy), King Siptah, Prince Mentuherkhepshef, King Akhenaton and King Horemheb, and nine uninscribed tombs, one of which contained the beautiful gold jewellery of Queen Tausret and of her second husband Seti II, and another the pieces of inscribed gold plate stolen during the reign of Horemheb from the tombs of Kings Tutankhamen and Ay.

Fig. 1.—Mummy of Thothmes IV.

Before the war Mr Davis had completed his share of the work. He imagined that he had found the tomb of Tutankhamen, and in the preface of the last of his series of magnificent reports he makes the remark: “I fear that the Valley of the Tombs is now exhausted.” But it is a fortunate thing that Mr Howard Carter did not share this idea. After the war the late Lord Carnarvon, with whom Mr Howard Carter had been working since 1907, applied to the Antiquities Department, and was granted a concession to be allowed to continue in the Valley of the Tombs the work which the late Mr Theodore Davis had abandoned. The work carried out by Lord Carnarvon and Mr Howard Carter before they took over Mr Davis’s concession led to some important discoveries, the chief results of which were published in 1912, in a magnificent volume Five Years’ Exploration at Thebes.

In the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings they carried out real and thorough exploration, as no previous workers had done. Instead of making mere exploratory openings into the masses of rubble they began systematically to clear the ground, moving vast quantities of material—they are said to have moved as much as 200,000 tons—in the process. In spite of the discouragement of doing work of so exhaustive and expensive a kind with no further reward than a few unimportant pots, they pressed on, until on 5th November 1922 their indomitable persistence was rewarded with the most wonderful discovery ever made in the history of archæological investigation.

The day before he left London last January to return to Egypt Lord Carnarvon gave this account of the discovery. In the famous tomb of the Vizier Rekhmara no burial shaft could be found, and after searching for it near the tomb-building it was decided to try in the Valley of the Tombs. While cleaning the floor of the valley for this purpose, Mr Carter found a step cut in the rock and after further clearance he found a wall in the cement upon which was impressed the seal of the Royal Necropolis. Further examination revealed the presence of a tomb that had been entered soon after the burial. It bore the cartouche of the King Tutankhamen.

The story of the amazing treasures that have so far been discovered in the tomb has been told in the daily press day by day from November 1922 until April 1923, and Mr Harry Burton’s photographs have given us a realistic idea of their appearance.

The plan of the tomb presents a marked contrast to the more familiar Theban burial places; but it becomes more intelligible when it is compared with those which were made at the heretic king’s capital during the time of Akhenaton.

Of the four chambers in the tomb only one has up to now so far been examined, and when the inventory comes to be made of the annexe, which is now packed with furniture, and the room leading out of the burial chamber, the largest and most wonderful collection of ancient furniture that has ever been made will be revealed.

But the most marvellous revelations of all await the investigator next season when the shrines in the burial chamber are opened and the sarcophagus and the coffins within it are made to reveal to us how a royal mummy was prepared for its eternal home.

The plan of the tomb of Rameses IV, made more than two centuries later than the time of Tutankhamen, is the only evidence we have of the arrangement of the coffins within the shrines; but the coffins of Yuaa and Tuaa, the great-grandparents of Tutankhamen’s wife, and especially the wonderful coffin made for Akhenaton, his father-in-law, have prepared us for what we are to find next winter. But the artistic inspiration revealed in the design of Tutankhamen’s funerary furniture and the craftsmanship are so vastly superior to those displayed in other tombs that we cannot predict what gems of art will be found when the inner coffins are exposed.

Of the mummy itself we can predict the success of the embalmer’s efforts, because the art of preserving the body was at its best in the period from Amenhotep II until Rameses II, but some very interesting points in the technique of embalming remain to be discovered. In the case of Amenhotep III, the latest mummy of the eighteenth dynasty so far examined, the new procedure for stuffing packing material under the skin was introduced for the first time. In the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties it was completely given up, only to be readopted in the twenty-first dynasty. It will be interesting to discover whether or not this procedure was still in vogue at the time of Tutankhamen.

Fig. 2.—Ancient Plan of the Tomb of Rameses IV with an interpretation by Howard Carter and Alan Gardiner (Journal of Egyptian Archæology).

Fig. 3.—The Mummies of Yuaa and Tuaa, the latest complete mummies known before the time of Tutankhamen, and the mummy of Seti I, the earliest after him. These mummies will give some idea of the state of preservation likely to be revealed in Tutankhamen’s mummy.

The most interesting discovery of all that next season holds in store will be the equipment of jewellery with which the mummy will be provided. So far all that we know of such jewels has been derived from the recovery of odd fragments and the impressions left upon the mummy’s wrappings by the pieces long since stolen.