The Legacy of Howard Carter: Did King Tut's Discoverer Steal from the Tomb?

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All that is a lie. What really took place can be gathered from a report -- to this day never published, but studied in detail by Hoving -- that Lord Carnarvon wrote shortly before his death. Instead of waiting dutifully as regulations required, the party forced its way through the narrow opening right away.

Using tallow candles and a weak electrical lamp, the interlopers first entered the antechamber. Golden beds and beautifully carved chairs were piled up in the narrow room, as well as gaming tables and precious vases. Oval basins held food for the dead pharaoh.

Animal figures shone from the posts of gilded litters, monstrous in the weak cone of light from the lamp. The explorers moved chests, trampled brittle woven baskets, and pocketed perfume jars, opening chests in the side chamber as well.

But the most important question remained: Where was the mummy? At last the intruders discovered another bricked-in entranceway, framed by two life-sized black sentinels. Although being found out would have cost them their license, the group broke blocks of stone away from the door. And everyone pushed their way through.

Now they stood inside the room with the four gilded wooden shrines, each inside the next, with four coffins nested inside. In the innermost of these lay the mummy, with a beaded skullcap on its shaved head. Carter rattled the outermost door and the hinges sprang open, creaking. It wasn't until yet another seal obstructed his progress that he paused, with a shiver.

A Holy Mess

The conspirators left the underground tomb chambers hours later. Overwhelmed and blissful, they rode home by donkey in the wan moonlight, agreeing to keep silent about their activities. Only Lady Evelyn hinted at the events of that night in a letter, thanking Carter for taking her into that "most holy place."

The negative scientific consequences of those nighttime misdoings are still felt to this day. No one knows how the tomb really looked in its untouched state. Carter always attributed this to the barbarism of ancient thieves -- but the chaos in the tomb could just as well have been caused by Carter himself.

In any case, he exaggerated the damages, asserting for example that seals were already broken off the jugs of wine. But where, in that case, are the remains of those seals? Carter also claimed that objects had been stolen out of the chests. "But that can't be substantiated using the content labels attached to the chests," Loeben says.

Loeben also considers the claim that previous thieves had broken off golden figures from the wagons absurd: "That kind of ornamentation didn't even exist."

Thus the suspicion remains that the tomb's discoverer systematically lied and misled. He wanted to present Tutankhamun's tomb as already defiled, hoping in this way to obtain permission to remove half of the finds from the country, in accordance with the license agreement.

That the British explorer left empty-handed after all had to do with Carnarvon's untimely death in April 1923. With Carnarvon went the excavation license, and the cards were reshuffled. Even the US State Department intervened -- on Carter's side -- in the political and legal tug-of-war that ensued.

In the end, Egypt won. Carnarvon's heirs received £36,000 (about $137,000 at the time) in compensation for costs incurred by the excavation.

'The Very Footprints…'

It can hardly be denied any longer that antique dealer Howard Carter grabbed Tutankhamun's valuables and helped himself to artifacts from the 3,300-year-old tomb. The details of the swindle, however, have only come to light in bits and pieces.

Carter's theory of grave robbery in ancient times has also lost most of its clout. It has become increasingly clear that his arguments are often based on exaggerations -- or are simply nonsense.

The British archaeologist claimed, for example, to have discovered "the very footprints of the last intruder" on a white bow case.

Krauss, the German Egyptologist, examined the photographic evidence from the 1920s. "A footprint is indeed visible in the photograph," he explains, "However, it was made not by Egyptian sandals, but by modern shoes with heels."

His suspicion? "They could be Howard Carter's own prints."

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• Part 1: Did King Tut's Discoverer Steal from the Tomb?
• Part 2: 'Unstamped Things'
• Part 3: 'The Break-In Was Faked'
• Part 4: Lord Carnarvon's Alternate Story