The Pharaoh Hunter Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank

'The great civilisation of ancient Egypt,

'with its dramatic spectacle and mystery has always fascinated me.

'I've been travelling the country to explore

'some of the intriguing stories

'that have emerged from this historic land.

'In this programme, I'm following in the footsteps of Howard Carter,

'tracing the life of the man who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun.'

'Here, in the Egyptian museum in Cairo,

'this spectacular collection of treasure

'comes from the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

'It's come to symbolise the greatness of ancient Egypt.

'But it's here only thanks to the sheer tenacity of the renowned archaeologist Howard Carter,

'who in 1922 - after all others had given up -

'pushed on to discover the tomb of the little-known Pharaoh.'

Howard Carter made this amazing discovery against all the odds,

and he's always intrigued me.

He's now, of course,

only known in association with the treasure of Tutankhamun,

but in fact, he made a major contribution to archaeology.

Indeed, from the moment he arrived in Egypt,

he started to question and change the way in which archaeology was carried out.

'But the life of Howard Carter holds a mystery that I want to explore.'

What's astonishing is that Carter didn't get any official recognition from Britain.

He didn't get any of the honours he so richly deserved.

Really extraordinary.

'What was it about this man that made him achieve so much,

'yet receive so little from his own countrymen?'

One clue is offered by his childhood,

and by the strange story

that brought him to Egypt in the first place.

What I find most surprising about Carter's childhood

is that he had almost no education and he was a real loner.

He was a sickly child,

and was sent away to live with his maiden aunts in rural Norfolk.

From what we know, he had few friends here

and I suspect became a self-reliant young man,

perhaps triggering in him a sense of being an outsider.

Something that lasted all his life.

But it's Carter's rudimentary education that astonishes me.

He left school altogether at 15,

showing none of the academic aptitude

that would later bring him such fame.

In fact, he never took an exam in his life.

But he did have a talent for painting and drawing,

especially the local countryside and wildlife.

Norfolk is probably where Howard Carter would have stayed,

if it wasn't for the magical attraction of a stately home nearby.

Didlington Hall was where Carter saw something

that would trigger a lifelong passion.

Here, Lord and Lady Amherst had assembled

the finest private collection of Egyptian objects in Britain.

Carter became entranced and inspired

by what he saw of this ancient art.

Then he got an astonishing break.

Lady Amherst suggested he join an expedition she was funding to Egypt.

He was to use his artistic talents to record the ancient art

on the walls of the tombs that were being excavated.

So suddenly, at the age of 17,

Carter found himself setting sail for far-off Egypt.

I'm following his route down the Nile, to a place called Beni Hasan.

Carter, it seems, had arrived at just the right moment.

The late 19th century was a boom time for archaeologists in Egypt.

Tombs were being discovered, temples excavated and recorded,

and much of the work was paid for

by rich amateurs or English aristocrats.

They would fund archaeologists to come here,

pay for excavators to work on their pet projects,

and this, of course,

is exactly how young Carter found himself here in Egypt in 1891.

Can you imagine what this young chap must have felt?

How thrilling - this 17-year-old, poorly educated, from rural Norfolk,

suddenly being in this exotic world of Egyptian archaeology.

'I've come to these rock-cut tombs at Beni Hasan

'to see where Carter started work,

'and where, right from the start,

'he would want to challenge the way things were done.

'His first task was to record wall paintings.'

And what paintings!

The young Carter, already gripped by Egyptian art,

must have been overcome with excitement

when he entered this tomb.

The scheme of paintings is so complete on all four walls.

It shows the earthly delights and achievements of a local governor.

We see him fishing, hunting, receiving tribute.

Now, Carter had been employed as a "tracer" - paid £50 a year.

The tracer's job was simply to put a piece of tracing paper

over the image to be recorded, and then copy it,

and that's it, basically.

Once it's been filled in, it ends up looking like this.

Pretty crude.

Just a black and white image silhouette.

All the details there, but rather robbed of life.

You can see that if you compare this tracing

with the wall painting it's traced from.

Full of colour and texture and life and meaning, and for Carter -

with his love of Egyptian art -

this sort of arid approach simply wasn't good enough.

So, at the age of 17, he began his mission

to raise the standards by which Egyptian art was recorded.

Here, what we can see are some charming watercolours

that he produced of some of the paintings on the walls.

But I have copies of them, and this was really to play to his strengths,

because he was a very talented artist,

and he loved recording natural life.

And this bird, I believe, is somewhere in front of me.

Ah, yes, there he is, perching up there in this scene.

And here's another one. Up there, yes.

These little creatures are being - I'm afraid -

hunted by the owner of this tomb who's up there,

sort of poking at them with a big stick.

One of his worldly delights.

