Reviews

Secrets of the Pharaohs

(WNET/New York Public Television: February 2001) 3 installments, each 1 hour long

When the British Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922, the field of archaeology was still in its youth. Few universities offered courses in the discipline, few museums boasted archaeology collections, and most archaeological expeditions were sponsored by private exploration societies or gentleman scholars—like Carter’s own patron, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon.

When Carter entered Tut’s tomb for the first time, he viewed the remains by flickering candlelight. He identified the site simply by reading its hieroglyphic inscriptions, and he recorded his findings (a task that took more than a decade) with humble pen and paper.

Just how far archaeology has come since Carter’s day is the subject of an intriguing new miniseries debuting on public television this February: Secrets of the Pharaohs, which looks at how modern Egyptologists use the latest scientific techniques to unravel 3,000-year-old mysteries.