Jammer Wrote:
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> Since Tutankhamen’s tomb was THE find of the 20th
> century I would have assumed even the dust in the
> corners would have made a significant memento.
> Almost any other tomb I could see "leave the
> non-show pieces", but Tut’s?

You have to recall that, while intact, Tutankhamun was not the only tomb in which significant finds had been made in the previous 20 years, and again, archaeology in the late 19th - early 20th century was not focused upon objects of everyday use - it was concerned with the flashy items, like gold and jewels.

So, the type of mindset I described earlier was still pretty prevalent even in the 1920's: who recalls, for example, the finding of Hetepheres tomb in 1925, during the height of Tankhamun's tomb find?

Almost everyone who does recalls the fine golden bed that was found - but does anyone else recall the most significant find beyond that? No, because it wasn't made of gold (it was the oldest canopic jars found in ancient Egypt). So, value depends on how society perceives it; in 1925, it preferred what was glittery/flashy over the mundane or even odd (folks then probably thought canopic jars were strange back then).

Let me give another example, based upon your very point about Tutankhamun's tomb.

I am sitting here looking at Murray and Nuttall's A Handlist to Howard Carter's Catalogue of Objects in Tutankhamun's Tomb (1963). Of the roughly 4500-5000 objects listed, I'd estimate that over 1/3 of the objects listed were never photographed (so we don't know how they looked at time of discovery, and in some cases, even today).

Further, when you look for certain objects on the Tutankhamun Database at the Ashmolean, which is based upon the Murray and Nuttall Handlist (which was an Ashmolean/Griffith Institute project, after all), you come to realise that some objects described in the Handlist now are simply gone from sight, as in the case of Carter No. 50(m) Aprons.

Here's how these aprons are described:

(hand-drawn representation)

m)
60 cm
<>
48 cm
Associated with (l)
Aprons Tie at top a separate band sewn on. Loose string part 28 cm long. 19 of these. Four of them were too decayed to save, and were thrown away. No treatment.

No photo, either.

Now, as many times as I've been to the Cairo Museum and seen the Tutankhamun collection, I recall no apron on display, either - probably because a simple linen apron wasn't all that interesting to the casual museum visitor.

But if I were an ancient textile researcher, and I came to the Cairo Museum trying to find Carter No. 50 (m), and recalling that (theoretically) I have 15 examples of these aprons remaining, how would I describe it to help a curator find the Journal d'Entree number for these aprons in the Cairo Museum log book? I have only the above description, and no idea where the final resting place of the aprons are.

They could be packed away in the Cairo Museum, could be in the abandoned tomb, could have fallen apart in the subsequent years (recall, they were left "untreated"), etc. If they weren't carefully preserved or deteriorated upon entry to the museum, they may have been thrown away and so on.

It's all in how the objects were valued by the archaeologist, or the curating staff of the museum over the years on what was "important" and what was not. Surely some items could not be conserved, and obviously Harry Burton, the renowned photographer of the Tutankhamun artefacts, didn't think aprons were worth photographing (or perhaps he thought these items too fragile for harsh photography light, to be fair). Whatever the case, it's probably a certainty that I probably couldn't find 15 aprons if I showed up to see them at the Cairo Museum, based upon the above description.

Everyone tends to value objects - be they the archaeologist, the curator, or the conservator. When faced with 5000 items and some seem very ordinary, putting them aside, or even putting them away and forgetting about them, seems the normal thing to do - at the time.

I think Carter probably had to make decisions in the clearing of the tomb as to what most desperately needed the best treatment (conservation) and transmission to Cairo for the Museum at the time, based on what he thought was the most valuable. The Egyptian antiquities director, Pierre Lacau, also probably made similar value judgements as to what was desired from the find by Carter by the Museum - and what could be discarded or put aside, based upon what was there, and what could be reasonably saved or kept for display/storage.

The values then were different from what Egyptologists think are valuable objects today: the good news is that many "everyday" objects from the Tutankhamun tomb weren't lost - they were just "set aside." So, we have now the opportunity to look at them afresh knowing the information and the technology we have now. I daresay, in the next 100-500+ years, these objects will be looked at again and again, as new information and technology assists in revealing even more information.

And that is the nature of the science of archaeology - nothing tells all of its secrets at once - not because it can't, but simply because we as archaeologists haven't learned to listen to, or read, them properly.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom