1-632-675 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Lord Carnavon (1866-1923) leading the party invited to the unofficial opening of the tomb. A keen egyptologist, Carnarvon was archaeologist Howard Carter's financial backer in his excavations in the Valley of the Kings. The 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.