The longer Carter spent in Egypt,

the more sophisticated his artwork became.

In the archives, I tracked down this stunning original watercolour,

painted just four years after he arrived in Egypt.

It must have really caught the eye of the archaeological community.

He was in his early 20s when he made this, in 1895.

It shows an image of Horus.

It's a wonderful piece of work.

It shows many things about Carter.

It shows how meticulous he was as an observer.

It shows the image absolutely in its correct context...

the hieroglyphs, some removed.

It shows the cracks...

on the wall.

So, we get from this the sense that he's observing

the photographic precision,

not an emotional interpretation.

An accurate rendering of this thing of beauty -

drawing as a scientific exercise.

In a sense, it's pioneering.

It's on the cutting edge

of the way Egyptian art was being documented

in the late 19th century.

Carter's obsession with precision and accuracy

would have been a good start

for someone with ambitions to be an archaeologist.

And he was soon to get his first lesson - from a real master.

A little south of the tombs at Beni Hasan

is the site of the ancient city of El Armana.

'It's a desolate plain where Carter made his first steps towards his future career.'

At the time, there was a thriving dig here,

led by the pioneering archaeologist Flinders Petrie.

Petrie's philosophy was that every object on an ancient site, however small,

could hold vital clues, and should be recorded.

It was a far more scientific approach

than was common at the time.

Carter came here to collect objects for the Amhersts back in Norfolk,

but significantly, he was watching

and learning the way Petrie ran an excavation.

The meticulous Carter soaked up Petrie's painstaking techniques,

and they were the key to his later great success.

Carter's trail led me further south

to Luxor, the site of the old city of Thebes.

'It's where Carter - still only 19 years old -

'got the chance to bring together his art

'and his growing passion for archaeology.

'It was here,

'at the magnificent mortuary temple of the Queen Hatshepsut

'at Deir el-Bahari.

'When Carter arrived as the site artist,

'the place was still half-buried...

'..but what eventually emerged was a spectacular monument.

'Carter's job was to oversee the recording of the ancient art as it emerged from the rubble.

'But he soon demonstrated his newly learned knowledge of archaeology.

'Gradually, Carter earned the respect of the authorities,

'taking on increasing responsibility.

'He ended up, after six years, almost running the whole excavation.

'Deir el-Bahari was Carter's big break as an archaeologist.

'At the age of 25, this uneducated man had learned his profession on the job.'

And that led to another big step on his road to fame.

He was offered the job of chief inspector

in the Egyptian Antiquities Service.

It really had been an extraordinary, rapid rise for the Norfolk schoolboy.

He now supervised many of the ancient sites in Egypt...

..including the great temples at Luxor,

and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

'And he had authority over older and more experienced archaeologists.

'Some, no doubt, resented this - something that may have added to Carter's sense of being an outsider.

'But his success was not to last.'

His obsessive streak

that made him a painstaking artist and archaeologist

also made him dangerously inflexible.

And this led to a huge row with his employers.

'One afternoon in 1905 -

'at the site of the great step-pyramid at Saqqara -

'a group of drunken French tourists were causing a scene,

'so Carter had them thrown out.

'It caused a major diplomatic incident with the French.

'Carter was ordered to apologise, but he refused,

'and - after months of wrangling - he resigned from his beloved job.

'It caused considerable embarrassment

'to the British establishment,

'and didn't do Carter's reputation any good.'

It was a bad time for Carter.

Really very little detail is known about his life at this period.

He seems to have spent days

wandering around the back-streets of Luxor,

looking at stalls like these, chatting to people.

Really, he had no direction,

obviously he must have been very depressed.

There were no obvious employers for him.

Old sponsors like Lord Amherst... Well, he'd gone bankrupt,

and potential new employers seemed to rather shun Carter.

So, he became... well, a gentleman dealer, really -

buying and selling antiquities.

All a bit, I suppose, embarrassing for him.

A bit of a...sort of a disgrace,

but he had his art to fall back on, his artistic talent.

He made watercolours -

drawings of famous locations, ancient buildings - and sold them.

Didn't make him a fortune,

but it certainly provided him with a reliable and reasonable income.

'For four long years,

'Carter was almost an outcast from the world of Egyptian excavation.

'But then came a turning point that would reverse his fortune

'and lead to the the biggest archaeological success

'of the 20th century.

'This is the hotel in Luxor where Carter met the fabulously wealthy Lord Carnarvon,

'who was to become his new patron and change his life.'

Caught on camera, Carter - on the right -

clearly struck up a rapport with the aristocrat,

and began to adopt some of his style.

The two men worked together for years in various parts of Egypt with only modest success.

