On October 28， 1922， Howard Carter summoned his reis， the foreman of his<br >excavating crew， to his house just outside the Valley of the Kings and told him<br >that he wanted to resume work without delay.<br > Arehaeologizts worked only a short season in the Valley in those days.<br >By April the pitiless s~， beating on its sheer rock walls， turned it into a furnace<br >until late October， and the kha~in， the searing wind from the south， swirled its<br >~ndy floor into choking stoma.<br > Carter had even Iem time than that. The tourists would begin arriving by<br >mid-December to visit the burial ground of the pharaohs. Since his dig would block<br >the entr~ce to the tomb of Rameses VI， one of the Vafley s most popular<br >attractions， he knew he would have to be finished by then.<br > And this short ~ason might well be Carter s last in the Valley. He had just<br >returned from a meeting in England with the Earl of Camarvon， who had been<br >bearing the cost of his excavations for the past fifteen years and sharing in the<br >infrequent glory of their finds. Camarvon， disappointed by yea~ of failure， told Carter<br >that he had decided not to apply for the renewal of his government concession to<br >ex~vate in the Vnlley. Only Carter s pleading， and his offer to pay the cost him~lf if<br >nothing were found， had induced Camarvon to agree to one final ~ason.<br > So Carter knew that he had less than two months to complete， in sueee~<br >or failme， the ~rch that had obse~ed him for ten years. The prize he sought was<br >the tomb of Tutankhamun， who had reigned more than 3，200 years before.<br > The Valley of the Kings， the royal necropolis， had been part of ancient Thebes，<br >the capital from which the Egyptian empire was ruled at the zenith of its power.<br >The Valley lay just a few miles away from the west bank of the Nile， whose unfailing<br >waters nurtured Egyptian civilization， opposite Karnak and Luxor and more than<br >fo~ hundred miles south of preaent-day Cairo.<br > With the end of the seemingly perpetual power of the pbaraohs， Thebes<br >had b~n po~e~d by the Persians， by the Gr~ks of Alexander the Great， by the<br >Romans， by tile Arabs， by the Ottoman Empire. Egypt had been invaded by file<br >French of Napoleon， who brought with him a group of ~holars: later Egypt became a<br >protectorate of Great Britain， although with its own ruling house.<br > For centuries the Valley and its surrounding desert， wild and inacce~ible，<br >had been the haunt of bandits. Only in the nineteenth century， as a measure of order<br >was imposed， did archaeologists dare to begin excavating there.<br > In all， about thizty-three royal tombs had been found in the bedrock of the<br >Valley or delved into its furrowed rock walls， but every one had been pillaged<br >long before by profe~innal thieves， some of whom struck witlfin a few years of the<br >royal b~ials. What bad been fo~d by Einopeans， wbih it included many beautiful<br >objects， was scarcely more th~ their I~vings. At that， few important discoveri~<br >had been made in the Valley since the start oi tile twentieth cent~y， and most experts<br >believed that the b~ial gro~d had yielded all its secrets.<br > Carter， who had spent more than thirty years in Egypt， di~greed. Three<br >