Tutankhamun Uncovered (51 page)

As they promenaded in the gardens, Carnarvon continued to eulogise his past season’s pheasant shoot. “Five hundred and thirty brace in one day, Howard. What do you think of that? Had a bit of help, mind you. Actually, never had so many guests at the house at one time. Capital session though. Haven’t enjoyed m’self so much in years.”

Carter spotted the opportunity and took it. “No, sir. The years have been pretty lean elsewhere, have they not?”

“What?” The earl feigned a lack of understanding for a moment. “Oh... The Valley. Aye. We have had a run of bad luck there, Howard. A long run.”

He paused. It was in his eyes. Carter could see him struggle for the right words. At last he drew a long breath and said what had been on his mind these last five months. “Fact is, my old friend, I just can’t afford to fund another fruitless season.”

Now that he’d said it, the earl became embarrassed at the hurt he had perpetrated against his friend. He was fearful of the response. He continued without stopping and spoke rapidly, running one sentence into another. “I think we should release the concession back to the Director of Antiquities. There must be other sites with more fruit to pick. Perhaps with not so much of an ambitious goal but nevertheless yielding real cherries. We have given this one our very best, have we not, Howard? Given it our best. Davis was right after all. Shame to be proven wrong by an American, don’t y’know. But the world is changing. Our sun is setting. Theirs is on the rise. I know very well this will be a great disappointment to you, my friend. Please do not let it harm the relationship we have built over so many years. I reproach you nothing for what has transpired. Five years we have laboured hard. We can pat ourselves on the back an achievement in itself. Believe me, this was not an easy decision. I have lain awake many nights dreading this moment. But if you do not wish to join me in a search for new ground, you know I will see you all right, old chap. I hope, of course, you will allow me to retain your services for future purchases on the internal market...”

He paused just long enough to allow Carter to break in. “Sir,” Carter began politely, raising his hand as a gesture of acknowledgement and holding the moment, “I too have sat up nights wondering whether we were on a fatefully useless track. I am not a man who is used to failure, as you well know, and all that has not happened has been most distasteful to me, not least because it is your money I have been spending. But it has been put to judicious use every step of the way and you know that we have not yet finished this ‘mission’ of ours. That which we planned to do is not yet complete.”

Carnarvon nodded recognition of each of Carter’s statements, but it was clear he had spent sufficient time debating his decision and that his mind was firmly made up. There would be no going back on it.

Carter continued, “Sir, I know you have made up your mind, and not lightly, but please hear me out...”

The earl smiled. “When have I ever been able to shut you up when you have it in your mind to say something, Howard?”

The atmosphere became more relaxed. Carter pulled a map from his inside jacket pocket and unfolded it on the carpet between them.

“You have seen this map develop through the years, sir.”

“Oh, yes. A finely accurate record of the positions and character of all finds by us and by others in the past. We must publish it in our next book.”

“Perhaps, sir. But not before we have added the location of the tomb of Tutankhamen!”

“Him, again. Howard, as we have proven, it is tough enough to find a tomb at all, let alone that of a particular Pharaoh...”

Carter cut in. “...And by such little account in the histories written on the walls and ostraca all about Thebes, not a Pharaoh of much note. But there is so much physical evidence that he was indeed buried in the area. At least at one time he was. Maybe now he has been moved to some other place like so many others. But I do not believe this. Of all the missing Pharaohs the evidence points to Tutankhamen being there still. The one place we have not probed within our ‘triangle’ of investigation the one place we already know has lain untouched since the time of Ramses VI is the area beneath the workmen’s huts situated at the very doorway to that tomb.” Carter stabbed at the map with his finger. “The place we have found is difficult to touch thus far for the inconvenience it would have caused tourists visiting Ramses’s tomb. This is the place we must now use one more season to uncover... One more season.”

The words hung suspended in the pregnant pause that followed. Carter didn’t expect his patron to yield and continued without waiting for a response. “I can get started before the tourist season really gets into full swing. It is not a big job and will not cost much. I can well afford it. All I need is your lordship’s assurance that you will hold off on relinquishment of the concession until I have finished this last effort. One more season. In your name, of course.”

