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Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • A22

Publication:
Evening Standardi
Location:
London, Greater London, England
Issue Date:
Page:
A22
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

News mummy returns The As the face of Tutankhamun is revealed for the first time in 3,000 years, the great-grandson of the 22 MONDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2007 EVENING STANDARD 26 November 1922, archae- ologist Howard Carter broke through the sealed wall of a miraculously undisturbed pharaonic tomb in Valley of the Kings and was struck dumb for several minutes by the riches within. you see sponsor, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, eventually blurted, unable to bear the suspense. Carter whispered. In fact, the gilded couches and animal sculptures glinting in the antechamber represented a mere fraction of the riches buried with the boy king Tutankhamun, whose mummified body, complete with the dazzling gold and lapis-lazuli death- mask, was finally revealed two years later. By then Lord Carnarvon, two of his relatives, and several others involved in the dig were dead, giving rise to rumours of a curse on the families of those who had opened the tomb.

But today I am in the library of the Carnar- von family seat, Highclere Castle in Berk- shire, talking to the eighth earl, Geordie Herbert, prior to a new O2 exhibition of relics his ancestor uncovered and fea- turing King Tut, revealed without his mask for the first time in 3,000 years. Highclere is a grand, foursquare, not very welcoming house, and the room is a mix of the very expensive and the shabby: priceless paintings, pre-war lamp flex, flaky Morocco-leather volumes fenced in with picture wire and screw- eyes. The current Lord Carnarvon him- self is 51 but seems younger, with his floppy toff fringe, arresting blue eyes and rather hurried air of noblesse oblige arrived appallingly late). was a bit of a rak- ish character and a he says. had hurt himself quite badly in several car smashes, damaging his ribs, which is why he went to Egypt in the winter, to avoid catching pneumonia in England.

He was a man of endless thoughts and ideas and would have been bored silly by the social scene there very quickly. And if in Egypt, why not look for ancient objects? He was a passionate collector, who genuinely liked uncovering objects of The discovery of tomb was the last in a long series of excava- tions the fifth earl carried out with Howard Carter in Egypt from 1908 onwards, during which he amassed a vast amount of scholarly knowledge as well as a matchless collection of ancient relics. He also spent around £2 million of the family fortune, thanks in part to his wife, Almina Wombwell. great- grandmother was the illegitimate daugh- ter of Alfred Carnarvon explains. thought she was just the best thing, and helped fund Highclere, which freed up great-grandfather to spend money in HE UNSULLIED tomb, which provided and still provides a peerless insight into a past civilisation, should have been the crowning glory of the fifth life.

Instead, it killed him. was not a strong man, and the stress of the discovery was quite says Carnarvon. thought made this good, practical deal with The Times, so all the news about the dig would be fun- nelled through one paper, but others like the Express ended up fomenting nation- alist discontent in Cairo because they have access to the story. caused rows between my great- grandfather and Carter, so he took a few days off to go to Aswan, and was bitten by this blasted mosquito. The bite swelled on his face, and he cut it with his razor, which made it worse.

He died of septi- caemia, although he fought it for several The fifth son, grand- father, seems to have believed in the curse: grandfather make much of the Tutankhamun story for largely superstitious reasons. The two omens he did talk about were that the power failed completely in Cairo the night my great-grandfather died and his little dog, Rosie, let out a howl and died the same night, at home here in High- The current earl tut-tuts at the notion of a curse. Howard Carter lived on until 1939 died of lymphoma, in and he cleared the tomb out completely and ensured everything was sent to Cairo. Secondly, a number of other people lived on for a long time, including my great-aunt, who was one of the first people to go inside the Egypt and Tutankhamun continued to exert an influence on the family. Alfred Rothschild had died in 1918, and falling rates and rising taxes in the aftermath of the First World War pushed the fifth earl into debt.

In a letter written to his agent, he says he will sort out an overdraft with the bank on his return from Egypt. After he died in the Continental Hotel in Cairo, his wife continued to bankroll Howard work on the dig. Although this money was eventually repaid by the Egyptian government in 1936, she was forced to sell her collection of Egyptiana to an American collector for $145,000 to pay death duties. It is now in the Met in New York. NICK CURTIS www.thisislondon.co.uk/nickcurtis 2.

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Pages Available:
2,377,260
Years Available:
1897-2023