Howard Carter: The Path to Tutankhamun [Hardcover]

This is a very long and detailed biography of Howard Carter that covers his long career in Egyptology in some detail. The author has unearthed many private archives of those associated with the man himself to provide insights into the background to many key events, such as the notorious Saqqara Incident and its aftermath which led to Carter resigning from the Antiquities Service in Egypt. The author does not shy away from Carter's difficult and fractious nature, but he does rather tend to seek out excuses for his behaviour, and emphasise the great achievements his dogged nature could achieve. It is certainly true that the clearance of Tutankhamun's tomb could scarcely have been in better hands. However, the author does not always draw the conclusions that the evidence suggests, and Julie Hankey's biography of Arthur Weigall shows James' judgement to frequently be way off on that score.
Overall, this is an essential book for anyone studying the career of Carter or the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, and corrects many errors found in other accounts. However, further information - together with some balances and checks - are to be found in Hankey's and Hoving's books too.

Early 20th century adventurers, Howard Carter, and George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert will always be remembered for respectively finding and financing the search over three decades for the lost tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. These two highly important figures in treasure hunting were hailed as the discoverers of the vast, priceless tomb of the Boy King in 1922. Carter went on (after his patron's famous death) to work for Carnarvon's widow, the Dowager Countess, Almina to secure new digging rights (after the Egyptians withdrew the original concession of the Earl's) and eventually Carter catalogued the Tomb and its contents over two more decades. Carter was the true leader of the pack of two up against the grasping Carnarvon, but a man who had many faces, public and private. James' book is the outpourings of a heavily detailed "path" of research and of the quests underkaken by Carter throughout his life as an expatriate artist and map maker, and archaeologist and of what shaped these interlocking pursuits. It's a long book and and often dry but it's enjoyable and although a close academic study - a path again really- it's sustainable reading and an approach that only James could have trod, as he was one time Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at London's British Museum, and was blessed in having access to all the right material and people to compile the narrative.

This biography (and footnotes and its good bibliography) will always be valuable to those interested in the Tutankhamun tale and as this was among the first detailed books devoted to Carter's life ( another being HV F Winstone's 1991 study "Howard Carter and the dicovery of the tomb of TUTANKHAMUN" ) the compelling story of the enigmatic Howard Carter, is essential reading for scholar and student alike. James draws very carefully on that man Carter's own writings, his succession of books on the digging and cataloguing, his immensely significant, yet often tersely written diaries (now available online via the web site of The Griffith Institute, Oxford), the accumulated correspondence in the many Archives in Britain and US, especially the Metropolitan Museum in New York as well as at the time this book was first published (1992) those papers still in the hands of the Carter family.

Carter, like his patron George Herbert (5th Earl of Carnarvon) was an odd man, a shy man, a disagreeable man, and a man who was obsessed with Egypt's past. He fell out with people very easily, including the British and Egyptian authorities, the French Museum Heads in Cairo, and often with Lord Carnarvon, with the true reasons for the disputes with the latter being cosmetically treated by James. I would like to have seen more coverage given to this man-man relationship. But the 5th Earl of Carnarvon is irrelevant in the early Chapters on Carter's life and career, and he is marooned back stage in the main in the continuing account of the Tutankhamun timeline but one of the ploys used by James is to cull limitlessly from the comings and goings of his Lordship and Countess Almina, who is only mentioned here and there and with no depth, as well as the Carnarvons' daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert - who is also a key figure but is only skimmed over on their trips to Egypt each winter. James uses extracts from the local newspaper The Egyptian Gazette to do this as original correspondence in the Carnarvon family is hidden or lost. All of the participants huff and puff a lot about the heat., the flies, the lazy working conditions and the slowness of the entire quest. The elements of skulduggery in other books on Tutankhamun, that suggests that Carter and Carnarvon stole objects from the Tomb and papers of ancient antiquity value is inconclusively covered. Much of that tale is unclear even now and lies linger on the part of several commentators. But what is clear is that once the epic discovery was made Carter devoted his life to the task of the aftermath being his life achievement, with hard years of working painstakingly in Egypt and making a few public lectures about the work in between. But on his death is 1939, he was almost forgotten, and he was overlooked for any public recognition, which lesser men and woman have had acknowledged by the government and monarch. That is reprehensible at one level, but it also smacks of Establishment jitters about Carter's real character.

Facts still remain to reveal about Carter and Carnarvon, especially of what Lady Almina thought of the whole Egyptian enterprise they undertook together and her part in it all and what she knew and saw about these men at close quarters working together. I have culled from this well meant book by James lately to guide my interpretation and understanding too - and to see what was deemed suitable to be said in 1992 for the public to consume - but does this book tell us frankly what made Carter and Carnarvon really tick? The answer is NO. I will try to reflect again on this in a retrospective, a reappraisal of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, to be published at the time of the 90th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun, in 2012. But James' book was/ is a most remarkable and fitting way of celebrating, 70 years after the discovery, and of headlining the acts in the life of the stoic Howard Carter, whom Lord George Carnarvon was fortunate to have come to know.

A detailed autobiography of Carter was overdue and this is exactly what TGH James brings his readership. The dust is carefully swept off Carters artistic beginnings and his hardy, earnest and curmudgeonly personality by James persuasive and well researched text. Carter played every emotion but stubborn outrage close to his chest. His telegrams and letters to Lady Carnarvon and to his long term collaborator Arthur Maces widow (on the deaths of the two most important men in his working life) are strangely blunt and empty. Similarly James seems to have less truck with the emotional aspects of the story. More could have been said about the arguments between Carnarvon and Carter (and Carnarvons rather moving and vulnerable attempts to rekindle their friendship)? Why was Carter never married or engaged? James plays down the relationship that has been suggested between Carter and Lady Evelyn Herbert. One feels that this business like no-nonsense approach to a working life would have pleased Carter immensely. Overall there is plenty here for those interested in the discovery of Tutankhamun in KV 62. It is an excellent read and provides a unique and balanced view of the controversies surrounding Carter. This balance is welcome after the more sensationalist and politically revisionist texts of the 80's and 90's. It is worth remembering that Carnarvons estate and Carter himself left the boy king and his fabulous objects in Egypt (perhaps against their will but James makes the point that Carter was ahead of his time and preferred this option). Carter had a remarkable (and for those days unfashionable) understanding of the inhabitants of the village of Gurna and Egyptian culture. Perhaps the criticisms of emperialist archeology, plundering ancient culture for financial gain, using museum pieces as high finance and maintaining dubious trading in antiquities should be levelled at the power interests who still refuse to return objects to Egypt rather than an archeologist who never took his greatest finds out of the country? Those searching for a more emotional response may well have to choose another patch of ground to dig. Those going with James systematically to the bedrock (such as it is)will find, I think, a much more fulfilling experience. Dave Hawkes