The Howard Carter Tutankhamun tomb clearance timeline began on 4 November 1922 when excavators uncovered a sunken rock-cut step in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. Within three weeks, Carter breached the sealed doorway of tomb KV62, kickstarting a painstaking decade-long operation to catalogue, conserve, and extract more than 5,000 ancient artefacts. While popular legend frames the project as a swift, romantic triumph, the British archaeologist’s private field journals held at the University of Oxford reveal an exhausting, fraught rescue mission that pushed his team to the brink.
Carter’s handwritten journals—now preserved in the archives of the Griffith Institute at Oxford—expose the stark reality behind the sanitised press releases distributed to the British public in the 1920s. Months of grinding labour in stifling desert heat, delicate negotiations with Egyptian inspectors, and secret late-night entries preceded the official photographic milestones that captivated the world. Unravelling the actual archival schedule shows how close the historic excavation came to being cancelled entirely before the first spade hit stone.
From Near Cancellation to Breakthrough: The Initial Discovery
By autumn 1922, George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, had resolved to pull his financial support following six barren seasons across the Theban necropolis. Carter travelled to Highclere Castle to plead for one final clearance campaign, concentrating strictly on bedrock beneath the workers’ huts situated between the tombs of Rameses II, Merneptah, and Rameses VI. His persistence paid off almost immediately when local water boys cleared surface rubble and struck the entrance staircase.
Upon discovering the first limestone step on 4 November, Carter immediately reburied the flight beneath sand and boulders to prevent looting while awaiting Carnarvon’s arrival from Britain. Accompanied by Carnarvon and his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert, Carter chipped a small breach in the upper left plaster of the entrance doorway on 26 November 1922.
The day of days, the most wonderful that I have ever lived through, and certainly one whose like I can never hope to see again.
As warm air hissed out of the chamber, Carter inserted a candle through the opening to check for hazardous gases. Rather than immediately celebrating, his initial private field notes focused on raw physical data: the wavering flame, suffocating atmosphere, and gilded animal-shaped couches emerging through the darkness.
The Complete Tomb Clearance Timeline
The systematic evacuation of KV62 was not conducted in weeks, but stretched across multiple complex seasons. Carter had to negotiate volatile political tensions, legal access disputes, and the staggering logistics of processing thousands of fragile royal relics without modern synthetic stabilisers.
| Key Excavation Milestone | Documented Archival Record |
|---|---|
| Staircase Uncovered | 4 November 1922: Clearance exposes first step beneath ancient workmen’s huts. |
| Antechamber Breached | 26 November 1922: Carter makes initial aperture; spots gilded couches and thrones. |
| Official Opening Ceremony | 29 November 1922: Dignitaries and antiquities officials formally inspect the rooms. |
| Burial Chamber Wall Dismantled | 17 February 1923: Partition wall knocked down to access the outer golden shrine. |
| Sarcophagus Lid Raised | 12 February 1924: Heavy granite lid hoisted on pulleys to reveal inner golden nesting coffins. |
The tension documented across these dates highlights the gulf between public ceremony and archaeological reality. Forensic analysis of the masonry later revealed that Carter, Carnarvon, and Lady Evelyn had made an unauthorised midnight crawl through a hole beneath a reed basket long before the formal gathering on 17 February 1923, hastily resealing the gap before inspectors returned.
Debunking the “Pharaoh’s Curse” with Archival Science
When Lord Carnarvon died in Cairo in April 1923, Fleet Street newspapers and international tabloids manufactured a supernatural narrative that still persists in popular culture. Sensationalist accounts claimed an ominous curse was carved above the threshold of KV62, threatening anyone who entered the boy pharaoh’s final resting place.
Carter’s comprehensive inventories completely dismantle this myth: no curse inscription ever existed inside the tomb. Medical investigations confirmed that Carnarvon succumbed to severe pneumonia and blood poisoning caused by an infected mosquito bite, compounded by chronic respiratory weakness that had plagued him for years. Furthermore, Carter laboured inside the dust-choked chambers for another full decade, eventually dying of natural causes in 1939 at the age of 64.
The expedition faced genuine biological hazards, though they were entirely natural. Carter recorded stifling subterranean temperatures, stale air, and toxic fungal blooms covering the painted plaster walls—biological agents that modern conservators recognise as severe respiratory risks requiring strict airflow management.
How Carter Catalogued 5,000 Artefacts
To preserve the treasures without damaging delicate fabrics, adhesives, or gold leaf, Carter instituted an exacting preservation protocol that revolutionised archaeological standards. The clearance relied on a rigorous three-tier workflow:
- In Situ Photography: Photographer Harry Burton captured large glass-plate negatives of every single artefact in its precise original location before anything was lifted.
- Card Indexing: Draughtsmen created colour-coded catalogue cards featuring accurate scaled line drawings, physical measurements, and transcriptions of hieroglyphic texts.
- Off-Site Stabilisation: Objects were carried to the empty tomb of Seti II, which Carter converted into an improvised conservation laboratory for chemical stabilisation and packing.
This methodical approach ensured that the structural integrity of ancient furniture, personal jewellery, and state chariots was maintained throughout the relocation to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
💡 The decade-long clearance of KV62 transformed archaeology from a treasure-hunting pursuit into a disciplined forensic science.
🔍 Carter’s original journals at the Griffith Institute remind us that patience and field documentation define genuine discovery far more than superstition ever could.
📌 What part of the clearance timeline surprises you the most?
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