Howard Carter was born at 10 Rich Terrace in Kensington, London on May 9, 1874. His father, Samuel John Carter, was an artist who specialized in animal paintings. Howard Carter's youth was spent in Swaffham in Norfolk where he also received relatively modest private education.
Young Carter's talent for drawing and his interest in Egyptian antiquities took him to Egypt when he was still only seventeen, in the autumn of 1891. He was hired by the Egypt Exploration Fund in London to help P. E. Newberry with the epigraphic recording of tombs at Beni Hasan and El-Bersha, in Middle Egypt. In January 1892, he was also asked to join Flinders Petrie who excavated at El-Amarna, and this gave him invaluable archaeological experience. In 1893 he began on epigraphic recording of the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri as a member of an Egypt Exploration Fund expedition directed by Édouard Naville. This task, at which he excelled, occupied him until 1899.
At the beginning of 1900 Howard Carter was appointed Chief Inspector of Antiquities to the Egyptian Government with responsibilities for Upper Egypt. He stayed in this post until late in 1904 when he was moved to the post of Chief Inspector for Lower Egypt. But an unfortunate incident at Saqqara which resulted in a brawl between a party of arrogant Europeans and Egyptian employees of the Antiquities Service brought Carter's meteoric progress to an abrupt stop. Although not personally involved, he sided with his men, was transferred to a less important post in the Delta and eventually resigned from the Antiquities Service the following year. His professional career and his life were in serious crisis.
But a few years later Carter's luck changed.The Earl of Carnarvon, who visited Egypt for health reasons in 1905, became interested in Egyptian antiquities and decided to finance some archaeological work. The Antiquities Service, however, insisted that the work should be in the hands of an experienced archaeologist, and Carter seemed the best person available. The cooperation between an archaeologist and an English aristocrat with a passion for Egyptian archaeology which began in 1909 was, eventually, going to result in the greatest discovery in Egyptian archaeology.
The Carter-Carnarvon work was first centred on Thebes. In 1912 the work moved to the Delta but the results were rather disappointing. In 1914 Lord Carnarvon was able to secure a concession to excavate in the Valley of the Kings. But the outbreak of the First World War meant that any excavation had to be postponed until five short seasons, with little success, between the end of 1917 and March 1922.
The first steps leading into the tomb of Tutankhamun were found on November 4, 1922, only a few days after the beginning of a new season of excavations in the Valley of the Kings. The entrance to the tomb, with intact seals, was uncovered the following day, on November 5. Carter, accompanied by Lord Carnarvon, his daughter Lady Evelyn, Arthur Callender and Egyptian reises (foremen), had their first glimpse of the interior of the tomb on November 26. The work on the clearance and recording of the contents of the tomb continued until the concession ran out in 1929.
The Tomb of Tut.ankh.Amen, by Howard Carter and Arthur C. Mace, appeared in three volumes between 1923-33. Failing health and other commitments, however, meant that Carter never published a detailed scholarly account of the tomb.
Howard Carter died on March 2, 1939, in London.
Back to the Introduction to Tutankhamun:
Anatomy of an Excavation.