The Photographs That Brought Tutankhamun To Life | The Man Who Shot Tutankhamun | Timeline

[Music] Egypt's Valley of the Kings the ancient burial place of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen the discovery of his tomb in 1922 made the archaeologist Howard Carter a global celebrity but it was another member of Carter's team who played the crucial role in telling his story to the world he doesn't appear in the excavation of photographs because he was the man who took them his camera made the world fall in love with the boy King Tutankhamun and helped fuel my own enduring fascination with this remote and mysterious culture I wanted to find out more about this photographic pioneer who created such wonderful pictures in the most testing conditions imaginable to help me I enlisted a photographer who uses similar techniques still yes together we'll investigate the work of an unsung hero of British photography and travel back to the site of his greatest assignment we'll discover how he pushed the limits of 1920s technology in the grit and heat of the desert and created a remarkable treasure store of images this is a beautifully laid out picture well thought-out it's like an old master in a way we'll recreate his darkroom in the depths of an ancient tool I think we're right literally exactly where burn would have developed his own negatives and reveal the enduring legacy of his work there one of the basic go to sources for us anyone who's studying Tutankhamun uses those and we'll learn why his techniques are still used today to unpack the secrets of Egypt's ancient past this is the story of the most famous photographer you've probably never heard of his name was Harry burr the man who shot Tutankhamun [Music] [Music] three thousand years ago a stately procession of priests and mourners made their way through these desert hills a few miles west of the ancient city of Thebes or Luxor as it's called today they came to bury a young man who died suddenly and mysteriously nine years into his reign as Pharaoh Tutankhamun's body and the precious artifacts buried with it lay undiscovered for centuries in the early years of the 20th century British archaeologist Howard Carter was determined to find them this dig house in the Valley of the Kings was headquarters for his long quest bankrolled by the wealthy aristocrat Lord Carnarvon they employed a small army of local workmen who shifted thousands of tons of sand and stones but after eight years of searching they'd failed to find anything of significance and Carter's time was running out Lord Carnarvon was about to cut off Carter's funding but everything changed when one of the workmen brushed away in the sand to reveal a hidden staircase leading to an underground tomb the date fourth of November 1922 two weeks later at the Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor Carter and Caernarfon announced their news to the world they'd solved one of archaeology's greatest mysteries they'd uncovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun and that was just the start of the story [Music] Carter knew it he needed a crack team to help him excavate the site and to tell the story of the treasures it contained so he sent out a call for archaeology's brightest and best diggers conservation experts professors of hieroglyphics and a photographer called Harry Burton for the next ten years Burton had a front seat as the greatest story in the history of archeology unfolded in the Egyptian desert his camera recorded in exquisite detail the extreme airy artifacts from the tomb and captured each chapter in this dramatic story of Revelation he created images that grip at the world's imagination and played a crucial role in creating the legend of Tutankhamun the search for this master of British photography begins a world away from the heat and dust of the desert most of Carters wonderful things are still in Egypt but for anyone with a passion for ancient history there's a store of other treasures from his excavation much closer to home this is the Griffith Institute in Oxford tucked away in the basement are Howard Carter's meticulous archives of his 10-year adventure in the Valley of the Kings like so many great adventures it all began with a map this is Carter's original map of the value of the Kings grid system that's right he divided the Valley of the Kings into a series of grid squares and he worked through them systematically in the search for Tutankhamun's tomb until there was just one grid square remaining and close to the entrance of the tomb of King Ramses the sixth this is where they found this is where he found the first steps leading to a tomb at this point they didn't know that it was King Tutankhamun's tomb well he must have been terribly excited was it yes certainly this is Carter's original diary for 1922 and if we turn to the page called Saturday the 4th of November we see he writes across the page first steps of tomb found this is quite unusual for Carter normally he's stuck very tightly too neatly to the lines but here he this was just exciting yes excited as Carter gets one of those pivotal moment isn't it's passed into popular folklore everyone knows Carter found wonderful things Carter was no mere treasure hunter he was a new breed of archaeologist who wanted to excavate and record his finds with scientific rigor within days of uncovering the stairway he began taking photographs but he wasn't happy with the results Carter was a trained artist he was a great painter also a skilled photographer but I think he realized that he would need a real professional in order to take photographs inside the tomb and what we're going to be very very difficult conditions it was very dark packed with objects and so he needed a real professional