This Carnarvon had not anticipated. It had never occurred to him that this man of considerably lesser means would even consider dipping into his own pocket. With an astonished look on his face, he fell back in his chair. He had literally no defence for this proposal. How could he stop him if he would pay for it himself? To continue with his intention to relinquish the licence would appear unfriendly and bloody-minded, especially after all they had been through together over the years. And then there was the great bounty of artefacts the earl had acquired, all entirely through Carter’s doing.

“Goodness, Howard!” the earl exclaimed after a brief pause. “I can’t let you do that. You know I can’t let you do that.”

Carter misunderstood what the earl intended by the remark. “Oh, but you must, sir. Do not deny me this last chance, I implore you...”

“No! That is my last word on the matter. I shall pay as I have always done. I am not about to change my ways now. One more season.”

Carter’s relief was self-evident. He stood up immediately, leaned forward beaming and took Carnarvon by the hand, shaking it vigorously.

“I cannot thank you enough for your continued support, sir. Together, sir, we shall bring this one home together.”

The grandee’s generosity and faith filled him with confidence. Carter had convinced himself he would be successful. His excitement, and knowing now that this was indeed to be the last season, did not permit him to give the chance of failure a second thought.

They stared at each other silently for a moment. At last the earl summoned the butler.

“Let us drink on it!”

Carter was really thirsty.

The Egyptologist was true to his word. He arrived back in Cairo the second week of October, at least two months before the tourist season really took off.

He made a brief run around the dealers in Cairo to see what may have cropped up while he had been away. The shopping trip was fruitful. He bought several pieces for Carnarvon and during his browsing around the bazaars found he could not resist buying something for himself a canary to provide him with some tuneful companionship during the long nights of solitude at Castle Carter. The whole lot accompanied him on the train back to Luxor.

The ever faithful Abdel met him at the station. “Master!” he exclaimed on seeing the canary. “A bird of gold accompanies you. Surely a sign of good luck!”

Carter smiled at the thought. Truly he hadn’t felt this buoyant in years.

He lost no time getting started, and by the first of the following month he had his men situated immediately beneath and slightly ‘downstream’ of the entrance to the tomb of Ramses VI, busily digging at and through the south westernmost corner of the floor of one of the ancient workmen’s huts.

After three days’ digging, as usual, nothing had been found. Carter arrived at the site each morning well before his men. He paced over every piece of newly revealed ground, head down, looking for the slightest suggestion of something out of the ordinary. But there was only featureless rubble at the bottom of a featureless pit.

On the fourth morning he was later than usual. He had dawdled at his house, poring over the details of his map.

Up at the excavation site, Ali had called on one of the boys to get another jar of water. He noticed the lad was having difficulty trying to get it to stand upright. He could not sink it into the sand deeply enough. Ali went over to help. When he took hold of the jar and attempted to grind the base into the loose debris, he felt hard rock just an inch or two beneath the surface. He passed the water jar back to the boy, got down on his hands and knees and scraped away at the rubble with his hands.

“Mr Carter! Mr Carter!” The reis came running through his open front door and flailed through the house, skidding on the tiled floor in his leather sandals as he dashed from room to room trying to find his master. He finally slid to a stop in Carter’s study. The archaeologist slowly turned in his chair to see what all the commotion was about.

“Mr Carter, sir. Forgive my rudeness, please, but I have much of importance to tell you. May I speak, sir?”

“Ali. Whatever’s the matter, man. You look most distressed. Sit. Have a drink... of water. Settle yourself. Then speak. Is it trouble?”

Carter handed him the carafe of water and the sweating Arab poured himself a full glass and immediately drank it down. He barely drew breath before speaking again. “We have found a flat rock, sir! A flat rock! Perhaps a step, sir! It is real! It is real!”

Carter did not dare believe the man: Not after four days... not after five full years... not just four days.

He was up from his chair, in his car and on his way to The Valley before the man got another sentence out.

The two hurried to the edge of the pit. Carter stopped and looked down. The labourers, assembled in a circle, were all standing silent and motionless, looking up at Carter expectantly. They had arranged themselves around a small and extremely shallow rectangle of excavated ground only a few inches deep.

