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Howard Carter

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Google Doodle

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Seattle: Google went deep down into history to celebrate the birthday of Howard Carter, the discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamen. In a doodle that shows the famed archaeologist admiring an array of Egyptian artifacts, Google has brought out Carter's contribution in re-creating the illustrious history of Egypt.

Carter's name became famous in the annals of archeology after he discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen becoming the first person to enter the hidden area in 33 centuries.

Howard Carter was born on May 9, 1874 in London, England as the son of Samuel Carter, a skilled artist, who trained him to follow in his footsteps, and Martha Joyce (Sands) Carter.

In 1891, at the age of 17 - a talented young artist - he was sent out by the Egypt Exploration Fund to assist Percy Newberry in the excavation and recording of Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan. Even at that young age he was innovative in improving the methods of copying tomb decoration.

In 1892 he worked under the tutelage of Flinders Petrie for one season at Amarna, the capital founded by the pharaoh Akhenaten. From 1894 to 1899 he then worked with Edouard Naville at Deir el-Bahari, where he recorded the wall reliefs in the temple of Hatshepsut.

In 1899, Carter was appointed the first chief inspector of the Egyptian Antiquities Service (EAS). He supervised a number of excavations at Thebes (now known as Luxor) before he was transferred in 1904 to the Inspectorate of Lower Egypt.

Carter was employed by Lord Carnarvon to supervise his excavations from 1907. Carnarvon financed Carter's work in the Valley of the Kings from 1914. After several years of fruitless searching, Carnarvon became dissatisfied with the lack of results.

However, on 4 November 1922, Carter's excavation group found the steps leading to Tutankhamun's tomb (subsequently designated KV62), by far the best preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings.

On 26 November 1922, with Carnarvon, Carnarvon's daughter, and others in attendance, Carter made the "tiny breach in the top left hand corner" of the doorway, and was able to peer in by the light of a candle and see that many of the gold and ebony treasures were still in place.

He made the breach into the tomb with a chisel his grandmother had given him for his seventeenth birthday. When Carnarvon asked, "can you see anything?" Carter replied with the famous words: "Yes, wonderful things."

Wonderful it was indeed for the world came to know the story of a legendary boy king whose death mask is now a symbol of ancient Egyptian history.

Seven years after his excavation ended, Carter died of lymphoma in Kensington, London, on 2 March 1939 at the age of 64.

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