to do the work to do other things too awful lot on his plate of course during the excavation of the tomb this was Carter's original team including the man who stayed by his side through every twist and turn of the excavation which ones Burton so this is Howard Carter in the center and just over his shoulder is the photographer Harry Burton ancient Egypt has intrigued me for years but I'd never heard Burton's story he shunned the limelight although his pictures made Carter a star I want to find out more about this elusive man how did he create the wonderful photographs that Egyptologists still study today unlike Carter I've recruited a photographer to work with me just fantastic Harry Cory right still shoots today with a large-format camera like the one Burton used to make pictures like these but there's one crucial difference between Harry's camera and Burton's Harry shoots on film whereas Burton used an earlier technology called glass plate his original negatives are another treasure in the archive of the Griffith Institute and they are full of clues to his photographic methods so these are the glass plates themselves that would have been in the camera at the time why would he use glass plates wasn't the film well I think there was film around but I don't think it was in any way as stable technology of film was just developing at the time but I think that glass was that much more predictable really glass plate negatives had been used since the early days of photography a thin glass sheet was coated with silver nitrate emulsion which reacted to light when the shutter was released the negatives were then developed to make prints Burton's expertise with this process is extraordinary how did he make these delicate masterpieces in hostile desert terrain miss incredibly fragile imagine you're developing this and it's dusty and also I can't tell you when it's wet wet emulsion it just gathers dust gathers everything and we think extraordinary how good Nick these things are in what I think so amazing about these this tell us the whole story of the excavation this is what photography at his best can do which is show high drama and then also it can be lyrical and unsweet but you know his head coming through it and the gentleman at the back here all these other incidental things yeah I want to get down and have a look closely in here and see what cuff links he was wearing his ring and his ring yeah exactly and what do you feel Cisco when you're working with this material the first of all that you have to be very careful there's a very important document very fragile but it's nice to see people at work we read about Carter about the different members of the team so you'll get to know them better and there's something very very exciting I think about how what we're looking at we're looking at the originals so they have the chemicals that reacted to the light that was there and there's an extrordinary toffee is that light can just kind of keep something charged and held for a you know for a long time and in this case we uniform I've asked Harry to come with me to Egypt and take photographs they're using burdens methods and equipment together we'll investigate how he created such flawless images using analog technology and he must have pushed to its limits this is a beautifully laid out picture well thought out very much about the people and the human side of it and this is like an old master in a way the way he's kind of composed that I mean this one here and this has a sort of journalistic quality to it which is very different to those others [Music] by the time Carter came calling Harry Burton had worked in Egypt for more than 10 years it was a long way from his modest childhood in Stamford Lincolnshire his father was a cabinet maker or a carpenter so a pretty humble beginning but Burton seems to have been clever he seems to have been going to school and at some point as a teenager we don't know how he came into contact with a man from a prominent local family a man named Robert Henry Hobart cust customer new doors for Burton he left Stanford to work as personal assistant to this wealthy art enthusiast who had a home in Italy he invites Burton when Burton's about seventeen to join him in Florence as a as a secretary basically a secretary and a companion and it's there that Burton enters a whole new world they wind up living in the center of Florence right near the Ponte Vecchio and in a beautiful apartment and three wonderful parties and knew all these Brits who were flooding into Florence and soaking up the atmosphere of Renaissance Italy and a warmer climate we don't know exactly how Burton picked up photography or how he learned it but at this time in the 1880s 1890s it would have been really useful for him as costs assistant to be able to take photographs when they were visiting museums visiting private collections visiting cathedrals for costs research it clearly becomes a real passion for him and he seems to start to get a reputation for it in Florence Burton met an American called Theodore Davis a multimillionaire that passions he'd made a mint and possibly some dodgy deals in New York City he had a huge house that he'd built in Newport Rhode Island and he had retired and liked to spend his his winters in in Egypt and in Italy Davis could afford to do with the Egyptian government at that time couldn't the Egyptian government was flat broke after bankruptcy in 1870s and so to have Davis's money was was perfect and Davis was given the plum concession of excavating in the Valley of the Kings Davis recruited burden to his team he worked as an archaeologist at first but soon began to focus on photography instead when Davis retired home to America in 1914 Burton stayed on to work for the New York