Egyptologists seeking to ‘Give the credit where the credit is due’

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00:00Well, Howard Carter is, of course, a hero for what he did for the tomb,

00:03but politically it was a very turbulent and fascinating historical era in the 1920s in Egypt.

00:10From our perspective here in Boston, the man who was excavating at the Giza pyramids was George Reisner.

00:16He was the leader of the Harvard University Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition,

00:20and there was no love lost between those two men.

00:23They had very different approaches to archaeology,

00:25and so Reisner thought that perhaps Howard Carter was not the best scholar in the field.

00:31But Carter had beautiful drawings and note cards and systems and took care of the objects,

00:36and so today we see his great achievement reinstalled in the gem.

00:41And Egyptians will point out that it wasn't Howard Carter,

00:43but it was Hossein Abdul Rasool, the 12-year-old water carrier,

00:47that, am I right to say, accidentally stumbled upon the steps of the tomb.

00:51He was told, wasn't he, by Howard Carter, Peter, to stand out the way,

00:56and the water was dripping down and suddenly something shifted in the sand.

01:02Right, and that's something we're trying to do a better job at in Egyptology today,

01:06which is give the credit where the credit is due.

01:09So not just the Western archaeologists, but the Egyptians who were doing the heavy lifting in so many ways.

01:14In our expedition, we had Egyptian reyeses, or foremen from the village of Kuft,

01:20who are actually keeping Arabic diaries of the progress of the expedition.

01:24And so we're now trying to bring them to the front and give them the recognition that they deserve.

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