Howard Carter was born in Brompton on 9th May 1874 to Samuel John and Martha, the youngest of eleven children. He was thought to be quite a sickly child, but was trained by his father in the family business – art. Samuel John Carter exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and was known for his paintings of wildlife and hunting scenes. He taught several of his children to paint, and many of them also went on to exhibit at the Royal Academy. One of Samuel John Carter’s clients was William Amhurst Tyssen-Amherst of Didlington Hall in Norfolk. It was on visits here that young Howard may have first seen Egyptian antiquities in the family’s private collection. Another guest at Didlington Hall was Percy Newberry, who frequently visited to discuss matters relating to Egyptology and horticulture. It was these connections that came together and changed Howard Carter’s life – and the history of Egypt.
In 1890 Newberry had been appointed Director of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt by the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF), now the Egypt Exploration Society. Initial plans proposed by Francis Llewellyn Griffith to survey and record all of Egypt’s visible monuments were quickly revised and, instead, the region of Middle Egypt between el-Minya and Mallawi was chosen. Here, the rock-cut tombs of local officials between the Old and Middle Kingdoms had been frequented by visitors for millennia and were in need of recording and protection. To the south of the region lay the area labelled on the map as “probable extent of Khutaten”, or what we know today as Akhetaten or Amarna.
The first site to be recorded was Beni Hasan. Here, 39 rock-cut tombs are carved into the cliffs of the Eastern Desert facing the vast floodplain toward the west. Twelve of the tombs are elaborately decorated, often preserving the names and titles of the deceased, (auto)biographies, and scenes showing daily life in the Nile Valley almost 4,000 years ago. Newberry and his team, Marcus Worsley Blackden and George Willoughby Fraser, were tasked with recording these tombs. The undertaking was enormous, and after a whole season of work it was clear that further help would be needed. At Margaret Susan Amherst’s suggestion, the young Howard Carter was appointed ‘tracer’ to the project by the EEF Committee on 16th October 1891; he was 17 years old. Carter’s appointment was in no small part due to the influence of Newberry and Mrs Amherst, but also thanks to Amelia B Edwards, whose letters show that she took a special interest in the Archaeological Survey, and worked hard to ensure that funds were made available by the Committee of the EEF.
