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Howard Carter: The Path to Tutankhamun
In November 1922 a momentous discovery, unlike any other before or since, changed our understanding of the ancient world. However, until now the marvelous story of Carter’s quest for Tutankhamun and its culmination in his unearthing of the intact, treasure-filled tomb has been told without a reliable account of the man behind the discovery and the myths that have surrounded it. Carter's legendary discovery in the Valley of the Kings and his painstaking clearance of the intact royal burial are the topic of this definitive biography.
406 pages, Paperback
First published June 23, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 12, 2019
Please ignore Chris — his review review confuses "boring" for "copious." This book is, to anyone interested in a full account of Howard Carter's life, absolutely riveting. As the cover art suggests, it's written as a Plutarchian dual biography and is therefore a study in contrasts between the archaeologist and the boy king. This technique yields many arresting contrapuntals: one outstanding example is T.G.H.'s delicate positioning of Carter's funeral against Tutankhamun's, a moment of writing as poignant as anything in Brontë.
December 27, 2011
Early 20th century adventurers, Howard Carter, and George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert will always be remembered for respectively finding and financing the search over three decades for the lost tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. These two highly important figures in treasure hunting were hailed as the discoverers of the vast, priceless tomb of the Boy King in 1922. Carter went on (after his patron’s famous death) to work for Carnarvon’s widow, the Dowager Countess, Almina to secure new digging rights (after the Egyptians withdrew the original concession of the Earl’s) and eventually catalogued the Tomb and its contents over two more decades. Carter was the true leader of the pack of two up against Carnarvon, and a man who had many faces, public and private. James’ book is the outpourings of heavily detailed “path” taken by Carter throughout his life as an expatriate artist and map maker, and archaeologist and of what shaped these pursuits. It’s a long book and and often dry but it's enjoyable and although a close academic study – a path again really- it's sustainable reading and an approach that only James could have trod, as he was one time Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at London’s British Museum, and was blessed in having access to all the right material and people to compile the narrative.
This biography (and footnotes and good bibliography) will always be valuable to those interested in the Tutankhamun tale and as it is the first detailed life story made public on the enigmatic Howard Carter. It draws too very carefully on that man’s own writings, his succession of books on the digging and cataloguing, his immensely significant, yet often tersely written diaries (now available online via the web site of The Griffith Institute, Oxford), the accumulated correspondence in the many Archives in Britain and US, especially the Metropolitan Museum in New York as well as at the time this book was first published (1993) those papers still in the hands of the Carter family.
Carter, like his patron George Herbert (5th Earl of Carnarvon) was an odd man, a shy man, a disagreeable man, and a man who was obsessed with Egypt’s past. He fell out with people very easily, including the British and Egyptian authorities, the French Museum Heads in Cairo, and often with Lord Carnarvon, with the true reasons for the disputes with the latter being cosmetically treated by James. I would like to have seen more coverage given to this man-man relationship. But the 5th Earl of Carnarvon is irrelevant in the early Chapters on Carter’s life and career, and he is marooned back stage in the main in the continuing account of the Tutankhamun timeline but one of the ploys used by James is to cull limitlessly from the comings and goings of his Lordship and Countess Almina, who is only mentioned here and there and with no depth, as well as the Carnarvons’ daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert – who is also a key figure but is only skimmed over on their trips to Egypt each winter. James uses extracts from the local newspaper The Egyptian Gazette to do this as original correspondence in the Carnarvon family is hidden or lost. All of the participants huff and puff a lot about the heat., the flies, the lazy working conditions and the slowness of the entire quest. The elements of skulduggery in other books on Tutankhamun, that suggests that Carter and Carnarvon stole objects from the Tomb and papers of ancient antiquity value is inconclusively covered. Much of that tale is unclear even now and lies linger on the part of several commentators. But what is clear is that once the epic discovery was made Carter devoted his life to the task of the aftermath being his life achievement, with hard years of working painstakingly in Egypt and making a few public lectures about the work in between. But on his death is 1939, he was almost forgotten, and he was overlooked for any public recognition, which lesser men and woman have had acknowledged by the government and monarch. That is reprehensible at one level, but it also smacks of Establishment jitters about Carter’s real character.