But then, in the Valley of the Kings -

the burial ground for so many Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt -

Carter and Carnarvon became more and more convinced that they could find the tomb of Tutankhamun -

that so many others had sought and missed.

As the search for the missing tomb went on,

it's fascinating to realise

that it was Carter's less attractive characteristics -

his stubborn tenacity, his obstinacy -

that led to eventual triumph.

In the summer of 1922, Carnarvon wanted to abandon the search.

Carter wouldn't give in,

and persuaded him to finance one more season of digging.

Carter systematically explored the unexcavated section of the Valley,

and within a few weeks, the world knew Carter's hunch had been right.

Walking here,

it's easy to understand why the tomb of Tutankhamun

was hidden for so long, why it was so hard to find.

The entrance to his tomb is right in front of me,

now covered by this flat concrete roof.

The entrance being just about here.

Behind me is a later tomb to Rameses VI,

and when that was dug,

obviously lots of limestone chippings and spoil

would have been cascading right down here,

utterly burying, obscuring, Tutankhamun's tomb.

'It's thrilling now to retrace Carter's footsteps.'

Golly! This is it.

This is where it happened.

That magical moment when Carter found the entrance to the tomb.

Things have been tidied up a bit since his time,

but nevertheless, still very exciting,

and down these few steps is the entrance to the tomb itself.

This is the first door where Carter found the seals intact.

He then started to remove the rubble

and go down the descending passage, as I am now.

Carter reached the second door - here it is -

also filled with rubble, plastered over, seals intact.

Goodness me, this is exciting.

Well, he then made a little hole here,

I suppose, hoping against hope they wouldn't see a sea of devastation.

He looked through this little hole,

and saw something that made him turn back to Carnarvon standing up there, and say,

"I can see wonderful things."

He realised the tomb had not been pillaged by robbers in antiquity.

Much survived.

He saw in front of him

a series of great ritual couches,

gilded animal heads, a chest down there,

a great treasury of artefacts,

bits of chariots were around, and over here when he came in,

there was a wall, since removed - a rubble wall -

dividing this, the ante-chamber, from the burial chamber.

And here we see the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun

with all the coffins inside it.

Of course, in that coffin is the young Pharaoh's body.

This was the first Royal tomb from Ancient Egypt

ever to be found intact -

virtually untouched by tomb robbers.

Carter must have been thrilled indeed.

Yet when I tracked down his diary for 1922,

I was surprised by its matter-of-fact tone.

Here we have it.

The 4th of November, "First steps of tomb found."

This is a moment when he realises he's on to something.

Over the page, on the 5th of November,

"Discovered tomb under tomb of Rameses VI.

"Investigated same and found seals intact."

Getting to the 23rd of November, "Lord Carnarvon arrives."

On the 25th, "Opened first doors" Incredible moment.

And the next day, yes, here we have it, the 26th,

"Opened second doorway."

And this great event,

the greatest event in the history of archaeology, really -

certainly in the 20th century -

is recorded in very spare detail in this little book.

It's strange reading really, lacking in emotion.

I suppose...

this portrayal of this great event in this rather detached way

is a portrait of the man himself.

Whatever his feelings about the discovery,

we can be sure that Carter was soon very aware of the hard slog ahead.

Clearing the tomb of the hundreds of objects

and preparing them for the trip downriver to the Cairo Museum

would be, for Carter, almost a life sentence.

Everything we see today owes its beauty - if not its survival -

to the care taken by Carter and his team,

such as this stunning golden throne,

with its wonderful image showing Tutankhamun and his wife.

It's no surprise to discover

that the meticulous Carter kept notes of everything he found.

'But when I looked at his original records,

'I was amazed by the volume of detail.

'There's a full written description, and pictures too.'

This is a set of drawings of the throne

by Carter himself,

and characteristically meticulous,

absolutely lovely annotated drawings,

each component labelled,

revealing what it's made out of - the components, the materials -

"Wood overlaid with gold."

And in conjunction with the drawings are photographs.

Lovely use of photography.

The throne shown at various angles,

details, again annotated,

revealing the materials it's made of again, confirming the drawings.

Fantastic piece of work, this.

When you consider that Carter produced packs of cards like this for every object -

hundreds of objects -

you then begin to understand how this project took over his life.

The joy of this tremendous discovery

was soon tainted for Carter.

He was a solitary man.

He wasn't used to working with a large team.

And he now needed a large team

to work with him on this great discovery,

to catalogue, to analyse, even just to move the objects,

and that was difficult for him.

He couldn't work with people who didn't work as he worked,

and very few people worked like he worked.

That was one of the disappointments, I suppose,

but the biggest thing was his fall-out with Lord Carnarvon.

The trouble was, having funded the search for the tomb,

Carnarvon expected something in return.

