Tutankhamun Uncovered (49 page)

Carter for once was at a loss for words. He had not had time to analyse what the director’s strategy might be. “Sir, believe me, what I have told you is true. I do not know why on this occasion Monsieur le Directeur is feeling so generous. But I fear he has something brewing in that deceitful Froggy mind of his.”

“Carter!” scolded Carnarvon. “Give the man’s charity some credit, for God’s sake! You are always so critical of others. I do believe you have the greatest difficulty in seeing the best in men.”

Carter could see that this was no time to argue. Besides, he was still uneasily sceptical of what Lacau’s strategy was and needed time to think the situation through.

As the car bounced down the road, claxon blaring, dodging between the milling masses of preoccupied pedestrians, he turned to the earl. “Sir. You are quite right. I am uncharitable. I apologise. Never mind his reasons, let’s take his offer and run!”

When Carnarvon came down to dinner that evening, Carter was already in the lounge with Lucas and the two were heavily into their second cocktails.

“My lord.” Lucas got up and pulled a lounge chair forward for him. “We were just talking about the results of my analysis on the deposits you had brought me earlier today. I am afraid it’s not too exciting. Interesting to the scientist, but I don’t suspect my news will meet your lordship’s expectations.”

“You have already sparked my curiosity, Doctor Lucas, so don’t hold back!”

“Well... merely a mixture of quartz and limestone fragments with some traces of a vegetable pitch and a little resin. A curious concoction. Not a substance associated with embalming but decidedly from a foundation deposit by Mr Carter’s account.”

“Yes,” Carter added. “From what I can make of the jars’ inscriptions, sir, they refer to ‘holy oils’ of various manufacture. Clearly not what ended up in them. I cannot fathom for the life of me what the chemistry of these contents can mean.”

Carnarvon predictably was quick to lose interest. He sipped at his drink and the subject moved on to hunting.

By now it was late May. Carnarvon had left for England some time earlier. Mercifully, the summer heat had held off this year. As he waited for Lacau to complete the restoration of the Merneptah jars, Carter found it not unduly uncomfortable to continue work in the field.

On the less tolerable days he stayed at home and made preparations for his eventual departure. He wanted a quick start-up when he returned the following winter. He had decided to break his normal routine and had authorised Ali to restart the dig on the first of October, more than two months before he intended to arrive back on the west bank. This decision reflected three things: he was anxious to accelerate the clearing of the entire area; he was prepared to relax his normal standards; and he held the greatest confidence in the discipline and ability of his principal reis. And in any case, in his present strangely unoptimistic mood, he felt there was virtually no risk of a discovery of any importance during his absence. He had left little to chance, however. The reis had been instructed to clear only to the base of the most obviously recent deposits.

On the first of June, just as Carter’s patience was beginning to fade, Abdel brought in a telegram:

Carter STOP Partage des antiquités trouvées dans la Vallée des Rois STOP Campagne 1920 STOP Il est complet STOP Lacau.

About bloody time, thought Carter. “Abdel! Start packing. I am departing for Cairo tomorrow morning. I must telegraph the steamer company to ensure I have a berth. You will send it for me.”

When he arrived at Lacau’s door, Carter had but two hours’ daylight left to get to the steamer company office and secure his ticket.

Lacau was as condescending as he had been at their last meeting. “Monsieur Carter,” he greeted, holding Carter’s outstretched hand. “it is so good to see you again. May I get you a drink?”

“Non, monsieur, merci. I must get to the steamer company before it closes to ensure my booking on the next passage.”

“Ah,” acknowledged Lacau. “Then here is the certificate for exportation. Please sign for receipt. I believe as we speak my men are placing the crate on your carriage. Bon voyage.”

He shook Carter’s hand vigorously. Too vigorously for Carter’s taste. Not that it was all that strong, but Carter read deviousness into every one of Lacau’s gestures. He felt uncomfortable. Up to this point, he still could not fathom his own uneasy suspicions. He extracted his hand and took out his fountain pen to sign the certificate. He signed underneath Lacau’s signature on the two copies, tore one off and pocketed it. Lacau escorted him to the front door. Carter touched his hat to the director as he left. Turning, he saw the crate stacked and securely bound on the rear platform of his carriage. He got in and the carriage drove away.