Facts still remain to reveal about Carter and Carnarvon. I have culled from this well meant book by James lately to guide my interpretation – and see what was deemed suitable to be said in 1993 for the public to consume – but does this book tells us frankly what made Carter really tick? The answer is NO. I will try to reflect again on this in a retrospective on him and in particular a reappraisal of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, to be published at the time of the 90th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun, in 2012. But James’ book was a most remarkable and fitting way of celebrating, 70 years after the discovery, and of headlining the acts in the life of the stoic Howard Carter, whom Lord George Carnarvon was fortunate to have come to know.
This biography (and footnotes and good bibliography) will always be valuable to those interested in the Tutankhamun tale and as it is the first detailed life story made public on the enigmatic Howard Carter. It draws too very carefully on that man’s own writings, his succession of books on the digging and cataloguing, his immensely significant, yet often tersely written diaries (now available online via the web site of The Griffith Institute, Oxford), the accumulated correspondence in the many Archives in Britain and US, especially the Metropolitan Museum in New York as well as at the time this book was first published (1993) those papers still in the hands of the Carter family.
Carter, like his patron George Herbert (5th Earl of Carnarvon) was an odd man, a shy man, a disagreeable man, and a man who was obsessed with Egypt’s past. He fell out with people very easily, including the British and Egyptian authorities, the French Museum Heads in Cairo, and often with Lord Carnarvon, with the true reasons for the disputes with the latter being cosmetically treated by James. I would like to have seen more coverage given to this man-man relationship. But the 5th Earl of Carnarvon is irrelevant in the early Chapters on Carter’s life and career, and he is marooned back stage in the main in the continuing account of the Tutankhamun timeline but one of the ploys used by James is to cull limitlessly from the comings and goings of his Lordship and Countess Almina, who is only mentioned here and there and with no depth, as well as the Carnarvons’ daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert – who is also a key figure but is only skimmed over on their trips to Egypt each winter. James uses extracts from the local newspaper The Egyptian Gazette to do this as original correspondence in the Carnarvon family is hidden or lost. All of the participants huff and puff a lot about the heat., the flies, the lazy working conditions and the slowness of the entire quest. The elements of skulduggery in other books on Tutankhamun, that suggests that Carter and Carnarvon stole objects from the Tomb and papers of ancient antiquity value is inconclusively covered. Much of that tale is unclear even now and lies linger on the part of several commentators. But what is clear is that once the epic discovery was made Carter devoted his life to the task of the aftermath being his life achievement, with hard years of working painstakingly in Egypt and making a few public lectures about the work in between. But on his death is 1939, he was almost forgotten, and he was overlooked for any public recognition, which lesser men and woman have had acknowledged by the government and monarch. That is reprehensible at one level, but it also smacks of Establishment jitters about Carter’s real character.
Facts still remain to reveal about Carter and Carnarvon. I have culled from this well meant book by James lately to guide my interpretation – and see what was deemed suitable to be said in 1993 for the public to consume – but does this book tells us frankly what made Carter really tick? The answer is NO. I will try to reflect again on this in a retrospective on him and in particular a reappraisal of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, to be published at the time of the 90th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun, in 2012. But James’ book was a most remarkable and fitting way of celebrating, 70 years after the discovery, and of headlining the acts in the life of the stoic Howard Carter, whom Lord George Carnarvon was fortunate to have come to know.
August 28, 2016
I don't recall exactly when or for how long but when I was younger I wanted to be an archeologist. Seemed exciting. But I can tell you it lasted roughly from the first time I saw The Mummy and Indiana Jones till I learned what an archeologist actually does.
Turns out I just wanted to raise mummies from the dead and shoot them. Matter of fact, that still sounds like fun.
Anyhow, this book is boring. It is essentially a hundred year old chronicle of bickering amongst Egyptologists and the Egyptian government. I was hoping for a discussion of how they actually found King Tut's tomb, of how they cleared it. You know, the stuff Carter actually did. Instead I got politics and a lot of letters about who's pissed off at who for what reasons.
But I did appreciate the handling of King Tut's curse. It gets maybe a page throughout the whole book and ends with the line, "People have to die, and many people die young, either by illness or accident. (p371)" Got to appreciate that level of dismissive honesty.
