In the Valley of the Kings (27 page)

A colleague, Gertrude Caton-Thompson, wrote of a visit made during the last decade of clearing: “We found him [Carter] repairing some of the coffin cases; he showed us the multitude of things still awaiting attention and I pitied him cooped up for years in the electrified darkness of the tomb.”

During these last years, Carter, walking in the desert, peered through his binoculars and caught a glimpse of an unusual sight: “a pair of jackals … making their way towards the cultivated land.”

He described them in his journal: “They probably had cubs in the hills as otherwise it was early for them to descend to inhabited and cultivated quarters. But the great interest was, while one of them was of normal size and colouring, the other … was totally black, much taller and attenuated, resembling … the type found upon the monuments. This is the first example of that colouring and that type of jackal I have seen in Egypt in over thirty five years experience in the desert and it suggested to me the old and original Egyptian jackal, known to us as Anubis, god of the dead.”

It was fitting that at the end of his career, these divine zoological throwbacks appeared to Carter. For during the course of his life, he had become just as much a part of Egypt’s past as they were. The era that had begun in the early 1800s with adventurers of every imaginable sort pillaging Egypt’s ruins ended with the tortured, sensitive, moody Carter. During his lifetime, Egyptology began to take its place among the scientific disciplines, leaving behind its “unrespectable” piratical origins.

The study of Egypt’s past has since become more specialized. DNA testing of a lock of hair and a more accurate understanding of the ancient language have taken the place of the search for treasure.

But who knows? There is no ruling out what still may be found! For as Carter wrote, in archaeology it is generally the unexpected that happens.

The same divine jackals that Carter met still circle in the Valley of the Kings—they must, for the gods are eternal, are they not? Possibly they have their own plans for some student setting out to study Egypt’s past—from a strictly scientific point of view, mind you. Conceivably, it will be one of you reading this book. For though you may be no lady or gent, jackals have their own way of judging such matters and may decide to lead you to the tomb of some nobleman or noblewoman, some Mitannian or Hittite princess come to Egypt long ago.

Or perhaps they will bless (and damn!) you with an even greater find. The tomb of Ramesses VIII, say—at this moment still lying beneath the shifting sands, waiting to be discovered.

A heartfelt thanks to:

My editor, Jill Schwartzman, for helping to shape the book, for her many insightful suggestions, for her enthusiasm and love of the subject.

My former editor, Nancy Miller, who believed in this book from the first and who kept me going. High intelligence, beauty, and kindness are a rare combination.

My agent, Noah Lukeman, author of
Macbeth II
, for his constant support, encouragement, and interest in my work over the years.

Lea Beresford, who patiently and competently handled the many questions that attended the preparation of this book. It is a pleasure to work with her.

Mary Gow of the Brooklyn Museum’s Wilburforce Egyptian Library, whose expertise is staggering (what doesn’t this woman know?). Many thanks especially for help with the Hatnub Quarry material.

Adam Lukeman, who, with his art, transformed me in the author’s photo.

Berk Straun, for the beautiful and meaningful cover.

Sona Vogel, copy editor with a jeweler’s eye, for putting this book through its paces with great care and diligence.

Stephanie Madey, who was very resourceful in tracking down difficult-to-find material for me through a long, hot summer.

For the following friends, without whose help this book could not have been completed: Constance and John Skedgell, Mohsin Rashidi, Mark Roberts, Rosalie Kaufman, Brenda Shoshanna, Leah and Jonathon Kohn, Princess Ankherut, Vivian Heller, Prof. Maura Spiegel, Prof. Thomas Cohen, Prof. Ross Borden, Jumay Chu, Francine Plavé, Belle Plavé, Charles Mandelbaum, Avi Dov Orzel, Jacob Orzel, Les and Marta Szczygiel, Sylvia Levy, Yoleine Attanas, Helen Auerbach, Goldine Shamas.

ABBREVIATIONS

GI: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

MMA: New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

ASAE: Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte
, Cairo

PART ONE: EXPENSES PAID AND NOTHING ELSE (BUT FATE)

EPIGRAPH

1 “Let the one who enters here beware”
Arthur Weigall,
Tutankhamen and Other Essays
(Port Washington, NY/London: Kennikat Press, 1924; reissued 1970), 137. From the tomb of Ursu, mining engineer.

