1-632-670 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Howard Carter and a colleague excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 1922. Carter's (1873-1939) discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 was one of the most astounding discoveries in archaeology. Tutankhamun was a previously unknown pharaoh whose name had been eradicated from historical records by one of his successors because of his association with the heretical pharaoh Akhenaten, who was Tutankhamun's father-in-law. Consequently his tomb, uniquely, had remained undisturbed by grave robbers.