Metropolitan Museum who had their own team in the Valley of the Kings by 1922 he was known as the best excavation photographer in Egypt but he was about to begin the assignment that would earn him international recognition because Howard Carter had just made the discovery of the century so this is a real entrance and in fact right here Canton would have been coming down and underneath you can't see because of these these metal stairs but that's the real step that he saw fourth of November 1922 this one step changed the course of Egyptological history for Carter and Caernarfon this was a time of triumphant vindication day by day step by step they dug their way down to the Pharaoh's tomb so this you have to imagine when Carter came here was actually filled with dust and lime Chipping why was it full of all that stuff because when you Ribery you actually fill it all up says thieves don't get through except of course the thieves did because there was a little passageway tunnel but the thieves have made through all of this limestone and so of course when Carter was looking at this he was probably there was fun building in his heart he's my devotee did what will happen when we get down will there be anything will there not be anything this was where Carter appeared into the darkness saw a chamber packed to overflowing with wonderful things so this is the antechamber yep here it is with now a false floor presumably it was lower down yes many things have changed here since the great Pharaoh was laid to rest all those centuries ago his remains have been taken from the sarcophagus and placed in a climate-controlled glass case and all the extraordinary objects buried with him were removed long ago for safekeeping in museums it's hard to imagine what this empty space looked like when Carter discovered it full of the Pharaohs treasures but at least we have Burton's images to turn back time so this is one of Burton's photographs at this end of the room the chariot wheels right these ones over there these are very nice because you've got the little stools that took a common sight on he actually sat on all them when they threw him to sit on in the afterlife they were actually things that he used and what's nice is that even in the Burton picture sometimes you get the sense of scale and you get small things and big things when he was a child when he was grown up and that's the back wall yes which had more chariotry and a little bit of you know smaller boxes you could see nearly all of two coaches not you know couches there Hotel in this one here are these things these are the food boxes picnic his picnic so he could not be hungry in the afterlife and then some of the boats and coffers up there and you can see the walls are still the same gone you mm-hmm absolutely just sort of this big blank room hmm but what gave it its sort of excitement was all of the stuff in it it really was chock-a-block right this is then this is the other end of the room with those two guardian statues you know over there there's one here this one here and then that one flush to that hall but not symmetrical with this one no there there there's a little bit off-center because the opening wasn't actually completely centered but they are guarding the opening and it wasn't as wide as they saw that was it no no of course this has been broken open because ultimately they had to extend it so they could take the shrines apart and bring them out it's only because of this photograph that we have actually see the wall back in position yes sadly with archaeology you have to destroy if you're going to discover anything but you need a meticulous record like Burton's photographs if you're going to be successful this was an unparalleled discovery and almost completely intact royal burial it took months to record the tightly packed treasures in the antechamber first Burton took establishing shots to record the position of objects like the extraordinary animal shaped couches then he took close-ups of each carefully numbered artifact this is one of the great treasures of the tomb a throne made of timber overlaid with gold on the backrest an image of the Pharaoh and his Queen bathed in the sun's rays [Music] when Burton was working color photography was still in its infancy his meticulous black-and-white images were supplemented by quarters detailed notes and drawings they record the colors Burton's camera couldn't capture it was only when the antechamber was fully recorded and emptied that Carter could address the mystery of what lay behind this sealed entrance did this wall hide the Pharaohs burial chamber photographer Harry Cory Wright has arrived in Egypt and he's ready to start work he's taken some wonderful pictures with his large format camera over the years but this will be his first attempt to shoot in desert conditions using the same techniques Burton employed almost a hundred years ago medinet habu is the mortuary temple of the pharaoh ramasees the third who ruled in egypt around 150 years after tutankhamun's death it's a location Burton also photographed before he worked with Carter gosh what a place so here we are just inside the defensive walls and just look at the way just sort of crumbling away you can see every brick they're sort of made and now just just tumbling down when Burton began work with Carter he'd already taken thousands of pictures in conditions like these it's a good place to begin my own experiments using Burton's methods and equipment my Gandolfi camera is almost identical to Burton's nineteen twenties original apart from the addition of a modern lens and shutter I've adapted it to use glass plate negatives like Burton so here is the heart of the thing which is the glass negative that's in here this is just an extraordinarily