However, his employment was terminated in 1905 during a scandal involving a confrontation between some French tourists and local Egyptian guards at the site of Saqqara. This led to further employment on an excavation at the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari as an employee of the Egyptian government. The man who is considered the father of archaeology, William Flinders Petrie, also took notice of Carter’s talent and invited him to work on his excavation at Tell el-Amarna. Nonetheless, meeting Amherst proved to be pivotal in launching Carter’s career in Egypt.Īrchaeological Drawing A shabti from Amherst’s collectionĪrchaeological Work with the Father of Archaeology Flinders Petrie examining some of his finds, 1930 He only lived six weeks after the auction, so heartbroken was he to part with his beloved Egyptian antiquities. Amherst sadly had to sell his collection in 1906 after being swindled by a crooked solicitor. The elder Carter took his son along with him on visits to Amherst’s estate, and the curious boy developed a fascination for his collection of statues, scarabs, shabtis, and other artifacts. One of his father’s clients was a wealthy collector of Egyptian antiquities, William Amherst Tyssen-Amherst. The younger Carter also earned pocket money himself as a child painting people’s pets. On his visits with his son, he taught him how to paint. His father was a painter catering to the rich who wanted portraits of themselves and their pets.
Howard Carter, on the other hand, had no formal education whatsoever.īorn in London in 1874, he was a sickly child and his family sent him to live with relatives in the countryside. Today, to run an excavation in Egypt, one needs to have a PhD, an affiliation with a recognized academic or research institution, and to pass security clearances. Howard Carter’s Childhood Howard Carter examining the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, 1925
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