The Thrill of Discovery

Museum exhibits can recreate ancient worlds and kingdoms, but a new photographic exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art goes one better. “Discovering Tutankhamun: The Photographs of Harry Burton” creates a visual first-person narrative of one of modernity’s greatest archeological finds. This exhibit gives viewers the feeling they’re standing with art photographer Harry Burton as he chronicles the exploration and discoveries of more than 5,000 objects from Tut’s tomb in a series of quiet, and often stunningly beautiful photographs.The story begins around 1915, when the selftaught British Egyptologist Howard Carter was searching the fabled Valley of the Kings in the Egyptian desert, an area other Egyptologists felt were exhausted and had given up on. For almost seven years, Carter worked determinedly from November to April with funds provided by Lord Carnarvon. Carter found nothing but a few unimportant fragments of statues. Then in 1922, something extraordinary happened. In the final two months of an expedition that had yielded little, Carter discovered a single step cut into valley floor. By the next afternoon, his workmen had uncovered 12 steps leading down to a blocked doorway that was sealed with ancient mud plaster and had been stamped with the insignia of the Royal Necropolis.After discovering the tomb, Carter cabled his partner and financer, Lord Carnarvon, with the words: “At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley a magnificent tomb with seals intact…”Lord Carnarvon arrived at the site, which was a couple of miles northwest of the Nile River, about two weeks later. The famous excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun had begun. But as Carter and Lord Carnarvon commenced their exploration of the tomb, Carter’s attempts at making photographic records were disastrous. Carter immediately cabled the head of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City:“[D]iscovery colossal and need every assistance could you consider loan of Burton in recording in time being costs to us immediate reply would oblige every regards Carter.”The head of Egyptian art, Albert M. Lythgoe, did indeed reply immediately, and within a short time, photographer Harry Burton had arrived in Egypt and was creating the photographs now on display in the Museum’s gallery — which serendipitously, “operates rather like the tomb, and provides something similar to the layout of the original tomb,” according to Susan J. Allen, an archaeologist and the curator of the exhibition.Despite the seemingly endless public interest in anything to do with Tutankhamun, this exhibition is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, each photograph presents the unearthing of the tomb of Tutankhamun through the eyes of the archaeologists. This is a silent first-person account of a discovery that allows the general public to feel as though they are part of the excavation team.Second, this exhibition is worth seeing for the photographs themselves; prints made by Burton from glassplates treated with silver gelatin emulsion. One of these glass plates has been included in the exhibition, and illustrates exactly the sort of hardware Burton worked with in the blazing heat of the Egyptian desert. The photographs record the various rooms of the tomb, the positions of the artifacts, and the artifacts themselves, with both the nononsense clarity required by archivists, and with a sensuality Burton probably learned when training as an art photographer in Florence, prior to the outbreak of the first world war.In several of the photographs, Carter can be seen peering reverently at an artifact in signature bow tie and suspenders — always with immaculate hair. In another photograph, Burton shows us the gold carving inside the body of a chariot found dismantled inside the tomb. In another, a pair of wood horse blinders overlaid with sheet gold and inlaid with colored glass. For Burton, gold was one of the most difficult materials to photograph, but his innate aesthetic sensibility led him to try all sorts of techniques to help catalog the excavation. While a gold mask was being cleaned in the lab with a thin layer of paraffin, Burton realized that the paraffin cut the reflection and gave the piece a soft luminosity that enabled it to be photographed without the complications of reflection.As for the so-called “curse of Tutankhamun,” popularized in 20th century cinema, Ms. Allen claims the story was invented by the media to maintain public interest in an excavation where photographic rights were given exclusively to the Times of London. However, with the death of Lord Carnarvon in 1923, the rumor of a curse took on a life of its own and became a legend that many people still believe today.Harry Burton died in the early part of World War II and is buried in Egypt—the country where he photographed one of the most widely publicized excavations in archaeological history. In his lifetime, Harry Burton earned the respect of international Egyptologists, but perhaps more interestingly, his images helped bring the excitement of ancient Egypt to family dinner tables across the world.Until April 19 (1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd Street, 212-879-5500).

The Thrill of Discovery

The Thrill of Discovery

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