intolerant environment but it's gonna have something as delicate as this how Burton did it I can't understand it because he had boxes of these things Burton worked in an age before light meters were commercially available he knew from experience how to juggle the variables of aperture and shutter speed to get a good exposure in this intense light it's confusing to me it feels so much brighter than what I'm used to working with in our temperate climate that spot leading here on the rock I'm gonna go one second at 45 I was find it amazing this moment after that rather beautiful pause of one second which sort of drank in all of that scene that we got out there now all of that information is sitting in the sliver of emulsion that sits on the top of the glass slide so you can tuck it away and then can't wait but it's held inside this sort of tension until it's developed as two glass plate photography is no job for the impatient every shot must be carefully considered and executed Harry Vardon went through the same rig maroon thousands of times because cars I wanted a complete photographic record of his excavation once the antechamber was emptied he moved on to other areas of the tomb this fearsome statue of Anubis the Egyptian god of mummification stood Sentinel over the Pharaohs Treasury inside Carter discovered a gilded shrine containing Tutankhamun's embalmed organs protected by four goddesses it was sin Carter the most beautiful monument I've ever seen it made one gasp with wonder and astonishment Burton's photographs are a wonderful record for ourselves how the two was when they found it and they're beautiful to look at are they still any use do you still use them oh absolutely I mean that they're one of the basic go to sources for us anyone who's studying Tutankhamun uses those I'm working with a group of other people on sticks and staves of Tutankhamen the sticks and staves have two purposes one of courses if you need it but it is also very much a symbol of authority and it's part of your royal regalia plus certain sticks and staves have importance and significance in the transition to the afterlife so the Madhu staff and of this staff etc and their various spells associated with them and it was extraordinary because with Burton photographs some of his close-ups are so meticulous you can see even the materials that things were made out of could you take photographs like that today it's really difficult because we've been trying and even with our really high-tech digital cameras we do get the color but the resolution is never as quite as crisp and feels as Terry Burton's glass plate negatives so have you got any favorites I like this one it's Carter King yeah props and everything they had to put in because it was they couldn't just work in the space good there they had to make sure everything stayed in position and then yeah and I mean in a way this is a great testament to Carter's work as an archaeologist and the hours he must have spent sort of sitting there in the hot sort of sweltering nurse of the tomb meticulously recording every tiny piece of information and really between Burton's photographs and Carter's nodes this is it really does tell you how he ology should be done in the ten years it took to excavate the tomb Burton created an archive of more than 1400 images and after each shot the exposed negative had to be removed from the camera and swapped for a new glass plate which is more complicated than you might imagine something like tight tent I've got the glass negative and I've got to take it out of the dark slide and put it into a box and put a new one in and I'm not very good at doing two things at once so I've got a really concentrate done this in a few strange places but not hairy is not the only photographer on site archaeologists from the University of Chicago have been studying this temple complex since the 1920s when Carter and Burton worked close buying Mike Burton the Chicago House unit pioneered the use of cameras in archaeology yokomenuchi ensued listen keep that tradition alive today tell me what are you doing well we're gonna attempt to photograph this huge block of millions yeah and the first thing we have to do is make sure we have some reference which is these scales right so importantly to me you are using a 10-8 light camera that's right now why because it's the largest resolution that's possible but even so I mean you know here we are in you know 2016 and we've got you know all sorts of digital equipment available but this is still still the best it's not just because you love it no no so this does go right back to you you can put yourself in Burton's place very easy the Chicago House team is driven by the same ideal that motivated Burton and Carter okay about it this is perfectionism with a purpose the photographs they take today will be collated with hand-drawn plans and other data to help create a completely accurate record of an extraordinary and fragile historical site the vast majority of Burton's images record artifacts from the tomb but he also photographed the archaeologists at work in this image carter's colleagues examine one of six chariots discovered in the tomb it was a symbol of Egyptian kingship decorated with gold colored glass and stone harry hopes to create a similar picture today what I'm after here is a picture that has some of the finesse and the elegance of what Burton was able to do I'm looking at photograph that perhaps gives a little bit of that structure of where he's orchestrated the picture a little bit I want to try and find a picture that's gone just some quiet process of everybody at work photographing people with a camera like this brings challenges that you don't come up against but digital if we can get you into position - can I ask you to kind of lean so I'm thinking sort of just here because they're less sensitive to light glass plants need a longer exposure and a patient subject who works with this Chicago team for seconds we go for four seconds okay fantastic did you just look at look at me that's it and Brett you can you yeah just just kind of get a little bit more so you'll be facing me a tiny bit more that's it yeah recreating Burton's methods reveals an important secret about his pictures of people looking a bit more this way that's it they may look like the snapshot of a moment in time but but must of stage-managed these images asking the archaeologists to stop what they were doing and hold a pose for the camera okay hold still here we go for a few brief moments they were acting the part of archaeologists rather than doing the job itself one two three four yes exciting that is so cool thank you very much the Chicago House team have this place to themselves it was a different story for Burton and Carter in 1922 within days of the discovery crowds of tourists and journalists descended on the valley eager to glimpse the Pharaohs treasures the media scrum that surrounded the tomb every day must have come as a real shock to the system to men more accustomed to dusty anonymity in fact according to Arthur mace one of Carter's colleagues the archeologist usually spends his time quietly and unobtrusively enough half the year burrowing mole-like in the ground and the other half writing dull papers for scientific journals and now suddenly he finds himself in the full glare of limelight with newspaper reporters lying in for him at every corner and snapshot us recording his every movement the excitement of the discovery also resonated with Egyptians this was after all their story the discovery of the tomb is international news Europeans were quite excited by this piece of news Egyptians are excited by this piece of news as well because the discovery of this almost unknown boy King who's been going to be brought back to life through archaeology really echoes with Egyptian politicians and writers and artists at the time with what their hope is for Egypt now that it's earned its independence that Egypt itself is reawakening one of the Egyptians excited by the discovery was a young photographer from Luxor just across the river from the Valley of the Kings attire Gaddis made a living by selling his photographs to tourists his grandson still owns the premises where a tire worked in the 1920s thank you for letting us come into this wonderful place my grandfather start 1907 so we're talking about time - - more than a few hundred years and of course your grandfather was a photographer and these are some of his attire was apprenticed to an Italian photographer called Felix by Otto when by Otto died in 1909 a tire took over the business I'd love to see someone photographs in turquoise and especially of the Tutankhamun's yes yes we have it yes we interior you right so this is I decided the outside Zutons itsumo carrying on the stretcher carrying weight station dr. Zin I'd oh so they built a special team yes a very small one you got all the people involved you realize what a big operation yes attention and what have we got here more things oh look that must be a chariot wheel yes quarters actually in this photograph I think isn't he that is wonderful Edwardian gentleman in English it's curly but they're really good only and this is what the Valley of the Kings was like then that's early early times coming to the gardens so it was the area still busy yes God's even then of course wonderful photographs Lord Carnarvon soon tired of the media free-for-all in January 1923 he sold exclusive rights to the story to the times for five thousand pounds a small fortune in today's money the deal alienated rival newspapers and many Egyptians who felt understandably that their history had been hijacked by foreigners but it was big news for Burton this was a watershed moment in his career he was no longer simply an archaeological photographer his images made front-page news the spotlight fell on Carter but Burton's pictures reveal other characters who were crucial to the work when we look at them now we can see that those photographs fill a gap an absence that in the the written record both in the newspaper coverage of the time the accounts that Carter wrote and also in the archives those sort of records and Diaries because what we see in the photographs are the Egyptians who worked at the site who are never named in the in the press and I think the photographs are all the more important for that both men as images fueled a fascination for all things Egyptian we don't know if Tutankhamun's golden the funeral mask is an accurate likeness but the iconography of treasures like this inspired designers and artists meanwhile audiences flocked to theaters to hear Carter tell the story of their discovery and whenever Carter traveled Burton's pictures came to here we have his original glass lantern slides in this wooden chest she took all that with him yes this is his traveling set and if we open the drawers you can see there are hundreds of glass lantern slides inside here they don't make them like that anymore do they no and here we have some of Harry Burton's photographs of the road leading to the Valley of the Kings and are these all from Burton's original plates they are yes so these are all based upon Harry Burton's original glass plate negatives we have caster and others peering inside the golden shrines so they must have become stars almost in them yes they were celebrities in their own right we also have some hand tinted glass lens and slides again you get the sense that Carter's really trying to convey the sense of the original colors