Carter, The Tomb of Tut Ankh Amen, 1923

CARTER, Howard. The Tomb of Tut Ankh Amen, Discovered by the late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter. by Howard Carter and A. C. Mace., associate curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The First Volume. With 104 Illustrations from Photographs by Harry Burton of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Copyright, 1923, By George H. Doran Company. -B- Printed in the United States of America. 
 
Red cloth octavo with gold text on spine and front board. Lower right corner of front board embellished with gold scarab holding a disc and two snakes. Decorative end papers with a pair of cartouches on each. Untrimmed page edges. Clean, bright, and tight throughout with ample margins. Black and white photographs of the site, some of the excavated artifacts, and a facsimile of a hand written document pertinent to the project. Small tear of cloth at top of front board. A few speckles of white discoloration near front hinge. Mild wear at edges and coroners. Overall good to very good. 
 
The first American edition of the first volume of Carter’s famous publication of the discovery of the tomb of Pharoah Tut Ankh Amen. The three volumes in this series were published serially, both in the English and American editions. Vol 2 of the American edition followed in 1927. 

Carter (1874 – 1939) was an English Egyptologist and archaeologist who studied under Flinders Petrie, and is most well remembered for his November 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Famously, Lord Carnarvon was frustrated by several years of Carter’s digs in the Valley and was prepared to cease the excavations, but Carter convinced him to fund one more season—which resulted in the discovery of the most famous pharaonic tomb ever discovered in the Valley. 
 
Tutankhamen was an 18th dynasty (1341 – 1323 BC) Egyptian Pharoah of the new kingdom, after his father Akhenaten (a pseudomonotheistic pharaoh who was probably considered heretical to the priests of the prior Egyptian religions). Tutankhamen’s tomb and mummy were exceptionally well preserved at the time of their discovery in 1922. The results of this excavation remain a wonder and source of study to this day, (which will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year).