File Carter MSS vi.2 - Autobiography (Autobiographical Sketches): drafts (notebooks, manuscripts and typescripts)

2 boxes

Formerly in the possession of Howard Carter's niece Miss Phyllis Walker.

The typescripts, Carter MSS vi.2.1-8 were presented by Miss Phyllis Walker in 1946.
The manuscripts, Carter MSS vi.2.9-11 were loaned to the Griffith Institute in 1946-1947 and then returned to Miss Walker. The manuscripts were presented by Miss Phyllis Walker in June 1959.

Howard Carter's drafts of his autobiography were intended for publication, but not completed or published. Carter referred to these drafts as "autobiographical sketches", and the manuscripts and typescripts were most likely composed in the 1930s.

• Earlier annotated manuscript
  • 6 notebooks
  • 219 pages
  • Section/chapter headings within this group include:
    • Sketch I. Introductory
    • Sketch II. An Account of Myself
    • Sketch III. Thebes
    • Sketch IV. The Tomb of the Horse
    • Sketch V. Summer life and a Tale from the Coffee hearth
    • Sketch VI. Three Milk White Camels
    • Sketch VII. A Fortuitous Discovery
    • Sketch VIII. The Valley and the Royal Tomb
    • Sketch IX. Tomb-Robberies and the Fate of the Royal Mummies
    • Sketch XI. The Finding of the tomb of Amenophis I
• Later annotated typescript
  • 8 folders
  • 236 pages
  • Section/chapter headings within this group include:
    • Autobiographical preface
    • The Excavator and his Task
    • The Ancient Egyptian Dwelling, Tomb and Temple
    • Ancient Egyptian Funerary Equipment
    • Sketch of Thebes
    • The Theban Necropolis
    • The Valley of the Tombs of the Kings
    • A History of the Theban Royal Mummies Decadence and Destiny I-IX
    • El-Bab El-Hosân 'The Tomb of the Horse'
    • Summer life in Egypt
    • The Rat and the Snake
    • A Fortuitous Discovery [The discovery of Queen Hatshepsut's tomb]
    • Three Milk White Camels
    • The Finding of the Tomb of Amenophis the First
    • The Cemetery of the Queens'

Property of the Griffith Institute. No restrictions.

Copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

• Archived scans in Griffith Institute.
• Carter MSS vi.2.9 and Carter MSS vi.2.10 have been transcribed. First in the late-1990s by Sue Hutchison (Griffith Institute Administrator), and again in 2006 by Dr Charlotte Booth. Both sets of transcription files are owned by the Griffith Institute.