Turns out I just wanted to raise mummies from the dead and shoot them. Matter of fact, that still sounds like fun.
Anyhow, this book is boring. It is essentially a hundred year old chronicle of bickering amongst Egyptologists and the Egyptian government. I was hoping for a discussion of how they actually found King Tut's tomb, of how they cleared it. You know, the stuff Carter actually did. Instead I got politics and a lot of letters about who's pissed off at who for what reasons.
But I did appreciate the handling of King Tut's curse. It gets maybe a page throughout the whole book and ends with the line, "People have to die, and many people die young, either by illness or accident. (p371)" Got to appreciate that level of dismissive honesty.
July 31, 2024
This is a very well done and thorough biography of Howard Carter. I've been interested in Egyptology since middle school and bought this book when I went to London for the first time back on 2013. I can't believe it took me over a decade to sit down and read it, but I finally got around to it!
James does a very good job getting into the nitty gritty of Carter's time in Egypt. Not only that leading up to the discovery of Tutankhamun but even his first foray into archaeology at 18 years old. I didn't realize he started so early! There are some points where I think James might go a little too deep and therefore get quite bogged down in the details and boring, but I'd rather have more information than less.
It's sad that such a great man died so young and painfully. Whenever someone asks me 'if you had the opportunity to meet and talk to anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?' I always say Howard Carter. He is fascinating and this book does a very good job diving into his life.
James does a very good job getting into the nitty gritty of Carter's time in Egypt. Not only that leading up to the discovery of Tutankhamun but even his first foray into archaeology at 18 years old. I didn't realize he started so early! There are some points where I think James might go a little too deep and therefore get quite bogged down in the details and boring, but I'd rather have more information than less.
It's sad that such a great man died so young and painfully. Whenever someone asks me 'if you had the opportunity to meet and talk to anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?' I always say Howard Carter. He is fascinating and this book does a very good job diving into his life.
March 8, 2024
The standout trait of James's biography is its thoroughness. James was not only an authoritative Egyptologist, as knowledgeable about Carter's profession as Carter himself; he was one of the last Egyptologists to have had firsthand contact with people who knew Carter. Moreover, he built on that foundation of personal recollections by doing what must be an immense amount of research into the written sources. James's attention to detail appears as early as the second page, when he examines the primary documents to show that Carter's descriptions of basic details of his own life, such as the date and place of his birth or the timing of his father's death, often contained errors. The result is about as exacting a biography as one could ask for, discussing minute specifics even in periods of Carter's life that aren't all that well documented, such as the slump he went through after he left the Antiquities Service and before he was hired by Lord Carnarvon.
At times one can detect a pro-Carter bias. James convincingly rebuts of some of the accusations against Carter by Thomas Hoving's popular but untrustworthy book Tutankhamun: The Untold Story. But some of his other defenses, notably on the excavators' undisputed premature breach of Tutankhamun's burial chamber, are questionable. A more balanced assessment, though exclusively focused on the Tutankhamun discovery, is Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King by Joyce Tyldesley.
For many readers, the bigger downside will be that James' book feels rather dry. It's not a lifeless recitation of facts—James often comments on the personalities and attitudes of the people he's discussing—but it is easy to feel bogged down when reading all the primary-source minutiae. If you're looking for a biography that is compelling to read, rather than rigorously thorough, there's the one by H. V. F. Winstone, which is lively but far from lightweight.
At times one can detect a pro-Carter bias. James convincingly rebuts of some of the accusations against Carter by Thomas Hoving's popular but untrustworthy book Tutankhamun: The Untold Story. But some of his other defenses, notably on the excavators' undisputed premature breach of Tutankhamun's burial chamber, are questionable. A more balanced assessment, though exclusively focused on the Tutankhamun discovery, is Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King by Joyce Tyldesley.
For many readers, the bigger downside will be that James' book feels rather dry. It's not a lifeless recitation of facts—James often comments on the personalities and attitudes of the people he's discussing—but it is easy to feel bogged down when reading all the primary-source minutiae. If you're looking for a biography that is compelling to read, rather than rigorously thorough, there's the one by H. V. F. Winstone, which is lively but far from lightweight.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews