Howard Carter - Beginning of Career

Beginning of Career

Howard Carter was born in London, England, the son of Samuel Carter, an artist and Martha Joyce (Sands) Carter. His father trained and developed his artistic talent.

Much of Carter's childhood was spent in the Norfolk market town of Swaffham (probably due to ill-health).

In 1891 Carter was sent out by the Egypt Exploration Fund to assist Percy Newberry in the excavation and recording of Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan. Although only 17 years old he was innovative in improving the methods of copying tomb decoration. In 1892 he worked under the tutelage of Flinders Petrie for one season at Amarna, the capital founded by the pharaoh Akhenaten. From 1894 to 1899 he then worked with Édouard Naville at Deir el-Bahari, where he recorded the wall reliefs in the temple of Hatshepsut.

In 1899, Carter was appointed the first chief inspector of the Egyptian Antiquities Service (EAS). He supervised a number of excavations at Thebes (now known as Luxor) before he was transferred in 1904 to the Inspectorate of Lower Egypt. Carter resigned from the Antiquities Service in 1905 after an enquiry into an affray (known as the Saqqara Affair) between Egyptian site guards and a group of French tourists in which he sided with the Egyptian personnel.