Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcast

Tutankhamun's trumpet: Lady Carnarvon talks to Toby Wilkinson about all things archaeology and Egypt

• Highclere Media • Episode 90

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In this episode, we are joined by Toby Wilkinson, acclaimed Egyptologist, historian, and author, whose work has shed new light on the mysteries and marvels of ancient Egypt. Toby brings his deep expertise and passion for history to our conversation, offering listeners a fascinating journey through the world of pharaohs, pyramids, and the enduring legacy of one of humanity’s greatest civilizations.

We delve into Toby’s latest research and publications, exploring the cultural, political, and spiritual life of ancient Egypt. Toby shares captivating stories from his fieldwork, discusses the challenges and rewards of uncovering the past, and reflects on what modern society can learn from the ancient world.

Whether you’re a history enthusiast or simply curious about the wonders of Egypt, this episode promises to inspire and inform, revealing the timeless relevance of ancient wisdom.

Key moments:

  • 01:20 – Introduction to Ancient Egypt
  • 02:18 – Toby’s Journey as an Egyptologist
  • 04:15 – Major Discoveries and Insights
  • 06:41 – Life and Culture in Ancient Egypt
  • 07:46 – Lessons for Today
  • 13:10 – Final Thoughts and Reflections

Join us as we unlock the secrets of the past with one of the world’s leading experts on ancient Egypt.

You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.


SPEAKER_01:

I am delighted to welcome an eminent Egyptologist to my podcast today. Professor Dr. Toby Wilkinson. Thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01:

One of my most favourite subjects being Egypt and ancient Egypt. I have fallen in love with that country, although very much a newbie, compared to yourself. Once you get the passion, you've got it, haven't you? And I think the Fifth Earl had it. Howard Carter did. And you have it as well. And you have written so many books, many of which I have in my little library upstairs. Perhaps I can show you. But what firstly drew you to ancient Egypt?

SPEAKER_00:

I blame my parents. It was my fifth birthday. And those were the days when parents bought books for their children's birthday presents. And for my fifth birthday, I was given a children's encyclopedia. One of the pages of that encyclopedia showed different writing systems from across the world and throughout history. So there was Roman writing and there was Arabic script. My little five-year-old eyes lit on the hieroglyphics. And I thought, gosh, isn't that amazing? You can write using little pictures. Now, I'm lucky I have a name that's only four letters long, T-O-B-Y. So I worked out on my fifth birthday how to write Tobian hieroglyphics. I must have been rather presumptuous as a child, but and in a cartouche, I would hope. In a cartouche, of course, in a cartouche. And I thought I'd like to do this properly one day. And that was the start of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. So after school, you then went to university?

SPEAKER_00:

I did. Read Egyptology as a degree at Cambridge, yes, for three wonderful years and then loved it so much I carried on and did a PhD in it as well, and loved it so much I carried on and did some more research after that. So yes, I've well and truly been bitten by the Egypt bug.

SPEAKER_01:

What is your area of specialty, Toby?

SPEAKER_00:

I started off as many postgraduates do, really working on a very small area of the subject. So I was looking at the pre-dynastic and early dynastic, which broadly speaking is before the dynasties and then the very first few dynasties. So before the pyramids, in other words, the early periods of ancient Egyptian history. But as I've gone on, I suppose my passion now is to bring the subject alive for people who are non-specialists, who are not academics, but just have a passion and an interest in ancient history. So I find myself ranging quite widely now across ancient Egyptian civilization, always drawing on the latest research, but hopefully making it accessible and readable and fun, because it is fun and it should be fun.

SPEAKER_01:

It's because some of what I read to distill for a book that I wrote on the Island of Pharaoh was quite intense. And I did a huge amount of reading to try to distill it, to find the gems that might catch people's attention. And there is a lot of earnestness there as well. And I suspect earnest people look askance at just me an amateur, which you by no means are, but it is a subject which attracts everybody from the most wonderful professors to the tourists who walk round some particular stone five times in one way and five times in another, and lie prostrate in front of a different temple. And everybody loves it in different ways. Well, one of the books that I much enjoyed was a very slim volume, which was Aristocrats and Egyptologists. I think that was the title, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

Aristocrats and archaeologists.

