23. “Gold – Everywhere the Glint of Gold“
After he wended his way through a tunnel, Howard Carter reached the main burial chamber, made a hole in a sealed door, then thrust a candle inside. After a pause, an eager Lord Carnarvon asked him: “can you see anything?” He received the reply: “Yes, wonderful things!” As Carter described it later: “as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold – everywhere the glint of gold“. The next day, the dramatic archaeological discovery was announced to the press, and Carter and Tutankhamun were catapulted to global fame.
The burial chamber was dominated by four shrines that surrounded the pharaoh’s granite sarcophagus. Within were three coffins, nestled one inside another. The outer two were made of gilded wood, while the innermost one was composed of about 250 pounds of solid gold. It contained the mummified body of Tutankhamun, adorned with a funerary gold mask that weighed about 25 pounds. That death mask, with features simultaneously so familiar and yet so exotic, became the best-known symbol of Ancient Egypt.