Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1899-1939 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
15 boxes, 1 album, 5 enclosures, 55 maps and drawings, 1 silver desk set
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
British Egyptologist. Born, London 1874. Died, London 1939. Privately educated. Employed by P. E. Newberry in 1891 working for the Archaeological Survey. Assisted in excavations for the Egypt Exploration Fund 1892-3, was with Petrie at Amarna in 1892, and as a draughtsman to the Deir el-Bahri expedition 1893-9. Appointed Chief Inspector of Antiquities of Upper Egypt 1899-1904. Discovered several royal tombs, including those of Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis IV and Amenophis I. Inspector of Lower Egypt 1905. Employed by Lord Carnarvon from 1909 onwards, to excavate in the Theban necropolis, the Delta and Middle Egypt. His most famous discovery, that of the intact tomb of Tutankhamun, was made in 1922. He spent the next ten years recording the tomb's contents. Most of Carter's records for Tutankhamun's tomb remain unpublished.
Archival history
Carter bequeathed these records to his niece Miss Phyllis Walker in 1939. A watercolour and a silver desk-set were among Carter's possessions, kept at Carter Castle II, at Thebes. Carter bequeathed his Thebes house and contents to the New York Metropolitan Museum Expedition at Thebes. Items were removed from the house and taken to the U.S.A., probably in 1940. The watercolour and silver desk-set were kept together and passed through two private collections before being presented to the Griffith Institute.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Miss Walker donated the Carter MSS in several groups in 1945, 1946, 1959, and 1972. An anonymous donor presented a watercolour and a silver desk set in 2003.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Notebooks, loose notes, maps, plans, drawings, newspaper cuttings, watercolours, and a silver desk-set. The documentation was created during Carter's career between 1899-1939. This material excludes material connected with the tomb of Tutankhamun, see the Tutankhamun Archive.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Kept as received. Catalogued as six groups.
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Property of the Griffith Institute. No restrictions.
Conditions governing reproduction
Copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.
Language of material
English
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
No problems.
Finding aids
Catalogue.
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
These are the originals.
Existence and location of copies
Two A3 ringbinders containing copies of maps and drawings (I.G. series).
Related units of description
Other Archives:
- Group of papers and some personal objects, including correspondence, autobiographical draft and notes, material relating to his own death and funerary rites and photographs, auctioned together with Tutankhamun material at Bonhams London in 12 June 2012 (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20137/lot/39/), much of which is now in the Peggy Joy Egyptology Library in Michigan, USA [information provided in November 2017], and in a private collection in Boston, USA [information provided in August 2021].
Griffith Institute Archive:
- Deir el-Baḥri drawings (mostly by Carter).
- Gardiner MSS 11.1-7 = 'Howard Carter's drawing of The Festival Procession of Opet', see http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/carter-special.html (online publication).
Publication note
- MSS. Group I. G: maps and plans, including the tomb of Tutankhamun (http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4camaps.html).
- MSS. Group VI and VII: miscellaneous (http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4cartervi+vii.pdf).
- 'The Search for Tutankhamun': records of the work carried out in the Valley of the Kings before the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun (http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4search.html).
- Records of excavations in the Delta and Middle Egypt.
- Christine Lilyquist, Excavations at Thebes: The Earl of Carnarvon and the Metropolitan Museum of Art at Carnarvon 62 and Surrounds, 1911–1916 (https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/individual-scholarship/individual-scholarship-christine-lilyquist).