Howard Carter: Searching for King Tut by Barbara Ford

After reading the Tomb of the Golden Bird, I was interested in learning a bit more about the excavation of King Tut's tomb, and I found this book for young readers (though it was in the main stacks of the university library) about Howard Carter, the man who found the tomb and did the excavating. I just wanted to tease apart fact from fiction presented in the mystery. Interestingly, Carter had no formal education, but was just fascinated with all things Egyptian from a private collection in England that he had seen. He had learned to be an artist from his father, an important role in archeological excavation, as I learned in both books. Though they also seemed to use photographers to document what they found (maybe not in color in those days - the find was in 1922 and took 10 years to excavate), seems that each archeological team also included at least one artist to draw the items found, the placement of them, the paintings on the walls, etc. Carter had the opportunity to get to Egypt as one of these artists and learned about archeology from Flinders Petrie, who developed a scientific approach - noting the location of each item and keeping even the smallest fragments. It turned out that it was a fact that Carter and his benefactor and a few closest colleagues did sneak into the tomb before it was officially opened. I understand curiosity completely. I guess I will have to read more before going to see the exhibit coming to Chicago soon. (Read 5/3/06)