Lacau watched him disappear into the mêllée of dust and carts and animals and cars and people and turned back towards his office. There was a satisfied smile on his face. In this negotiation he had conceded little of value. If there were a next time, there was ample justification for the favour to be doubly repaid. And, with the Englishman’s thorough approach to excavation, there was almost certain to be a next time. Carter, also, was convinced of that. But neither Lacau nor Carter had any conception just how much of an issue that could one day become for them.

That evening, back at the Continental, someone else’s luck changed Carter’s priorities. He received a telegram from a dealer friend of his in Luxor:

Sir there has been a great find STOP To the south of The Valley STOP By infidels STOP Know who they are STOP Have heard they already arrange sales with the French and other dealers STOP No time to be lost STOP Return immediately STOP Have room reserved for you at WP STOP Nadir

With the sailing still five days away he was on the six a.m. train.

Carter strode up to the earl, beaming from ear to ear.

“You’ve got it, haven’t you?” said Carnarvon expectantly. “The princess’s jewellery it’s in that bag of yours, isn’t it?”

Carter couldn’t contain his feelings. The achievement, after all said and done, was truly remarkable.

“Yes, sir. I have a good deal of it here. And I have negotiated first refusal on the remainder subject to terms, of course. I do believe, ultimately, that we shall have the lot.”

“Capital! Capital!” exclaimed his lordship, rubbing his hands together. “Let me see it. Here, on the desk.”

Carnarvon removed the inkwells and blotter and a number of papers from the broad desk in his library and placed them on a nearby seat. Carter methodically unfastened the straps on his leather case and sank his hand into the interior up to his elbow. He pulled out an oblong mat of cotton wool and placed it on the desk.

“You open it, sir.”

Carnarvon’s fingers were trembling with excitement as he teased the wool apart. He pulled the upper layer back to reveal a necklace of small beads, carnelian, lapis lazuli and gold with, spaced exactly eleven beads apart, twelve diminutive caricatures of seated baboons, each of them cast in gold.

Carnarvon caught his breath. “It’s exquisite, Howard. Absolutely exquisite.” And after a pause, “How much did it cost me?”

“Less than you might expect, sir. Sufficiently less for you to make a fine profit from the sale of it, should you so wish. The Met is eager to obtain possession.” He quickly added, “And all the other pieces, should you want to secure them.”

“Marvellous, Howard. Absolutely marvellous! You have more?”

“I have, sir.”

One by one, Carter carefully removed the objects he had in his bag until they were all displayed across the surface of the desk.

“I am all but speechless, Howard. With all those melancholy letters of yours, I must confess I was not looking forward too much to your report.”

Carter lowered his eyes.

“But this... this... this trove! I know I have had to pay for it, but the very fact you may be able to capture the entire contents of a rifled tomb... Such compensation for the lacklustre results of our own efforts in your so-called ‘triangle of opportunity’.”

That was a low blow, unintentional as such by the earl but deeply felt nonetheless by his colleague.

“I shall enjoy these pieces amongst my collection. Pride of place they will have. Perhaps I will sell them on... to the Met, or the British Museum. But not for a while yet, at any rate. You may, in time, make the arrangements. Keep them waiting a while first, though. Make ’em sweat, eh? Ha, ha, ha.”

The earl was clearly stimulated by his new acquisitions. Carter’s theatricals had altogether the desired effect. Better still, the lately unsuccessful archaeologist stood to make a substantial financial killing out of it through his own profit and, in addition, through his commission for arranging placement of the goods. Carter hadn’t felt this gratified for some years, and the joy of it was, neither had his patron. Carnarvon’s personal expectations now switched to the more tangible acquisition of antiquities that he knew already existed ‘above ground’, so to speak. Carter could see that his lordship had put the frustrations of the past year’s relatively fruitless digging to one side, for the time being at least.

‘If I can get a bit of digging done while I am making money on the purchases,’ Carter reflected, ‘I shall have the best of all worlds keep Carnarvon’s interest and make progress in the triangle make money!’ He drew long on his cigarette and let the smoke curl slowly from his nostrils.

Carter returned to Luxor in November. His gamble had paid off. The men had cleared a significant area during his absence and had found nothing. He immediately set about preparing for Carnarvon’s next visit, assembling the facilities the earl would expect to be available the moment he arrived. In the depths of the tomb of Ramses XI Carter would prepare a space to store his lordship’s wines. He would clean and level the upper reaches so that the party could take lunch in comfort.