of the objects to his audiences so these were painted onto Burton's original black and white color is amazing so this is one of the arms of the throne that we were looking at earlier and when we saw that that Carter had actually made a note of what the different materials were in the different colors so I suppose they'd have used that as a guide yes and this is obviously a much more effective way of of conveying those colors to the audience that's terribly detailed work to paint on something that size it's incredible and of course you have to imagine these being projected in a darkened auditorium and really recreating that sense of discovery that the original excavators must have felt state of the art from the time for sure and described by the man who actually made them so the world-famous Carter had been on the front page of the times of his discovery and there he is and you see all this in color Wow this must have caused a sensation I mean I remember when they took him common exhibition came around in the 1970s queuing all day outside the British Museum and not getting in well presumably this had the same impact Carter must have been a real celebrity by this point and the discovery had made its way around the world and so I think we should imagine people queuing around the block to hear Carter give his lecture and to see Burton's photographs because without the photographs the lecture wouldn't have been remotely as interesting would it no these buttons photographs are really at the center of Carter's lectures and this I suppose is what inspired that that jarrah for having Egyptian eyes things some of our buildings and and in the States as well and they've got Egyptian pillars and heads and all the rest of it yeah these these types of images must have really inspired that craze for tuck mania that ensued following the discovery did they actually call it took mania they did yes [Music] [Music] while the West danced along to the tune of two tomainia Harry Burton was continuing his work in Egypt capturing his images took immense skill and patience but that was just part of the challenge he also had to develop them and fast because Carter would only move on to the next stage of excavation once he'd approved the pictures the closest proper darkroom was several miles down the valley at Carter's house so Burton had to improvise instead one of the things that strikes you first about this place it's just how many tombs that are the hills are absolutely full of them and they're so close together they're behind me over there just absolutely everywhere and of course for Carter and his team working around here that had unexpected benefits because there's another tomb right over there this subterranean chamber is the place Burton chose for his makeshift darkroom and Harry's persuaded the authorities to let him develop his negatives in exactly the same place he'll be working with sue lesson from the Chicago House team sue Harry who's agreed to lend him some equipment welcome so we came up with well used trades yes I find it extraordinary that the pristine glass plates we admired in Oxford weren't developed in a well-equipped darkroom like this a lot of water instead Burton worked in a hot and dusty desert tomb just a few meters from the excavation site a walk he must have made hundreds of times okay so I'm imagining I've got one of these exposed glass negatives in my hand and I'm gonna hurt it's just there it's right it's a few feet away guys I mean I've colourbox mentioned it was much further away but that's literally just her know just the kind of Stones Throw isn't it steep and you know there's not been anybody in this two years so which tomb is this one this is number 55 yeah this is called the Amarna cache steep heavens above yes it is imagine them carrying these things down there yeah there yeah and he would be in a rush - yeah everybody's waiting for him to get that phone processed okay I'm coming slides slip slowed down a little bit as he got them to this bit this is a unique privilege for Harry ensued it's the first time anyone's been given permission to develop photographs here since Burton did it in the twenties it's a big step that's a hard act to follow let's go through these cracks when this tomb was surveyed in the 1990s archeologists discovered fragments of glass in the sand they were the remains of negatives that must have slipped from Burton's grasp as he worked here nearly a hundred years ago he's the tomb itself I've never seen any with pots in it before it looked down till they're right can you make this work do you think I think so you know what we need is a table that we set up and that's what he had to do after all this work yes definitely no no absolutely come on let's go get off this is where Harry will discover if his experiments have worked with analogue photography you only find out in the darkroom if you've taken the picture you planned never wash your face is familiar smell of things in Harry Burton's to extrude well not very birds too but you know what I'm saying his darkroom to think you know we're right literally exactly where burn would have developed his own negatives all the nonsense going upstairs all the color thing cancer Kelley Cammalleri out you know we need to get on we need to start doing the into that going to the next stage and piecing and all the government officials here waiting yeah of course I bet he was down here by himself but he didn't be anything you're anything else up there that's very true right we better get on with it yeah let's come on the lights off there it is okay are you ready for this yep ready as we're gonna be yes something yes different have you got that little 1d torches oh my god I might just turn this around for the camera like that