Hello all,

I'm a first year archaeology student from England and have been set an essay question - one of a few possibles - concerning the relevancy of future archaeological excavations. In order to answer this question, I feel it wise to delve into archaeology's past in order to ascertain the, perhaps, arbitrary methods undertaken on previous sites, by today's standards anyway, and apply this to my argument.

As an example, I recollect a documentary I saw on the History Channel some time ago, which, if my dreadful memory is accurate, was about Howard Carter and the claim that he was nothing more than a mercenary 'tomb raider'. I have searched university libraries online but can find no literature that supports this thinking.

I have no idea as to the merits of this claim - my forte is Rome - but wonder if any of you Egypt aficionados might be able to point me in the direction of something that supports this, or indeed, discusses the idea of it?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Phil

Carter must be turning in his grave to have such accusations hurled at him I am of the belief that he single-handedly and doggedly pursued his dreams of finding Tutankhamun's tomb for the benefit of all mankind.

I must take exception to your statement that his excavation was for "the benefit of man".
His determination and dedication in the quest for the tomb of Tutankhamen went far beyond the year of his actually finding the tomb. Originally, Davies had the concession to dig in the valley. Cater could hardly wait to get official permission to dig there, in fact, he stated much earlier that he would find Tut's tomb.
Which, of course, he did, and it did greatly benefit man in showing him with much more detail exactly how very rich and artistic the ancient Egyptians were at that time.
But, I think it must be realized that his main purpose was not so much as to educating man's concept of ancient Egypt, but, first of all, re-paying Carnavon for several years of financing his digs, and then to establish himself as the source of knowledge for Tutankhamen. Before the discovery, he was a "just getting by" archaeologist, sometimes artist illustrating objects from other digs. He went from that to the ultimate Egyptologist, a world-lecturer whose prestige was supreme! His find was, to put it mildly, mind-boggling, and his procedures and methods he used are still in use today, and are considered to be the basics of a good dig, but I can't really say that his find was to benefit all mankind.

To each his own, Osiris II