Towards the end of the year, Carter had returned his men to working in the vicinity of the ancient workmen’s huts. He could not spend too long in this spot but, on the off chance that something might turn up quickly in this, the area he had the greatest hopes for, he thought it worthwhile to devote just a little time to digging. Soon he would have to stop for the forthcoming state visit of the current ruler of Egypt, Sultan Hussein. Anyway, with the tourist season upon him, he would have to work elsewhere to avoid risking a fall by a clumsy tourist visiting the tomb of Ramses VI, the door to which stood immediately above the site of his steadily deepening excavation.

It was the end of another month. Time to put pen to paper and once again report progress to his patron. Carter sat at his desk that evening, his notebook in front of him, and chewed on the end of his fountain pen, searching for the right words. Somehow he wanted to make his own frustrations clear to the earl while at the same time indicating some cause for optimism. The words weren’t coming, however.

Carter replaced the cap on his pen. Actions would speak better than words.

In his urgency to discover something of value to present to his patron, Carter temporarily lost faith in his clearance area and moved his men to a gully in the southern extremity of the valley lying just ahead of the entrance to the tomb of Tuthmosis III. There, eventually, he found another lacklustre assemblage of foundation deposits.

It wasn’t good enough. He was feeling the pressure. He had been seriously attacking the ‘triangle’ for three seasons and was now in his fourth. All he had to show for it of any significance were the six jars that Carnarvon had received as his share from the excavation in which Lady Evelyn had participated a year ago.

Carter cut his losses and moved his men back to the centre of the valley. He placed them further north where there was evidence of other ancient workmen’s dwellings. There the men toiled a further two weeks. And there something finally turned up.

“Master! Master! Come! There is something!”

As he had done every day this season, Carter was standing above the excavation watching and directing the men at their work, and looking for all purposes as fresh to the task as if he expected a discovery any moment. When he heard the man shouting, he immediately scrambled down the gravel bank towards him.

“What is it, Ali?” he shouted. “What have you found?”

“See, sir.”

The man gestured towards a crevice in the bare rock face. There, in a dark recess, faintly twinkling in the sunshine, lay a set of dirty bronze studs. They were the like of those shown in many wall illustrations, sewn in an even pattern on a funeral pall, the type that would have been draped over the frame enclosing the funerary shrines which housed a mummy’s sarcophagus and coffins.

Carter was cautiously encouraged by the discovery. While these studs could indicate that a tomb was nearby, they could also indicate that it was robbed, part of the debris trail of a hasty retreat. Judiciously he recorded the location of the find, the pieces numbered according to his system, and had them carefully packed.

But this excitement was short-lived. Another month passed with nothing to show for the effort. After years of toil, hundreds of tons of characterless rubble had been removed from the area. The tailings of the excavation now extended some considerable way towards the valley mouth, a testament to all the effort and dogged perseverance.

It was getting warm. It was time to bring another disappointing season to a close.

Carter left Egypt for England in April 1921 and, somewhat despondent at his melancholy progress, felt disinclined to return too soon. This time he had not prepared his men to begin work early the following season. He told them to await his return, saying he felt he was close and needed to be present at all stages of the dig from now on. The fact was that there was little of the area left to be cleared.

He felt depressed and did not know how he was going to go about confronting his patron with yet more of this fruitless news.

It was a glorious early May. At Highclere the rhododendrons were blooming in bursts of vibrant colour all over the estate. The contrast with the desert was so extreme that on his way along the drive to the house Carter felt compelled to stop the car and sit a while to take in the atmosphere. He pulled the car onto the grass verge, stopped the engine, rolled down the window and took a deep breath. There were rhododendrons all about him. The heavy, sweet scent of jasmine hung in the air. Carter got out of the car and walked into the shrubbery. Purples, reds, pinks, whites, yellows, blues, and oranges blazed all about him. He found a clearing, took off his jacket, laid it on the grass and sat down. Drawing his knees up under his chin and clasping his legs tightly in his arms, he gazed dreamily at the colourful spectacle. A breeze rolled through the trees and the massive clusters of blooms waved before him. As he stared with unfocused eyes into the panoply of colours, they slowly coalesced.