SPEAKER_01:

Archaeologists, forgive me. I can see the outside of the book, but not quite the title. So I think that's a little book everyone would love to read.

SPEAKER_00:

It was a real gift, actually. A friend of mine came up to me after a dinner in Cambridge and said, I have an envelope full of letters. There's something to do with Egypt. I wonder if you'd take a look. And I said, Yes, of course. And he produced this brown envelope full of letters, not just about Egypt, but the diary or the letters home of a doctor, not just any doctor, but the doctor to the Duke and Duchess at Devonshire, who accompanied the Duke and Duchess on a trip up the Nile in 1907 to 1908. And it was an amazing treasure trove of observations, not only of Egypt in the Golden Age, they meet Howard Carter, they meet the Fifth Earl, they meet Winston Churchill coming back down the Nile from Uganda. I mean, they meet all sorts of people. It paints a picture in the letters of the Golden Age of Egyptology, but also of Edwardian high societies. So it's everything that you could possibly wish for in a collection of letters. And when I realized what we had here, I said, we've got to publish these letters, got to tell the story. And that's what the book does. And it was a dream to work on.

SPEAKER_01:

I would say it's a really charming book. And I don't mean that in any way other than that it's terribly readable. I hope everybody who's listened to this reads the book. Because it is, it's such a real insight into the world at that time. I just love of course I was looking for references to the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon the whole time when I was reading things, but I just read it for pure pleasure. There were some other diaries I read by Emma Andrews, which I managed to read online. And again, there was a little nugget in there about Lord and Lady Carnarvon who came on their Dahvaya. And Mrs. Andrews wrote that they were terribly wild. Great. I loved that. But it's those tiny adjectives which immediately paint a picture of people in that time.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, here we are at High Clear, the real Downton Abbey. And the thing that one gets in these letters from 1907, 1908 is it's that same world, the world of Downton Abbey, but afloat on the Nile. What an extraordinary combination.

SPEAKER_01:

It was an extraordinary combination. And of course, at the real Downton Abbey, we have an Egyptian exhibition when it's with the sons here. And at the end of the exhibition, you come across a replica of Tut and Carmen's trumpet. And I very much enjoyed your book, Tut and Carmen's Trumpet. It was a fun way again to enter his world. And as you and I know, there is a wonderful recording of said trumpet, which was played, I think it was in 1933, after which the trumpet shattered into smithereens from what had been put through. And it's a bandsman, English bandsman playing it, and it was a joy to find the recording and have a replica trumpet, which I'm going to show you after. Wonderful. But immediately I saw the name and I was there wanting to read your book. And how did you decide to structure that book about Tutankhamun? There's been so many books written about him. And again, I'm in the same space thinking, how can you tell a story from a different point of view?

SPEAKER_00:

I knew I wanted to write something on Tutankhamun for the centenary of the Discovery. And you're right, a story of the Discovery has been told so many times. But it struck me that beyond a few very well-known objects, like the Golden Throne, like obviously the Golden Funery Mask, there are over 5,000 objects found in that tomb. And yet so few of them have been written about in a way that ordinary people can enjoy. And when you start to look at the list of things that were buried with Tug and Carmen, it's quite extraordinary. It isn't just the royal regalia that you might expect. It's his clothing, his loincloth, his first aid kit, a lock of his grandmother's hair, boxes of meat, jars of honey, jars of wine, garlic, chickpeas, all sorts of strange magical objects and religious objects and things that he had as a child. And it really tells the story of a civilization. And I thought this is the way in. Let's choose a hundred objects for the hundredth anniversary, and let's use each of those objects to paint a picture of an aspect of ancient Egyptian civilization. And to my great surprise and delight, you could really cover the whole spectrum of ancient Egyptian culture, religion, history, geography through the objects in Tutankhamun's too.

SPEAKER_01:

It still remains the most extraordinary legacy, doesn't it, of the Fifth Earl. And without him, I'm not sure it would yet be discovered. No. But so he was such an essential character, and I wanted to reposition him because I thought he'd been a bit written off as the financier, whereas his passion was far deeper than that, and his knowledge, and no one had ever looked at his diaries or his letters, which I found extraordinary. I think when he stepped inside the first room, I found his own notes of what he saw fascinating. I think it was just when he was walking in the dust and he was making a footprint that I found that incredibly moving somehow and how moved he was.

