Message #136316

[Bianca]

Lord Carnarvon had taken up "digging" during enforced winters in Egypt - prescribed by his doctor following a serious motoring accident - and had later become addicted to archeology; eventually he spent the equivalent of $500,000 on the search for Tutankhamen. He was not, however, a professional like I Howard Carter, who outwardly, at least, stayed calm and meticulously collected and recorded each of the delicate fragments found in the passage. Instead, Adamson said, he became increasingly excited, as, at last, they were ready to breach the second door.


It was, of course, a highly dramatic moment; behind that door lay the answer to all their questions. Slowly and carefully Carter made a hole in the upper left hand corner of the door and peered through.


"At first," says Carter, "I could see nothing, but presently, as my eyes became accustomed to the light, details of the room emerged slowly from the mists, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously 'Can you see anything?' it was all I could do to get out the words, 'Yes, wonderful things'." Probing the chamber again with his flashlight, Carter picked out yet another sealed doorway on the right hand wall flanked by two sentinel statues. "The explanation," wrote Carter, "slowly dawned upon us. What we saw was merely an antechamber. Behind the guarded door were other chambers. We were but on the threshold of our discovery."


Finally, their minds reeling from what they had seen, they re-closed the hole, locked the wooden grille that had been placed over the first doorway, and rode back to Luxor - leaving Sergeant Adamson to guard what we now know were priceless treasures, and wondering what was behind the third door. Had the tomb robbers succeeded in opening the third door too? If so, what were their chances of finding the king's mummy intact? "I think," wrote Carter later, "we slept but little, all of us, that night."