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The boy king and his secrets

Tim Radford

Tutankhamun's mysteries to be put online

London: It was one of the most famous archaeological finds of all time, but still it holds secrets that have yet to be unravelled. Now Oxford Unversity scholars are preparing to post the notes, diaries, drawings and photographs from the 1922 excavation of the tomb of King Tutankhamun on the Internet to study it.

Howard Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon, first opened a mysterious doorway in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt 84 years ago and established an unknown boy king who died 3,500 years ago as one of the world's most famous faces.

Research at the tomb continued for eight years up to 1930. But most of the thousands of objects have never been properly studied, and most of the documentation has remained locked in archives in Oxford.

The gilded, decorated death mask of Tutankhamun is known everywhere — but more than eight decades on, the funereal inscriptions etched on its reverse side have not been properly examined.

Between 1922 and 1930, at least 5,398 objects were removed. Carter and his colleagues made meticulous index cards, notes and sometimes drawings of each find, and kept diaries and records of their progress. All of which went to Oxford, where they have been preserved since Carter's death in 1939.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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