so that's all right so this is all the foreground here and that's the sky up here okay so should we put that in the wash that's right a little bit of wash okay so let's think about Burton but would have been looking at his negatives right here under like pretty much the same as this before he said okay let's move to the next one that needed I mean you could have taken it outside but you know that's not forget this is a wet negative that is absolutely at its most susceptible to dust you know yeah he wouldn't have been charging out there going look I've got it it's fine carry on waiting a lot longer yeah yeah that little moment where you gone yes congratulations yeah we're done it Emily yes okay yes okay all the dark rooms you know any photographer in the pasture you'd love to go and look in their dark room you know where there was Ansel Adams his darkroom would be a thing cartier-bresson was darkroom in paris water thing but I think anything beats Harry Burton's dark room in a tone must have done this quite often wasn't they stand aside this one's wet so this is just we just developed this and so this is Brett who is the Egyptologist at Chicago House and he's inside the temple here and there's a rather ghostly image it's a negative so it's the wrong way around but I mean I've done this quite crudely this one excuses I'll give you the loads of excuses all you know first one and all that but you know what it throws up is you know I mean this is a fat piece of glass look at that that's a big chunk still feels quite yeah I mean I've slightly underexposed this but I mean he would have you know they'd have come out of the thing every every time sit there like you and I are now that would have been not just here we're looking at a picture of kind of assessing it because I'm telling you that's Brett and that's somebody else and whatever but he would have been looking obviously for every you know in the hieroglyphics that everything showed you know in a archiving that particular object was in that particular place exactly but anyway let me show you another one here so this is one we did a half which is dried so this is the landscape in the temple just and this is the kind of the wall it's looks like it's taking the night but there's dust spots because actually negative sky will be white what those little spots of dust are they you know but it's just exquisite things I've never seen one of Burton's negatives that was badly exposed either overexposed or underexposed I miss externally but we may not have seen all of them there may have been a few Doug's that thought he probably drops on the way back or someone that drops away we know they're fragile things the technical perfection of Burton's images inspires Egyptologists today including the team based here who use high-tech imaging to record ancient sites incredible image where's this from this is from the tomb for SETI the first in the Valley of the Kings it is the west wall of the Hall of beauties Burton took photographs in City the first team as well didn't it yes he has taken amazing photographs actually I was canning his entire the the book that had his photographs for the tomb helped us in planning which part we're gonna do first and which part includes what so we decide which kind of technology we use for what I can show you how detailed it is some ignorant people have written their names yes that's a graffiti that was found there and as you can see it says here 1876 but would you see that was a naked I know you can't see it it's impossible tell me how you've achieved this clarity well this image has been achieved by lucida a 3d scanner that we developed in fact amarte it's basically based out of two cameras and a laser diode as the laser reflects and moves over the surface as the two cameras capture its motion it's just so real it is and let me show you something even you might like more here you can see a 3d of the tomb the Hall of beauties how do you do you it is a collage of so many photographs with a lot of overlap it's photogrametry the factum art a team planned to use these 3d images to create a life-size replica of the site so tourists wouldn't have to actually go into the original they could go into a replica exactly and know that they are not harming it Burton's aim was to produce a very clear record of what was there he'd have been amazed by this he'd been envious I should think I know looking at his pictures I would assume if he had the technology and the means he would have definitely done this at the time Birkins Lin's captured every stage of Carter's excavation none was more dramatic than the gradual revelation of the Pharaohs burial chamber itself when he was laid to rest 3,000 years ago Tutankhamun's remains were enclosed by ornate wooden shrines packed one inside the other like Russian dolls Burton striking close-up of the sealed door was proof that the shrines had not been touched by ancient tomb Raider's uncovering what lay within took months of painstaking labor in cramped conditions according to Carter they had to squeeze in and out like weasels and work in all kinds of embarrassing positions until finally the coffin could be hoisted carefully from inside the stone sarcophagus and Carter came face-to-face with the Pharaoh what I'd like to do there's a really beautiful picture that Burton took of Carter than where he is looking across the coffin and it's lit by the single night and it's a beautiful picture it's got this fantastic sort of moment of whether two are looking at each other all this is a really really cool picture just here and I would love to move you just into the same sort of place and try and take a picture that was similar it's gonna be a long exposure and we'll move a light into the same sort of place you up