SPEAKER_00:

To think that the last person who had walked there had walked 3,200 years before and quite extraordinary.

SPEAKER_01:

And also the love and care with which many objects had been selected to put there or why they were there. So how did you begin to select a hundred objects?

SPEAKER_00:

It wasn't easy because there are over 5,000 to choose from. But I wanted to choose objects that were both, of course, one had to include the very well-known ones, the golden mask and so forth. But I also want to surprise the reader and include objects that they would never have imagined would have been buried in a royal tomb. And of course, to choose a representative selection of objects that told interesting stories. I think ancient Egypt is just brim full of stories. And people love stories. And I love writing stories, but stories that are grounded in fact. And so I was looking for objects that really had a story to tell. And then taken together, they build up this, what I hope is a very sort of tangible picture of life in ancient Egypt.

SPEAKER_01:

So what I found amazing was the beds, for example. Well, they're so high off the ground, actually. They are when you look at them, because we've got to replicate a bed downstairs. How many people would have had a bed to lie on?

SPEAKER_00:

Not many. Furniture was of any kind, was quite a luxury item in ancient Egypt because wood was precious. So if you were the vast majority of the ancient Egyptians would have sat on the floor, maybe on a rush mat, uh around the hearth, eating, chatted, lived their lives quite close to the ground. It would only have been the nobility and the royal family who have the privilege of furniture and certainly of chairs and of beds. So these are high status objects on the whole. And yes, you're right. The funerary beds are well, they're not something that one would want to lie on every night because A, they're very high off the ground and be not particularly comfortable. Another one of Tutankhamun's beds that was buried in his tomb was his folding camp bed. I find that amazing. So the sort of thing that you might buy in an outbound mountain warehouse. Exactly. That's the one. A camp bed that sort of folds up and is easy to carry. Tutent Carmen had one as well because the royal family in ancient Egypt lived a life on the move. They went from palace to palace and from place to place, and very often they would pack up their belongings and move from place to place. And there is his camp bed complete with the webbing still intact. It actually looks rather more comfortable than the big funerary beds.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. No, it does. And I remember going to the old museum in Cairo where there was a camp bed, and I probably went there quite soon after Georgie's father had died, and we were first beginning to think about creating an exhibition here at High Clear. We were going on a rehear and leading some tourists. So we'd gone to the museum and there was the camp bed. And in Howard Carter's writing, I think it just said camp bed. So I remember going back about five or six years later, and there was no further explanation, but the note saying camp bed had now fallen on the ground besides the camp bed, which I really loved about that old museum. It was and is an extraordinary place.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a museum piece in itself, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

It is a museum piece in itself. Our constant desire to find something new, to find a treasure, to look for what we don't have that fascinates us with the story of Tusan Carmen and its discovery. And I'm never quite sure why that particular discovery, 104 years ago, whatever it is now, has gripped us in the way that it has, Toby.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's a few things. Of course, that the sheer wealth of the objects that were discovered was quite unprecedented. And there had been other discoveries in the Valley of the Kings, but nothing on that scale. Nothing of that sort of sophistication. So I think that's one thing. It's the archetypal Aladdin's cave, isn't it? Finding buried treasure, what everybody dreams of. But I think there's more to it. I think it's also the story of the boy king. He was this lad who became Pharaoh of Egypt at the age of nine or ten. And I think we all associate somehow, empathize with the idea of quite a vulnerable child, really, in this position of great expectation and pressure. And of course, he wasn't a very well child. I mean, he suffered from all sorts of ailments and came from a slightly dysfunctional family, if we can put it that way. Father was Akhenath and the heretic Pharaoh, and so on and so forth. So there's something the human story, I think, behind the boy Pharaoh that also appeals to us. And then, of course, one of the reasons why I suppose it piqued the imagination then and it still does now, is because it was the first global sensation in terms of an archaeological discovery. Thanks to the Times of London. This was a story that was carried around the world and it really sparked people's imaginations. And I'd like, as an Egyptologist, also to pay great tribute to the Fifth Earl, because I agree with you. I think Howard Carter has been foregrounded as the archaeologist, and he was a brilliant archaeologist, that and absolutely right. Lord Carnarvon was so much more than, as you say, than just a financier. He had a not just a passion, I think, for archaeology and antiquity, but a real nose for it as well. He was a very astute patron, I think, of that excavation, and helped it to be what I think of really as the first scientific uh discovery. It could so easily have degenerated into a bit of a sort of treasure hunt and a free-for-all. But actually, the reason why I can write a book on it is because the records that were kept as the tomb was excavated were meticulous. And so it really bears comparison with the best excavations of today. And that was pretty remarkable in 1922.

