Preface

Summary

This narrative of the discovery of the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen is merely preliminary: a final record of purely scientific nature will take some time, nor can it be adequately made until the work of investigation of the tomb and its vast material has been completed. Nevertheless, in view of the public interest in our discovery, we felt that some account without loss of time, no matter how summary, was necessary, and that is the reason for the publication of this book.

We have here for the first time, a royal burial very little disturbed in spite of the hurried plundering it has suffered at the hands of the ancient tomb-robbers, and within the shrines of the tomb-chamber I believe the Pharaoh lies intact, in all his royal magnificence.

It has been suggested by certain Egyptologists that we should write up in the summer, and publish at once, all we have done in the winter. But there is, outside the stress of work and other duties, a strong reason against this. Our work will take several seasons of concentrated labour on our discovery—the tomb, of the contents of which we are making as faithful a record as possible. If, following the advice of our critics, we were to write up our progress in detail before our work could be collated in its entirety, mistakes would necessarily creep in which, when once made, would be hard to rectify.