The scholar who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun was the thief of the antiquities

100 years after the discovery of the 3,300-year-old tomb, a previously unpublished letter confirms a long-held suspicion of Howard Carter stealing artifacts in the tomb.

Howard Carter, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922, had long been suspected by the Egyptians of stealing treasure in the tomb before it was officially unveiled. There doesn't seem to be any evidence to back that up, though.

However, a clue has recently emerged, in a previously unpublished letter sent to Mr. Carter in 1934 from a prominent British scholar on his own excavation team, the Guardian reports. news on 8/13.

The letter was written by Alan Gardiner, a leading philologist. Accordingly, Carter asked Gardiner to translate hieroglyphs found in the 3,300-year-old tomb, then gave Gardiner an 'amulet', used to worship the dead, but made sure it was not taken from the tomb. .

Mr. Gardiner gave the amulet to Rex Engelbach, then Director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and determined that the amulet was made in the same mold as other amulets in the museum, and so it was definitely taken from the mausoleum.

In his letter to Carter, Gardiner included Mr Engelbach's confirmation, which read: 'The amulet you gave me was certainly stolen from Tutankhamun's tomb'.

"I deeply regret being put in such an awkward position," Gardiner told Carter.

But he added: "I certainly didn't tell Engelbach that I got that amulet from him."

Archaeologist Howard Carter is the one who discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

The letters, now in a private collection, are to be published in a book by Oxford University Press, titled "Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World". changed the world).

The book's author, Bob Brier, a leading Egyptologist at Long Island University, told the Observer that suspicions of Mr. Carter stealing the treasure had long been rumored, "but are now gone. Undoubtedly".

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the king's tomb by Carter and his main sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, filled with gold, chariots and thousands of other valuables. Over the next decade, Carter oversaw their relocation and transportation down the Nile to Cairo for display in the Egyptian museum.

Mr. Carter has claimed that the treasures of the tomb are not intact due to looting in antiquity, but the claim is not widely believed by Egyptologists.

In 1947, in a little-known scientific journal in Cairo, Alfred Lucas, one of Carter's employees, reported that Mr. Carter had secretly broken open the door of the burial chamber and then closed it.

'They are suspected of breaking into the mausoleum before it was officially opened, taking away artifacts, including jewelry, which were sold after their death. There's been doubt about how Mr. Carter got these items, and people suspect that he may have stolen them, and now these letters are proof," Mr. Brier said. certainly never admitted it, but he was barred from accessing the tomb by the Egyptian government for a time.'