A moment in time

[Horus]

I have just been doing a bit of historical research at my local library and came across an interesting snippet. I was researching my local evening newspaper from February 1st 1924 onwards a few weeks when I can across a report from Luxor Egypt. It was about a Mr Howard Carter who was having great difficulty in dismantling the fourth shrine surrounding a sarcophagus that may contain the mummy of a pharaoh named Tutankhamen. He was hoping that it would give access to the pink granite sarcophagus so that they could attempt to raise the lid. It made fascinating reading as he described how he thought that the lid would be difficult to remove as it would have been cemented down at the time of the burial. He believed that earlier tomb robbers had made a hole in the side in an attempt to prise off the lid.

I wish I’d have had more time available to write down the whole of the article and post it on here word for word, but it was quite lengthy. By the time I had to leave I was up to about the 5th of February and many notable people were already arriving in Luxor in droves (not the Caernarfon’s) and the political situation was commented on. The lid had broken into two parts (or revealed to be broken) and they were still having some problems removing it.

I found myself wanting to carry on turning the wheel of the Micro-film machine to find out what happened next, even though I knew the answers. I was engrossed in my own little world, looking into the viewing window before me and thinking to myself, Carter old son, you have no idea what you are about to discover!

[Karenh]

Thanks for that Horus sounds fascinating it things like that i really enjoy.
I think if i was given 1 wish it would be to go back in time to the time of the pahrohs then forward to where the tombs were being discovered!

[LovelyLadyLux]

H - did you ever go back and do more research? If so - find anything else you can share?

If I could time transport I'd love to be the fly on the wall to have witnessed what went into all the tombs.

[LivinginLuxor]

It might be interesting to see if your newspaper has an online archive - even some local newspapers have them.

If you want to see Carter's account of the days you have mentioned, take a look at
http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4sea2not.html - the records of the 1923-4 season. It's in date order, and the links above each day's report take you to a scan of his actual diary entries - such bad handwriting!

The Griffith Institute has also placed online his notes for publication - quite interesting to see more of how the shrines were taken apart http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4tutnot.html

[Horus]

I did go back, but not to persue that particular item, I was too engrossed in my own discoveries. The problem with these type of records is that you have to choose a particular year and all of the years news is divided into quarter periods, so Jan - March etc. Also as you are only viewing a scanned copy of what may be a very tatty original, it can be a daunting task in reading through to find any particular item. So unless you have a reason to be researching a particular year, you may well miss the interesting little snippets.