On November 7th, Eric Jackson presented an absorbing talk about the discovery of the tomb of TutAnkhAmun.

Archaeologist Howard Carter was funded for many years by Lord Carnarvon, and he worked from 1907, when they met, through 1922, the date of the tomb’s discovery in The Valley of the Kings in Egypt, until 1930, when the tomb was finally emptied – its contents being made available on-site and to museums across the world.

TutAnkhAmun was a little known pharaoh who ruled for only 9 years as a child – hence his burial chamber was small. Like all such chambers, his had been entered by grave robbers, looking for precious artefacts buried there, but they hadn’t succeeded in breaking into the complex nested coffins, the innermost gold coffin containing the mummified body.

Eric showed us slides of the many works of art from the tomb, with much gold in evidence, including the famous golden mask.

He shared with us details of the Pharaoh’s complex family relationships, the famous curse, and Carter’s death in 1939 without receiving any honours for his discoveries.