Howard Carter was born on March 9th, 1874 in Kensington, London, the youngest son of eight. He grew up in the county of Swaffam, North Norfolk, England with no formal education although his father, Samuel Carter, an artist, trained him in the fundamentals of drawing and painting. Although Howard Carter developed a well above average skill, he had no ambition to continue the family business of painting portraits of pets and families for the local Norfolk landowners. Instead, Howard Carter sought the opportunity to go to Egypt and work for the Egyptian Exploration Fund as a tracer, a person who copies drawings and inscriptions on paper for further studying. In October of 1891 at the age of 17, Howard Carter set sail for Alexandria, Egypt, which was his first journey outside of Britain.

Howard Carter’s first project was at Bani Hassan, the gravesite of the Sovereign Princes of Middle Egypt during 2000 B.C. Carter’s task was to record and copy the scenes from the walls of the tomb. At this early age, Howard Carter was a diligent worker with much enthusiasm. He would work the day through and then sleep with the bats in the tomb.

In 1892, Carter joined Flinders Petrie, at El-Amarna. Flinders was a strong field director and one of the most credible archaeologists of his time. Petrie believed Carter would never become a good excavator, but Carter proved him wrong when he unearthed several important finds at the site of el Amarna, the Capital of Egypt during the sovereignty of Akhenaten. Under Petrie’s demanding tutorage, Carter became an archaeologist, while keeping up with his artistic skills. He sketched many of the unusual artifacts found at el Amarna.

Carter was appointed Principle Artist to the Egyptian Exploration Fund for the excavations of Deir el Babri, the burial place of Queen Hatshepsut. This experience allowed him to perfect his drawing skills and strengthen his excavation and restoration technique. In 1899, at the age of 25, Carter’s hard work paid off, when he was offered the job of First Chief Inspector General of Monuments for Upper Egypt by the Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, Gaston Maspero. Carter’s responsibilities included supervising and controlling archaeology along the Nile Valley.

Carter’s employment at the Egyptian Antiquities Service came to an end in an unfortunate incident between the Egyptian site guards and a number of drunken French tourists. When the tourists became violently abusive to the guards, Carter allowed the guards to defend themselves. The French tourists, enraged, went through some high officials including the Egyptian Consul General Lord Cromer and called for Carter to make a formal apology. Carter refused, standing by his belief that he made the right decision. The incident gave Carter a bad name and caused him to be posted to the Nile Delta town of Tanta, a place with very little archaeological involvement. This forced Carter to resign from the Antiquities Service in 1905.

From 1905-1907, Carter sustained a hard existence after resigning from the Antiquities Service. He had to make a living by working as a commercial watercolorist or sometimes a guide for tourists. In 1908 Carter was introduced to the fifth Earl of Carnarvon by Gaston Maspero. The partnership proceeded happily, as each partner’s personality seemed to compliment the others.

Carter became the Supervisor of the Excavations funded by Carnarvon in Thebes and by 1914 Carnarvon owned one of the most valuable collections of Egyptian artifacts held in private hands. However, Howard Carter had still more ambitious aspirations. He had his eye on finding the tomb of a fairly unknown pharaoh at the time, King Tutankhamun, after various clues to its existence had been found, Carter tore up the Valley of the Kings looking for Tutankhamun’s burial place, but season after season produced little more than a few artifacts. He worked in the field with Lord Carnarvon in the west valley at the tomb of Amenophis III in 1915 and in the main valley from 1917-1922. Carnarvon was becoming dissatisfied with the lack of return from his investment and, in 1922, he gave Carter one more season of funding to find the tomb.

In fact, Lord Carnarvon was becoming frustrated with Carter's efforts, and by 1922, issued an ultimatum to the Egyptologist that this would be his last season of funding. Confident of his eventual success, on November 1, 1922, Carter began digging for his final season and three days later unearth the staircase to Tutankhamun's tomb. After excavation down to the plaster blocks of the tomb, at 4 PM on November 26, 1922, Howard Carter broke through and made one of the 20th century's most amazing discoveries. It would take another ten years just to catalog the artifacts from this one tomb, which are currently in the Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo, though they are scheduled to be moved in the near future.

Left: Lord Carnarvon

During this time, Lord Carvaron died in Cairo of pneumonia. This sent the already sensational press into a frenzy. Media hype about the mummy's curse set the media on fire, and much to Carters displeasure, he began receiving letters from spiritualists from around the world. Legend has it that by 1929, eleven of the people connected with the discovery of the tomb had died, including two of Lord Carnarvon's relatives, and Carter's personal secretary, Richard Bethell. This would spawn mummy movies through the end of the the twentieth century and beyond.

After his discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, Howard Carter retired from active field work. He began collecting Egyptian antiquities himself, and became moderately successful. He could often be found at the Old Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor, mostly keeping to himself. He returned to Kensington, England in 1939, and died on March 2nd in that year at the age of 65.