1-632-672 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Lord Carnavon's first visit to the Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 1923. Lord Carnavon (1866-1923) and a party in a motor car. 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.