SAEDNEWS: This delicate, small statue depicting the god Amun is made of pure gold and has an intriguing story behind it. Its discovery is surrounded by a certain degree of mystery. The statue was a gift from Howard Carter, the discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun, to his financial supporter, Carnarvon.
According to the Society Desk of the Saednews News and Analytical Website, In 1917, five years before Howard Carter made his most famous archaeological breakthrough—the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb—he was walking along the Nile under the scorching sun of Cairo. He wandered into the city’s old quarter, an area filled with small antique shops selling objects of uncertain and often undocumented origin.
At the time, Carter was intensely searching for an intact royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings, hoping to bring good news to his financial sponsor, Lord Carnarvon. However, as Carnarvon’s birthday was approaching, Carter decided to find a gift for his patron.
While passing a small shop, Carter thought he might find something suitable there. He entered, and after hearing his request, the shopkeeper went to the storage area. After a while, he returned with a small object wrapped in cloth. When Carter saw the gleam of gold, he was astonished and immediately purchased it: a small golden statue of the god Amun for just one pound.
The seller claimed that the statue had been discovered in 1916 in the northern section of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak, though this claim was never conclusively verified.
Back at his hotel, Carter carefully examined the figurine and concluded that it likely dated to Egypt’s 18th Dynasty, during the reign of Thutmose III (1479–1425 BCE). He carefully packaged it and sent it to Lord Carnarvon. Carnarvon received the gift with great enthusiasm, and the statue became one of the prized pieces in his collection.
After Lord Carnarvon’s sudden death in Cairo in 1923, his widow, Lady Almina, sold part of her late husband’s antiquities collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1926. The golden statue of Amun was among these objects and was transferred to New York, where it has remained on display in the museum’s Egyptian collection ever since.