CHAPTER 1

8
Ironically, it was a harsher method
Joyce Tyldesley
, Judgement of the Pharaoh: Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), 73.

11
“He was one”
GI, Carter mss., VI.2.1.

11.
“However, if a son”
Ibid.

12.
“I have next to nothing”
Ibid.

12
“For a living”
Ibid.

14
“It was the Amherst Egyptian Collection”
Ibid.

14
“Give him the stick!”
T. E. Peet,
The Great Tomb Robberies of the Twentieth Egyptian Dynasty
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), 48.

14.
“We went up in a single”
Ibid., 176.

15.
“My father ferried the thieves”
Ibid., 177–180.

16.
“If you come across”
Francis Llewellyn Griffith to John E. Newberry, February 2, 1891, GI, Newberry mss., 1.2/9.

17.
“These venerable people”
GI, Carter mss., VI.2.1.

CHAPTER 2

19
“a dominant personality”
Emma Andrews diary, January 17, 1902 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society): a transcription. Copy in MMA Department of Egyptian Art.

19.
“some scaly, a few furred”
GI, Carter mss., VI.2.1.

20.
“The ground gave way”
Howard Carter, “Report on the Tomb of Mentuhotep 1st, known as Bab El Hosan,”
ASAE
2 (1901): 201–205.

20.
“All that I received”
GI, Carter Notebook 16, 109, quoted in H. V. F. Winstone,
Howard Carter and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun
(London: Constable, 1991).

21.
“After working down”
Carter, “Report on the Tomb of Mentuhotep 1st,” 201–205.

22.
“I am hard at work”
Carter to Lady Tyssen-Amherst, December 19, 1900, Amherst Letters, in the possession of Dr. Bob Brier, quoted in T.G.H. James,
Howard Carter: The Path to Tutankhamun
(Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1992), 98.

22
“Consider the circumstances”
GI, Carter Notebook 5.

24.
“a young excavator”
Ibid.

25.
“gone some way toward”
W. M. Flinders Petrie,
Ten Years’ Digging in Egypt: The First Discovery of Tanis, Naukratis, Daphnae and Other Sites
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989; unchanged reprint, London: Methuen, 1891), 130–132.

25.
“There is the lack”
Ibid.

26.
“The season’s work”
Gertrude Caton-Thompson,
Mixed Memoirs
(Gateshead: Tyne & Wear, 1922), 84.

26.
“a lowly kingdom”
Ezekiel 29:6–7, 29:14, Nosson Scherman and Meir Zlotowitz, eds., The Chumash [The Hebrew Bible] (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1993), 1149.

27.
“I had everything prepared”
GI, Carter Notebook 5, quoted in H.V.F. Winstone,
Howard Carter
, 89.

29
“I cannot now remember”
Ibid., 90.

29.
“Carter had announced”
Maspero to Naville, January 8, 1901, Archives of the Bibliothèque publique et Universitaire, Geneva, 2529, 223.

30.
With a touch of madness?
Adel Sabit,
A King Betrayed
(London and New York: Quartet, 1989), 99, quoted in Nicholas Reeves and John H. Taylor,
Howard Carter Before Tutankhamun
(London: British Museum Press, 1992), 180.

30
“Let the one”
Weigall,
Tutankhamen
, 136.

PART TWO: NAKED UNDER AN UMBRELLA

EPIGRAPH

31
“Archaeology is not a profession”
Margaret Drower,
Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1985), 280.

CHAPTER 3

34
“emerge just before dawn”
Drower,
Flinders Petrie
, 98.

34
“I have known him”
Arthur Weigall to Hortense Weigall, undated letter [1901?], Arthur Weigall Archive, quoted in Julie Hankey,
A Passion for Egypt: Arthur Weigall, Tutankhamun and the Curse of the Pharaohs
(London and New York: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 2001), 32.

34.
“Petrie was a man”
Charles Breasted,
Pioneer to the Past: The Story of James H. Breasted
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943).