Meyerson (The Linguist and the Emperor
) delves into the career and psyche of Howard Carter, the British archeologist who in 1922 discovered the 3,300-year-old gold- and jewel-laden tomb of the boy king Tut. Lower-class and lacking a formal education, Carter worked with his father, a painter of animal portraits for the aristocracy. He was discovered and hired in 1892 by the Egyptian Exploration Fund to copy paintings, ancient inscriptions and friezes in Egypt's dark tombs. Carter debuted as an excavator under the tutelage of Flinders Petrie, the single-minded father of modern archeology, at Amarna, the capital of Tut's father. Intense, irascible, brooding and obsessed, Carter searched for Tut for seven years, funded by the fifth earl of Carnarvon, a bon vivant millionaire who came to excavations with fine china and table linens and who died from septic poisoning after nicking a mosquito bite while shaving. Although Meyerson favors a playful writing style that can be intrusive and rambling, his work is also well researched and entertaining, and brings to life the ancient pharaohs and their tumultuous reigns as well as the excavators who disturbed their eternal sleep. Photos. (May)
