What was actually discovered
The tomb of Tutankhamun, designated KV62 in the Valley of the Kings, was found by the British archaeologist Howard Carter in November 1922. It is not the largest or richest royal tomb ever built, and its fame comes from the fact that it was found largely intact. Most royal tombs in the valley had been robbed in antiquity. KV62 had been entered by thieves soon after the burial, but it was resealed and later hidden under debris from other tombs, which protected most of its contents for over three thousand years. The real mysteries are historical, such as how he died and why his tomb is so small, and they have nothing to do with a supernatural force.
The short-lived king
Tutankhamun came to the throne at around nine years of age, about 1332 BCE, in the Eighteenth Dynasty, and ruled for roughly ten years. He was probably the son of Akhenaten, the king who had promoted the worship of the sun disc, the Aten. During Tutankhamun’s reign, the traditional gods were restored and the court returned to older practice, in a process led largely by senior officials. He died around 1323 BCE, at about eighteen or nineteen, and was succeeded by the courtier Ay and later by the general Horemheb. Tutankhamun was a minor figure historically. Rulers such as Hatshepsut, whose reign is much better documented, left a larger political mark.
The search and the find
Carter had worked in Egypt for decades, and from 1917 he excavated in the Valley of the Kings with funding from George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. After several seasons with few results, Carnarvon was reluctant to continue. Carter was given one more season. On 4 November 1922 his team uncovered a step cut into the rock, which led to a stairway and a sealed doorway. Carter sent for Carnarvon, who arrived from England, and on 26 November the two looked through a small opening into the antechamber. When asked if he could see anything, Carter replied that he saw wonderful things, as he later recorded.
The tomb and its contents
The tomb has four small rooms: an antechamber, an annex, a burial chamber and a treasury. It is small for a king, which has led scholars to suggest it was prepared quickly, perhaps adapted from a tomb intended for someone else. The antechamber was crammed with furniture, chariots, couches shaped as animals and storage boxes. The sealed burial chamber, opened in February 1923, held four gilded wooden shrines nested around a quartzite sarcophagus, three coffins and the mummy of the king, which wore a gold funerary mask of roughly ten kilograms.
Among the more than five thousand objects were:
- the gold mask and the innermost coffin of solid gold
- thrones, beds and chairs, one throne decorated with a scene of the king and queen
- shields, bows, chariots and a trumpet
- jewellery, including pectorals and a dagger with a blade of iron
- food, wine jars and linen
- shabti figures, the small servant statues meant to work for the king
The iron dagger has been shown by analysis to be made of meteoritic iron, which is interesting because working iron was rare at the time. Many of the objects, including those from the king’s earlier life, show that grave goods were not always made new for the funeral.
A decade of clearance
Carter worked with a team of specialists, including conservators, photographers, draughtsmen and chemists, in a project that lasted about ten years, until 1932. Objects were catalogued, photographed in place and treated before removal. The slow method set standards for the time, although by modern standards some decisions were rough, and later research has revisited some conservation treatments. Photographs by Harry Burton remain a valuable record. The collection was kept in Egypt, apart from a few items, and is now displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza.
The curse of the pharaohs
Carnarvon died in Cairo in April 1923, a few months after the opening, of blood poisoning, which is usually said to have followed an infected mosquito bite that he cut while shaving. The coincidence led newspapers to speculate about a curse written over the tomb. No such inscription has been found in the tomb, and stories of one were invented or embroidered by the press. Carnarvon had given one London newspaper exclusive rights to the story, and rival papers were keen for a sensational angle.
The facts do not support a curse. Many of the people involved lived for decades. Carter himself died in 1939, and others who entered the tomb lived into old age. A published statistical study of those present at the opening found no sign of reduced life expectancy. Explanations for illnesses have sometimes been offered, such as moulds or bacteria in sealed tombs. These are speculative and not well supported. The curse is best understood as a modern legend, shaped by the press and by popular fascination.
What the tomb tells us
Beyond its treasures, the tomb is a detailed record of royal funerary equipment of the late Eighteenth Dynasty, including the coffin design and wooden shrines. It shows the importance of the burial rites, from the funerary offerings to the protective texts. Mummy scientific study, including CT scans and genetic work, has aimed to explore his health and family, though some claims remain debated. The cause of death is still not agreed.
Tutankhamun’s name was left out of later king lists, and his tomb survived in part because later builders forgot where it was. Another largely intact royal burial, from a later age, was found at Tanis royal tombs in the Delta, but nothing matches the scale of this find. The discovery changed popular views of archaeology and sparked widespread public interest in ancient Egypt, a fascination that has lasted for a century. Researchers continue to study the objects, including their materials and construction, with new methods, so the tomb remains a source of fresh questions as well as familiar answers.