Carter, Howard

(1874–1939)

   British excavator. He was born in London on 9 May 1874, the son of an artist who trained him in the trade. He was sent to Egypt in 1891 as an artist draughtsman at Beni Hasan by the Egypt Exploration Fund and later worked as an assistant to Flinders Petrie at Amarna and Deir el-Bahri. Carter was appointed chief inspector for UpperEgyptin 1899 and transferred to Lower Egypt in 1904 but left the Antiquities Service in 1905 after a disagreement. He was employed by the Earl of Carnarvon beginning in 1909 as an archaeologist in the Theban area, especially in the Valley of the Kings, where he made significant discoveries before finding the intact tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. Carter took 10 years to clear the tomb, but he lacked the academic background to undertake a definitive archaeological report on his work. His detailed notes are preserved in the Griffith Institute in Oxford, United Kingdom, and have been used to prepare a series of reports on groups of materials from the tomb. He died in London on 2 March 1939.

   See also Mariette, Auguste Ferdinand; Montet, Pierre Marie; Naville, Edouard; Reisner, George Andrew; Winlock, Herbert Eustis.

Historical Dictionary Of Ancient Egypt by Morris L. Bierbrier