Carter decided to spend what was to be his final field season digging beneath a group of huts that housed the ancient tomb builders. The prevailing wisdom said that everything the valley had to offer had already been found. By November 4, 1922, Carter and his team had spent five futile years searching for an undiscovered royal tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.
The key to Tut’s discovery was dogged perseverance. But as ever, debates rage over how to interpret them. Now new findings are emerging that could fill in some of the missing details. Many mysteries remain, however, including how the young pharaoh was related to Queen Nefertiti (herself a subject of debate), how influential he was as a ruler and how he died.
From this work the broad outlines of the life and times of Tut have emerged. Scholars have been studying the royal tomb and its owner ever since. One hundred years ago today British archaeologist Howard Carter and an Egyptian excavation team found the boy king’s final resting place. It is one of the most iconic discoveries in all of archaeology-the treasure-filled tomb of the young Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut.
