In 1922, Howard Carter made one of the biggest discoveries in history by discovering King Tutankhamen's tomb.  As discussed in Arnold C. Brackman's book, The Search for the Gold of Tutankhamen, Howard Carter could not believe that he could have possibly arrived at the tomb of King Tutankhamen (100).  "At that, Carter wrote, he did not dare to hope that he had actually found the tomb of Tutankhamen.  The entrance seemed too modest; the setting was somehow wrong.  But it might well have been the cache of royal objects or the tomb of the royal relative.  What is important was that no one had known it was there and it still bore the seals on the door" (Gilbert 12).   When Howard Carter arrived at the tomb, he poked a small hole in the wall to determine if there were poisonous gases inside the tomb(Brackman 100).  He then proceeded to knock down the mural of Isis to have easy access to the Tomb(Brackman 100).  The mural of Isis would not have needed to be destroyed had Howard Carter used a differnet method in excavating the tomb. 

There would have been many possible ways to get the tomb out with out destroying the mural of Isis.  We decided the best way to get the tomb out would be to go through the top of the burial chamber.  The one thing we did not know about the tomb was the depth.  To find the depth, we would first have to drill through the top of the chamber to be able to stick a probe down to the bottom.  Knowing the depth of the burial chamber allows my group to be able to determine the amount of rope needed to raise King Tutankhamen out of the chamber.  

After finding the depth of the tomb, we would then go back to the chamber where the mural of Isis is located and start building a tunnel under the mural. Because of the age of the rock and the probability of the rock being very brittle, we had an immense fear the tunnel would collapse on top of us.  To keep the tunnel intact, we would use pieces of wood.  The picture above shows where the tunnel would be built. The purpose of this tunnel will be to take the materials we need to get the tomb out, inside the burial chamber.  We need this tunnel because besides bringing in all of the ropes to raise the 3,000 pound inner and outer coffin out of the burial chamber, we need tarps to protect the fragile surface of the coffin, when we take out the ceiling of the burial chamber.  We decided that going from the top of the tomb would be the best way to excavate it becuase we would not have to worry about making tunnels large enough to fit King Tutankhamen's sarcophagus.   We would set up these tarps in a canopy-style.  The picture below shows where the tarp would be placed.  The green arrows show the place ment of where the tarp would be hung.  We would then be able to commence digging out of the tomb using hammers and picks.  We wanted to use hand tools because everything is so fragile, we did not want to risk anything happening by relying on twenty first century tools.  The hand tools also allow us to focus our force so everything does not crumble.  If we used twenty-first century tools, the vibrations would be too great on the walls.  Because of the age, the walls would immediately crack.  We expect lots of rocks to fall while using the hammer and picks and having these tarps in place will allow the rocks coming down from the ceiling to fall but not to harm the tomb in anyway.  Once, the hole in the ceiling was large enough for the tomb to pass, we put install a rope pulley system.  After the rope pulley system was fully installed, we would attach the ropes to a crane and lift the inner and outer coffin out of the burial chamber.  

King Tutankhamen was buried with many other treasures.  These treasure  There is a small door which is large enough to fit all of these treasures. 

I was responsible for the history of the excavation of King Tutankhamen's tomb.  Knowing the history allowed us to have a springboard for creating our ideas in getting King Tutankhamen's tomb out of the burial chamber. Because no one in my group had any skills with engineering, we were able to use Howard Carter's ideas, but also improve upon them.  For instance, we used traditional tools that Howard Carter would have probably used during his dig like hammers and picks, but we also used twenty-first Century items like cranes to hoist the inner and outer coffins out of the burial chambers.  Using the twenty-first Century tools eliminated a lot of heavy lifting.  By using the hammers and picks, we are able to retain the history of the excavation. 

Even though Howard Carter destroyed the mural of Isis, it is important to note all that we have gained.  First of all, had Howard Carter not even knocked down the mural, we may have not even discovered King Tutankhamen's tomb.  The history we gained from this discovery is immense.  We have learned a lot about the culture of the Ancient Egyptians that we would have probably never known had Howard Carter never discovered the tomb.  As long as we use Howard Carter's findings as a stepping stone for the future, we are able to propel our knowledge about the great people known as the Ancient Egyptians. 

Works Cited

Brackman, Arnold. The search for the gold of Tutankhamen. New York: Mason/Charter, 1976. Print. 

Gilbert, Katharine, ed. Treasures of Tutankhamun. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976. Print.

Caroline R's wiki