What are the true facts about the Sakkarah Incident of 1905 that cost Howard Carter his job with the Antiquities Service?

 [ Back story :    Ten years  after  Howard Carter  first  went to Egypt  he gained a   high position in the Antiquities Service. As Chief Inspector of Monuments for Upper Egypt he was on  course for bigger and better things. A serious affray at the ancient site of     Sakkarah  ( Saqqara)  in January 1905 ended Carter’s administrative  career  after he refused to  apologise or express regret  over a violent incident.  There is a suspicion  that the whole unsavory  episode was a sting to curb Carter’s  rise.  What happened at Sakkarah has been told  by several of Carter’s contemporaries.   The published   versions  by  archeologists  Percy  Newberry and  Sir William  Flinders Petrie who were in Egypt  at the time  are considered below.]  

Howard Carter  with two  ladies  enjoying tea at a local hotel far 

from the madding crowd

Part 3 ( of 5 )

Carter’s  colleague  Percy Newberry  who first 

recruited him for Egypt

Howard Carter’s life-long  archeological associate,  Percy Newberry, a man with more seniority in the field  appears to have been  snubbed at the time Carter was first promoted to the post of Chief  Inspector. Yet the evidence is that Percy remained one of Carter’s most loyal,  supportive colleagues. Newberry’s specialty was botany, he was also an accomplished tomb artist. Five years older than Carter, he was university-educated ( he was later a  respected University Professor of Egyptology). Carter always felt some inferiority with those who were  learned on account of their high academic  study, but  he admired  Newberry at a personal level too, they  enjoyed  a shared past  working for the Egyptian Exploration Fund.  

                                  Percy Newberry: Botanical Artist 

                                                        later a Professor of Eg yptology

Beneath his quiet, academic and  gentlemanly charm did Newberry  in fact  have a grudge or ever  feel bitter?  There is no whiff of resentment against  Carter  in surviving correspondence, but he must have been personally disappointed and like others surprised at the time of  Carter’s early rise and the bane of comments for being overlooked by Gaston  Mesparo ( Director of  the Antiquities Service).

It was  Percy Newberry who first recruited Carter to go to work in Egypt  following  a recommendation from Lady Amherst of Hackney of Didlington Hall, Norfolk. She was touched by the young  Howard  being  at peace with his physical disability through his artistic expression as  a  skecher and  tracer.  Newberry, who led several early expeditions for the Egyptian Exploration Fund  took  to Carter and saw his talent. The two men  shared  berths and experiences in  the  harsh, difficult,  inhospitable  desert   life   in the period  from 1891 onwards.    Newberry later worked with Carter as a part of the team  clearing the tomb of  Tutankhamun.

Newberry’s Account of the Sakkarah Incident

The ancient  necropolis at Sakkarah ( Saqqara)

Newberry survived Carter and  offers a  short  narrative on  the fracas at Sakkarah in 1905 in an enlightened obituary notice to his friend (in an Egyptology Journal   from  1939) .  

This text from  Newberry  was amongst the first  published accounts of what happened at  Sakkarah,   and whilst  it is  flawed it  gives  a  succinct  summary:

“ One afternoon ..  [ Carter’s]  reis  [ head  foreman]  of the guards of the necropolis [ at Sakkarra]  came to Carter's office to report that a party of Frenchmen, very much the worse for liquor, demanded admittance to the Serapeum [ the oldest part of the graves]  although they did not possess the necessary tickets.

One of the visitors struck a guard, and this led to a free fight. Carter, on his arrival at the scene, remonstrated and was answered by insults. He then ordered the [ native ]  guards to protect themselves and one of the Frenchmen was knocked down."

Inside  the Serapeum 

Ludicrous!  Cock- Up!

' How dare Carter allow a native gaffer to knock down

 a French citizen? '

The central issue  that fuelled the flames  was one that nowadays would not seen in the same way, the whole ‘ludicrous’ matter  against Carter  and his men  would  be accepted as a case self-defence.

However back  in Egypt in 1905 the matter  appeared  an awkward, ugly, damaging,  cross-culture, cross-nation  cock-up, an attack by the gaffers, a body of lowly  native guards  upon their betters, no less than members of  the governing class of  Europeans.   Carter had ordered his men to defend themselves with their  truncheons.  It  did not look  good!!!

