Tutankhamun's tomb was found nearly intact in 1922 — with about 5,000 objects
Almost every other royal tomb was looted in antiquity; this one survived, packed with treasure.
On 4 November 1922, after years of fruitless digging in the Valley of the Kings, Howard Carter’s team uncovered a single stone step. It led to the sealed tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun — the only royal burial there discovered relatively intact.
Where grave robbers had emptied nearly every other pharaoh’s tomb in antiquity, debris had hidden Tutankhamun’s for over 3,000 years. Inside, the chambers were crammed with about 5,000 artefacts: gilded shrines, chariots, jewellery and the famous solid-gold funerary mask.
Peering through a breach by candlelight and asked if he could see anything, Carter reportedly answered, “Yes, wonderful things.”
The find was a scientific windfall as much as a spectacle. A complete, undisturbed royal assemblage let archaeologists study 18th-Dynasty burial practice, craftsmanship and daily life in unmatched detail — a snapshot of ancient Egypt that looting had erased everywhere else.
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