New evidence reveals that the archaeologist who excavated Tutankhamun’s tomb took away a lot of treasure

Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922 during a dig in the Valley of the Kings. He described the room as containing “a wonderful mixture of beautiful and extraordinary objects stacked on top of each other” in his diary. Recently, an unpublished letter has surfaced suggesting that Mr. Carter may have taken some items from the site.

In 1934, a scholar on Carter’s excavation team, Sir Alan Gardiner, sent him a letter alleging that Carter had shown him an amulet used as a sacrifice for the dead and assured him that it did not come from Tutankhamun’s tomb. However, the British director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo at the time informed Gardiner that the amulet matched others found in the tomb and was likely stolen. He included the director’s ruling in a letter to Carter that stated, “The amulet you showed me must have been stolen from Tutankhamun’s tomb.”

Gardiner wrote to Carter expressing regret at being placed in an awkward position, but he did not reveal that he had received the amulet from his grandfather. It has long been rumored that Carter took treasures from the excavation, and these letters will be published in a new book called Tutankhamun and the Tomb That Changed the World by Oxford University Press.

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