Diplomatic Crisis

The  mini diplomatic crisis  it all   provoked  raised the issue  of the  natives’ low importance  –or no importance-  their  humble caste and class,  and  posed the inevitable  question  : ‘ How dare Carter allow a native guard to knock down a French citizen? ‘  

The official opinion  was clear-cut :  the natives should have taken the Frenchman’s rebuke and beating, and  not retaliated.  

Moreover it was judged that  the end result was a consequence of  Carter’s  rash instructions to the guards that had caused the Frenchman to be knocked down and injured.

Carter Cornered

Carter was cornered, suffocated  by the hypocrisy of  old world colonialism,  best ( or worst )  represented in the attitude of the arch-snob Anglo-Saxon,  Edward Baring, the Earl of Cromer, the  British Consul- General in Cairo.   One author,  Daniel Meyerson,  cleverly sums up  Cromer’s  career   in the book  “In the Valley of the Kings”.  [ NB  To be covered as an ‘End Note’ in the book. ] 

Almost all British colonial chiefs had a low opinion of the native population they ruled. 

Percy  Newberry continues his description 

of what happened next

Carter is Cornered

“On their return to Cairo the [French]  visitors lodged a formal complaint against  Carter and the French Consul-General demanded an apology. Carter refused to give it, saying that he had only done his duty, and as a result of his refusal he had to resign his post.

A complex story with  conflicting accounts

The  affray at Sakkarah  is  a complex tale  and in  revisiting in this retrospective   what emerges are strangely  conflicting  versions of the same story,  there is also a certain inference of skullduggery  at work by Carter’s enemies  in  trying  to effect his  disgrace and capitulation.

Carter’s display of  autism

Several of his contemporaries found Carter diffident, awkward, obstinate ( these are three of the classic signs, and rank as a common display  of  someone with  autism).  Those who resented his rise to prominence through his close friendship with  Gaston Maspero were prepared to take advantage of his predictable stubbornness in  not  accepting the  blame in  any  confrontation.

                                 Sir William Flinders Petrie : Carter supporter

Sir  William  Flinders  Petrie on the Incident at Sakkara

A  defiant  version of the affray at  Sakkarah  that  comes    to  the  defence of   Carter’s action is  one from his old  desert  digging  master,   Sir William Flinders Petrie.

Although once again flawed, Flinders Petrie records the event and its aftermath in his memoir ‘Seventy Years in Archaeology’ :

“ For the first six weeks my wife excavated at Saqqareh, copying mastabas, and had the Misses Hansard, Eckenstein and Kingsford there.  One Sunday, some drunken Frenchmen tried to force their way into her huts, and were stoutly resisted by the cook boy. They went on to the official house and began to smash furniture and fight the native guards. Carter, then inspector, was fetched, and he very rightly allowed the guards to defend themselves till the police could come.

The indignity of letting a native resist a Frenchman weighed more than the indignity of being drunk and disorderly, in the eyes of the French Consul, who demanded an apology from Carter. With proper self-respect, Carter refused to apologize for doing his obvious duty. For this he was, on demand of the French, dismissed from the Service. This was perhaps the dirtiest act of the subservience to French arrogance.”

Accounts at Variance with the Later Facts

Taking the accounts from Carter, Newberry and Petrie, with others  the  facts   clash or are  at  variance.

Newberry’s comment that  “ as a result of his [ Carter’s]  refusal  [ to apologise]  he had to resign his post”   and Flinders Petrie’s version that   “he [ Carter]  was, on demand of the French, dismissed from the Service..” are not accurate.

With the  Percy  Newberry and the Flinders  Petrie’   accounts in mind  the  late  T G H ( Harry ) James,  author of “Howard Carter : The Path to Tutankhamun”, rightly remarks that what happened at Sakkarah  “ has been seriously misrepresented” by several authors.  James devotes a whole chapter to it in his  notable biography of Carter,  and with it  a masterly analysis of the issues. [ This will feature further in the book’s ‘End Notes’.]

         The Next Part of this Book Blog will appear shortly

Any queries please contact the author by e-mail

williecross@aol.com

[This is  a rough draft  of  a  proposed chapter   in    a new book  " Carnarvon, Carter and Tutankhamun Revisited : The Hidden  Truths and Doomed  Relationships"  By William Cross, FSA Scot, to be published on 4 November 2016. ]