Traditionally, the finds from an archaeological dig

would be shared between the sponsor of the excavation and the state.

But with an intact royal tomb like this one,

the Egyptian authorities wanted to keep everything.

Carter supported this view and disagreed with Carnarvon.

He believed this was such an important find

that Carnarvon should give up a claim to any share of the treasure.

It was clear that the two men were moving apart.

This must have been a very difficult time for Carter.

On the one hand, this great discovery

making him internationally famous,

on the other hand, the collapse of old relationships,

particularly with Carnarvon.

So, Carter was a man more isolated, more alone.

And that feeling must have been deepened just a few months later,

when Carter lost his friend and patron for good.

In the spring of 1923, Carnarvon travelled upriver to Aswan

where he went sailing with his daughter and some friends.

It was to be Lord Carnarvon's last holiday.

Within a couple of weeks Carnarvon was dead, just four months after the the tomb had been opened.

He'd been bitten by a mosquito.

The bite had become infected,

and he died of blood poisoning and pneumonia.

The suddenness of the death led to wild speculation,

fuelled by the fact that it is said that back in England,

Carnarvon's dog dropped dead at the same time as his master died.

Was this tomb in fact cursed?

Was Carnarvon being punished for his role in disturbing the rest...

of the Pharaoh?

This kind of superstition

only increased the whirlwind of interest in Tutankhamun.

Tut-mania, even Egypt-mania,

was sweeping the world, embracing everything.

Showbusiness...

fashion...

..even architecture.

But Carter was suspicious of all the publicity.

I think he found it a distraction from his work in the tomb.

He became irritable and was picking fights with everyone,

even the Egyptian authorities.

Eventually they closed him down,

banning him from the tomb for nearly a year.

I was saddened to discover how once again Carter's cantankerousness

had separated him from his life's work.

It was not until the autumn of 1925,

three years after he discovered the tomb,

that he was able to open the sarcophagus.

Finally, Carter came face-to-face

with the mummified body of the 19-year-old Pharaoh.

The body of Tutankhamun, still in this coffin,

remains the focus of intense interest.

It can tell us, we believe,

much about his life, how he died,

indeed maybe even reveal whether he was in fact murdered,

as many now speculate.

These are all questions that we know intrigued Carter,

but ironically the removal of the body from the coffin by Carter

destroyed much crucial evidence.

The remains were firmly set in hard resin,

and Carter had to break the body apart to remove it.

This treatment, typical of the time,

has made it harder to work out how the young king died,

but over the years, several attempts have been made.

In the 1960s, when the body was X-rayed, damage to part of the skull

raised the suspicion that a violent blow had killed him.

But the idea was dismissed by more detailed later scans.

Whatever investigations are carried out,

it seems the death of Tutankhamun

will remain as mysterious as it was for Carter.

'By 1932 - after ten years of work -

'Howard Carter had finished clearing the tomb.

'Everything had gone, save the king's body.

'The tomb of Tutankhamun

'is the only one out of 26 royal burials in the Valley

'in which the occupant still remains.

'But now Carter's job was over,

'and he must have felt a real sense of anticlimax.

'Tutankhamun was a triumph that was hard to follow.'

In the years after the opening of the coffin, Carter felt less and less comfortable in Egypt.

The authority took over the running of Tutankhamun's tomb,

and I suppose, in a way, Carter felt he'd lost his baby.

The old days were past - for him, anyway.

I suppose the romance of Egypt had gone. He stayed on a bit.

He used to take tours around the tomb and then, in 1935,

he decided to go home to England.

Back here, Carter's health deteriorated.

He'd never married and he seems to have lived a rather solitary life.

Carter died in March 1939,

before he managed to publish a full account of his great discovery,

which was ironic really,

for a man dedicated to documenting everything,

and he's buried here, in Putney Vale cemetery.

But why wasn't Carter honoured in this land

for his extraordinary achievement?

Well, maybe the answer is partly to do with his humble birth.

He was self-educated.

The world of archaeology was becoming increasingly academic,

so a bit of intellectual snobbery at work.

He was also a very difficult character,

ruffled many feathers, a bit of a loner, not very clubbable,

not the sort of man that could be easily accommodated

within the British establishment.

So, no honours for Carter, and no statue.

His only memorial is his own grave, and here it is.

Carter discovered the most famous tomb in history,

but all he gets...

is this very simple headstone.

I feel there's a great injustice here.

He was a great man,

and does deserve a better, more public, memorial.

But Carter's legacy is still with us -

his huge contribution to the science of archaeology,

and the glorious reminders of ancient Egypt

that he discovered 3,300 years after they'd been buried.

Next time, I'm on the trail of the rebel Pharaoh, Akhenaten,

and his renowned wife Nefertiti.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd