Allen, Susan J. Tutankhamun's Tomb: The Thrill of Discovery (Photographs by Harry Burton) (exh. cat.). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006.
Review by STAN PARCHIN
October 20, 2009
After a lengthy seven-year quest, British archaeologist Howard Carter (1873-1939) uncovered on November 4, 1922 the first of 16 rock-cut steps that led to the tomb of ancient Egypt's boy-king Tutankhamun (Dynasty 18, ruled ca. 1336-1327 B.C.). He breached the historic burial site's entrance 20 days later.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Theban Expedition was also digging in the Valley of the Kings. Carter recognized his need for a skilled photographer to record the 5,398 artifacts that awaited him. He sent an urgent cable from Cairo to New York's Albert M. Lythgoe (1868-1934), the museum's first Curator of Egyptian Art. Harry Burton (1879-1940), a master of photographic light, was dispatched with three colleagues to the site. His arrival began a decade-long collaboration with Carter.
Tutankhamun's Tomb: The Thrill of Discovery (The Photographs of Harry Burton) was published to accompany an exhibition of more than 70 mostly black-and-white photographs at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (December 19, 2006-April 29-2007). The catalogue's images are from Burton's well-preserved 1,400 glass-plate negatives and rare film footage. The 104-page hardcover book is a systematic journey through Tutankhamun's four-room sepulchre as seen through Burton's keen eyes, a visual feast of 157 duotone photographs especially pleasing to devotees of Egyptian art and archaeology. Susan J. Allen, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's former Associate Research Curator in the Department of Egyptian Art, organized the exhibition and is the clothbound text's primary author. The catalogue's introduction by James P. Allen, Wilbour Professor of Egyptology at Brown University and former Met curator, explains the importance of the pharaoh's burial site as well as its discovery and excavation.
Photographing Tutankhamun's Tomb
Howard Carter encountered considerable clutter in the antechamber (first room) of Tutankhamun's tomb, suggesting that the pharaoh's burial was hastily conducted. Considering the Amarna Period's turbulent religious revolution in which the young ruler lived, Carter's conclusion remains plausible to this day. Burton photographed the chaos evident in the space. One remarkable object to emerge from among the ritual couches and chariots piled together was a Wood Half-length Bust of Tutankhamun. Carter thought that the painted and gilded torso, wearing a flat crown adorned with a sacred uraeus (serpent) emblem but missing its arms and legs, was a mannequin upon which Tutankhamun's tailors fitted his royal clothing. It's more likely that the monarch's realistic portrait served an obscure funerary purpose.
Carter spent six weeks carefully emptying Tutankhamun's antechamber of its contents. When his task was nearly complete, only two works remained, a pair of standing guardian figures that flanked the concealed entrance to the pharaoh's burial chamber. Once the mud plaster-filled doorway was penetrated, Carter removed the wooden statues from the tomb. One of Harry Burton's most brilliant photographs shows Carter, his friend Arthur R. ("Pecky") Callender (d. 1936) (a retired engineer and architect) and a workman preparing one of the two life-size figures for transport to the nearby tomb of Pharaoh Seti II (ruled ca. 1200-1194 B.C.). A field laboratory for conservation was established in the New Kingdom ruler's nearby tomb.
In Burton's photograph, the statue being wrapped in linen portrays Tutankhamun wearing the nemes or royal head cloth. The work to the left of the burial chamber's breached entrance wears an afnet (kerchief headdress) and represents the king's ka (life force or spiritual double after death). Other than the subtle differences in attire and religious inscriptions, both sculptures clutching a staff and mace are identical. The exposed portions of their skin are covered in a thick black resin symbolizing regeneration, a concept associated with the mummiform god Osiris. Each statue's simulated clothing and jewelry are gold gilded. Their sandals and uraeuses are made of gilded bronze, the same material used to outline the figures' limestone and obsidian eyes.
Callender's engineering expertise helped Howard Carter disassemble the outermost gilded wooden shrine within Tutankhamun's burial chamber. Its lid having been removed, Carter encountered a series of three more decorated enclosures. Many months after the archaeologist transferred all four embellished shrines to the field laboratory, Carter finally laid eyes upon the first of Tutankhamun's three sarcophagi or coffins within a stone one. Photographer Harry Burton made sure to capture the pharaoh's serene visage, a wooden likeness of the king's face covered with gesso (a plaster-like preparation for gilding or painting) and glistening gold foil. His Face of the Outermost Coffin of Tutankhamun (Spring 1926) is an intimate and up-close portrait of the pharaoh in repose. The vulture and uraeus on the boy-king's brow, together representing the king's dominion over Upper and Lower Egypt respectively, are surrounded by an intact miniature wreath of olive leaves and flowers.
Much awaited Carter and his team in the months and years ahead: the opening of Tutankhamun's two remaining coffins, the innermost one made of solid gold; the discovery of the pharaoh's mummy with its famous gold mask; and the excavation of the tomb's treasury and annex. Burton captured the eminent archaeologist in a remarkable photograph titled Carter Examining the Innermost Gold Coffin (October 1925). This print shows the seated Carter, accompanied by an attentive Egyptian assistant, using a surgical instrument to reveal a small section of the pharaoh's third coffin, its gold exterior covered in a dark and hardened aromatic resin.
Susan J. Allen's richly illustrated narrative in Tutankhamun's Tomb: The Thrill of Discovery (The Photographs of Harry Burton) is followed by 11 pages of the exhibition's images, each succinctly described. While the catalogue lacks a glossary and index, it includes a list of publications for suggested reading. For those fascinated by the art and archaeology of Tutankhamun's tomb and its contents, this fact-filled volume is a true treasure.