They recognize the work of Egyptologist Howard Carter

Mexico City. The English archaeologist Howard Carter, who today marks the sesquicentennial of his birth, discovered the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. With that discovery he opened access to knowledge of a good part of the history of Ancient Egypt.

The discovered funerary site was looted twice. It was preserved intact until Carter (London, 1874-1939) excavated and cataloged it, and then the objects found remained in Egypt, unlike the other important pieces of antiquity that ended up in foreign museums.

The British Egyptologist collaborated from the age of 17 on the documentation of Middle Kingdom tombs in Beni Hassan. In 1892 he spent some time in Amarna, the capital founded by Pharaoh Akhenaten. Between 1894 and 1899 he worked in Deir el-Bahari, where he drew the reliefs for the temple of Hatshepsut.

When the explorer found Tutankhamun’s tomb, on an expedition sponsored by Lord Carnarvon, the funerary repository was intact and housed more than 5,000 objects. It was considered the best preserved in the Valley of the Kings.

For almost 10 years, Carter carried out meticulous work cataloging the thousands of pieces found, which were then taken to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The work of English, explained to The Conference the archaeologist and anthropologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, It was invaluable, since other tombs had been looted tremendously. Carter was fortunate to find that preserved tomb of a pharaoh who had not been very relevant in Egyptian history. He had not been a Ramses II or a Thutmose III, but a ruler who died at the age of 18 or 19, and yet the richness of his grave goods allows us to think how majestic those of Ramesses II and Amenophis IV must have been..

He added that in that case, The materials were preserved in Egypt, contrary to what happened in the 18th and 19th centuries, when, with a colonialist attitude, many countries, including England and France, looted numerous archaeological sites from Greece and cultures in other nations and the they moved to their museums.

Matos highlighted that UNESCO has raised the interest that the objects that were transferred due to various circumstances to other preferred countries be returned. Suffice it to remember the controversy over the Parthenon marbles in Greece, which were uprooted by Lord Elgin at the beginning of the 19th century and transported to England. The Greek government continues to dialogue with English authorities to see how these stones can be returned..

He explained that through archeology the development processes in ancient societies are known. How do we find out about that ancient history? Through materials, various objects, ethnobotanical analyzes and a whole series of new techniques. The important thing is to find these materials in their original places. If these materials are affected through looting, the history of those countries is being affected..

The founder of the Templo Mayor Project, specialized in researching the city of Tenochtitlan, the ancient capital of the Mexica, mentioned that Carter’s work allowed opening the doors to knowledge of the funerary practices of the rulers of ancient Egyptwhich is comparable to when (Jean-François) Champollion deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs to understand their writing.

Another example of Carter’s importance is the influence of his wonderful find on later generations. Eduardo Matos became passionate about archeology when he learned about that culture in his youth and found his professional calling by reading the book Gods, tombs and wise men, from the German CW Ceram. There I learned about the vicissitudes of the Egyptian excavations, particularly in the tomb of Tutankhamun, fundamental in my interest in archeology..

Matos Moctezuma published the volume Great finds of archeologyin which he described the exploration of the vestiges of different cultures, beginning with the tomb of Tutankhamun, in which he recognized the work of the British archaeologist.