Carter scrambled down the rubble slope and stepped into the centre of the shallow depression. He bent down and felt all around the contours of the single, visible step. The signs were unmistakable... Finally!

There was no question about it. At last he had found something. Carter could not disguise his pleasure any longer. Beaming at the reis, he yelled at the top of his voice, “Ali! Ali Hosein! Allah be praised!”

The reis grinned back at him through his blackened, broken teeth. Carter looked around at the group of faithful labourers standing all about him. Each shared some feeling for the excitement of the moment. Like an enormous collection of gargoyles, rows of blackened teeth were revealed in the smiles surrounding him.

“Praise be to Allah!” The shout from the chorus line of labourers echoed and re-echoed around the valley cliffs.

He beamed back.

“Continue!” he shouted to Ali as he jumped back up the slope. “We must expose the entrance way completely.”

Carter’s excited anticipation was to remain hanging. There was so much ancient debris around and above the small pit that even by nightfall the men had not succeeded in exposing the entire surface area of the stairwell. Carter posted a guard and reluctantly returned to the solitude of his house for the night.

He felt horribly alone. He had no one with whom he could share the eager anticipation of this moment; no one around to help console his longing for the one outcome that could change the pattern of his life forever. Even the canary was silent. What he wouldn’t give to have the dear Dorothy by his side.

His mind flooded with images. As he sorted through all the possible outcomes, he became desperately anxious. It was all too much for him. Overcome by sheer exhaustion, he fell into a fitful sleep.

By the end of the morning of the next day, the fellahs had at last cleared the upper portion of the surface cavity. At the opposite end from the originally exposed step, where the bedrock began to rise at the base of the valley flank, was now revealed the hand cut facing that should overlie the lintel to a doorway. Carter controlled his impatience.

“Clear down some more carefully now there may be objects in the debris. Feel for the door gently. If it is still intact it will be faced with plaster very fragile we must be careful not to damage the surface. There may be seals.”

Carter could hardly contain his excitement. He fidgeted, at one time holding his hands tightly together, at another folding his arms close to his chest. He paced about. He could feel himself tremble.

The labourers slowly cleared some more of the rubble. Another step was revealed, then another and another. More of the walls, cut cleanly shear either side of the gradually descending staircase, were steadily exposed. With the cavity cleared down to the twelfth step, the base of the door lintel appeared and beneath it a mud plaster wall. Carter called the men out and jumped back into the deepened pit to examine the first few inches. There were seals royal cemetery seals. The tomb, to this point at least, appeared whole. But, so far as he could tell, the seals were generic necropolis seals. None of them bore a name. There was no indication whose tomb this might be.

Carter kept his men digging until they had revealed the entire staircase and the doorway was exposed to its base. As more and more of the door had been revealed, he could see that the patterns in the seal impressions changed. Those in the upper left corner of the door facing looked different, their placement less orderly than those elsewhere.

With all the debris now removed, the men climbed out of the pit and stood expectantly around the lip of the staircase. Carter walked slowly down to the door, at each step feeling himself on a new threshold, untrod in millennia. As he reached the bottom, he could for the first time clearly see that the tomb had been resealed in antiquity. Robbed. That much he had expected. It mattered little. The evidence notwithstanding, this discovery was undeniably a tremendous stroke of good fortune.

Carter spent some time on the bottom step looking in detail at each of the seal impressions before him. As he read lower, the anonymous necropolis seals gave way to different, less distinct types of impressions. He couldn’t see them too well. The entire cavity was in shadow. He touched the indentations with his fingers. Within the larger outline of one of the seals he sensed the arch of the top of a cartouche the racetrack shaped border that usually surrounded the name of a Pharaoh. His fingers trembled with anticipation as he drew them lightly down over the impression, trying to feel for the slightest change in contour. There was an orb. He moved his forefinger around it to be sure it was a circle. He felt below it. Another orb? He squinted at it in the darkness. Everything was black. He couldn’t make out a thing. He felt around the lump and thought he could sense appendages emerging from at least three points. A scarab? Feeling slightly below this, he could make out three bars, a rough semicircle, then the base of the frame.