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Howard
Carter was born in 1874 in Norfolk, England. Through his father, Samuel
Carter, he was introduced to the world of art. His father was a painter
himself and expected his son to follow his footsteps and become a painter.
Howard Cater had the artistic skill but was not interested in making art his
career. He had other interests, and one of them was archaeology.
In 1891, at the age of 17, Howard Carter went to Alexandria, Egypt to work
for the Egyptian Exploration Fund as a tracer. Carter was a hard worker full
of energy and skill. Carter became an archaeologist at a later job while
working with Flinders Petrie, an excellent archaeologist at the time. Carter
was appointed Principle Artist to the Egyptian Exploration Fund for the
excavations of Deir el Babri, the burial place of Queen Hatshepsut. Through
this job Carter improved his drawing skills and techniques of excavating and
exploration.
Carter was offered the job of inspector general of Monuments for Upper Egypt
at the age of 25 in 1899. In 1905 Carter resigned from the Antiquity Service
because he was assigned to work in Delta town of Tanta, a place where there
was very little historical findings.
In 1908 Carter returned to archaeology when he was partner with the Fifth
Lord Carnarvon by Gaston Maspero. Together they made a great team and were
successful. Although Carter's partnership with Maspero seemed to be going
well, Carter was determined to find the tomb of King Tutankhamen.
In search of King Tutankhamen Howard Carter found less artifacts, Maspero saw
this and gave Carter a deadline in 1922. After the deadline he did not want
to invest into the search of King Tut's tomb.
Under this pressure Carter did not give up and continued to search with more
enthusiasm. This was when Carter discovered the staircase on November 1,
1922. By November 26 the staircase was unearthed, and the entrance was open,
the discovery of King Tutankhamen was now official.
Howard Carter couldn't keep the artifacts himself, instead he had to turn
them to the Egyptian museum in Cairo when King Tut's corpse was studied.
After the discovery of King Tut, Carter retired from archaeology. Instead he
became a collector of Egyptian antiques. In 1939 Howard Carter returned to
England and died of natural causes at the age of 65.
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