for that I'll have a go great it's going to try your leaning over a bit and pandas because obviously he was painting it or brushing Rimmer I sure we can't do that I think it's more fun because in fact I see the reflection on your that's it yes just they tell me that Carter was a difficult man to work with he was single-minded and stubborn and fought many battles as the excavation unfolded hold very still he even called the whole thing off for almost a year after a row with the Egyptian authorities and when you're ready though he did eventually patch things up and returned to finish the job so I've got you FA two seconds please Harry was a perfectionist too but in person he was easygoing and diplomatic a good man to have by your side when the going gets tough brilliant thank you so much there must have been a bond between them and great mutual respect because Burton was one of only two members of Carter's original team who stuck with him to the end Burton took his last photographs for the tomb a new year 1933 he'd seen Carter at Christmas dinner at Metropolitan house and Carter had clearly said oh and we forgot to photograph the sarcophagus so cancer Kartik so Burton and Kyra go back into the tomb and Burton takes some beautifully lit a very crisp and evocative shots of the sarcophagus with the wonderful winged goddesses at the four corners and afterwards Burton writes to a colleague back in New York he writes a letter saying today I finished the top work and dashed glad I am I began to think I never should finish it and it seems too good to be true his greatest assignment was over but he wasn't ready to pack away his camera Harry Burton continued to work in Egypt for the New York met until his death in 1940 [Music] before I stop to look closer I suppose I'd always take a Harry Burton for granted like most people intrigued by the story of Tutankhamun I'd seen many of his photographs over the years without ever thinking about the man behind the camera I won't make that mistake again [Music] right now these two plates I've seen them before but what else have you got to show me the pretty plate okay so this one is the landscape one that I took that's the one that I saw of the temple it's the dust speck lots of dust specks but I think there's something quite fun about that the all these dust bags make it make it feel like an old picture even those days in April yesterday could almost have been one of Burton's rejects well thank you oh great and then we have this one was quite fun so this is Brett up the ladder and if you remember I worries that it was rather underexposed but in fact it works really well you see the hieroglyphics up here and then here this rather ghostly figure as well of Brett yeah I mean that could because it couldn't it yes if you put a little mustache exactly looks to me like a photograph from that ear from the 1920s that's understandable in that it was obtained with a big camera with the same kind of negative process then pretty much the same sort of way when you think of a Burton Carter relationship I mean lerton could be described as a hired hand brought in by Carter to photograph this that the other as he was directed wasn't he in a way yeah but I think that his skill was that he was able to transcend that and after all button that had a training in Florence photographing the old masters so he had clearly had an eye for the aesthetic and also his all the training he did here with the Americans I suppose he'd been an archaeologist - yeah exactly and you know and then all of these things culminating in this moment when Carter says and you know I need you I need you to come and help me reveal this event to the world and make it into something very very special you know I think any good photographer that's what they do well certainly what he did he did it in spades how have you found it working here following the Masters footsteps if I yeah I think so one of the main things to me is being absolutely in the place no my camera is now set up in probably exactly the same place as Burton's was when he took that picture of this picture whether it's in the landscape or whether it's in the tomb itself I got something to show though that one of me the one of you Morris now to me this is the combination of all the things that we've been doing this whole project has been summed up by this picture where it's Carter and Burton and you only buy pre taking this with my baby camera I would have been on top of the railings but you've actually incorporated them in the photograph when you look at Burton's picture it has all of the paraphernalia around you can see the props you can see all the straps and the ropes and the things the light exactly and I was trying to get exactly the same position there's Burton was it but in the modern situation that the tomb is in now the railings are a factor yes this is a record of what's there now just as Burton's were a record of what was there then but it's also like here's a very beautiful picture thank you that's that's very good that one good I'm not saying that it has got me in it [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 77,286

Rating: 4.8516903 out of 5

Keywords: 2017 documentary, Documentary, photographer, Margaret Mountford, documentary history, Harry Burton, Howard Carter, BBC documentary, Full Documentary, stories, real, Photography Documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, Harry Cory Wright, Pharaoh’s tomb, history documentary, TV Shows - Topic, archaeological discoveries, History, Documentaries, 20th Century, Tutankhamun, British photography, Full length Documentaries, Egypt, Channel 4 documentary, archaeology

Id: axlFQ2IRW2A

Length: 59min 22sec (3562 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 04 2018