The strange inner certainty which for 30 long years drove Howard Carter in his quest for the tomb of a young unknown Egyptian king finally led to the achievement of his life's ambition on 22nd November 1922. On that day, in the presence of his long term patron Lord Carnarvon and with only a few days to go before their license to excavate the area was due to expire, the first stone was removed from the wall of the tomb in which the boy king we now know as Tutankhamun had lain undisturbed for 3,245 years.

In Carter's own words, "It was the day of days, the most wonderful that I have ever lived through and certainly one whose like I can never hope to see again."

For Carter it was the end of a search extending back to 1892, when he joined his first expedition to Egypt, but also the beginning of six tumultuous years of problems and disagreement - notably including legal arguments with the Egyptian authorities and battles with the world press for whom the discovery of such a complete set of the most beautiful burial objects ever found soon became one of the great news stories of the years between the two World Wars.

Stubborn as ever, he nevertheless managed to complete his task and to reveal not only more and more treasures but evidence of the way in which Tutankhamun's enemies had pursued him beyond the grave, obliterating his name wherever possible to ensure that he died a second death and vanished from History.

By revealing the boy king's tomb to the modern world, Carter and Carnarvon rescued him from the fate intended by his enemies and fulfilled the terms of the funerary inscription "to speak the name of the dead is to make them live again." But there will always be those who believe Carnarvon paid the price for his temerity, struck down by a disease which led to his death in Egypt less thank six months after the great discovery made possible by his patronage.

At five minutes to two on the morning of April 5th 1923. Lord Carnarvon died at the Continental hotel in Cairo. At exactly the same moment all the lights of the city went out and far away on the Carnarvon estate in England, his dog howled inconsolably......... and died.