SPEAKER_01:

It was, and I think that when he first went out to Egypt and the first excavation he undertook on his own in 1906 and 7, and then the second one as well, he then obviously began to realize he needed help. But when he then produced Five Years at Thebes, which was a phenomenal record, he was a team worker. He went to the best archaeologists at the time, all of whom stayed here at Highclear, all of whom he entertained at the Winter Palace, and who wouldn't go there because he was trolling comfortable. He had his own chef and excellent wines. So he could absorb from them so much information whilst he was out there. He had learned a sufficient modicum of both history and hieroglyphs and work to be able to converse with some of the best Egyptologists and archaeologists of the day. He wasn't just an amateur, if he was an enthusiastic amateur, he was a little bit more than that, in the same way that I'm not an Egyptologist, but my study is sufficient that I hope I can explain a modicum of hieroglyphs when I travel round, which I thoroughly enjoy doing and can lead a tour. So it's I can see that in the same fashion as his own passion. He did have a nose, and when he went to Cambridge, he went up there to read maths and French, not the normal Latin. So he clearly had a really interesting processing mind. And his interest was in cars and Jeffrey Taverley made his first flight from here. So it was about that processing mind, which I understand because I learned to countersee and had to learn to process against my better judgment, as well as my writing mind going sideways. So he did have that sort of analysis of life.

SPEAKER_00:

I think one of the great aspects of Egyptology, and I know some academics get a little bit sniffy about this, but it's one of those subjects where I think not just amateurs, but as you say, people who are not academics but have a deep love and knowledge of the subject, have made an immense contribution, not just to popularising the subject, but actually to doing the subject as well, to the research, to the publication, to the investigation. It isn't just a pursuit for the purest academic. It's something which people can make such a range of contributions. And I think that's what makes it so appealing, actually.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it inspires children of five years old, and it keeps people of 90s still reading. It is an extraordinary subject. And I think the the world of light and sand and sun was obviously really interesting to Lorcarvin after the grey winter severe. And of course, what I loved realizing was he was a man of many ailments. He was quite a frail child. He nearly died several times. He had car crashes, he damaged his legs. Tutankhallman had obviously suffered the same. In his own lifetime, Lorcarvan died at 56. Even for then, it was quite young. Yeah. And he did not have a dysfunctional family in the same way. But there's some always some interesting comparisons when you're thinking about curses and gifts. How does it make sure you travel safely in this world and the next? I think. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

And I suppose people have often asked me why do you call why did you call the book Tudankama's Trumpet? What is it about the trumpet that is so special? And I think you just touched on it there. You talked about the sights and sounds of Egypt. And what the trumpet, I think, conveys to me is there's a whole lost world of human experience. We can look at the objects from Tutankhamans too, and we can marvel at them. We can dig things up out of the ground, and we can read the ancient Egyptian texts. But there's a level of human experience that we can't really recapture, and that includes the sights and the sounds and the smells of ancient Egypt. Except through our imaginations. And I think this is where the book, in a way, meets the reader, because our imaginations can fill in those gaps through those objects. We can, because we're all human beings at the end of the day, we can begin to think ourselves into the world of Tutancart and think. What would it have been like? What would it have smelt like and sounded like and looked like? And I love that idea that ancient Egypt is a lion well in our own imaginations.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. I love the name Tutukamu's trumpet because it's about the science. When you go to modern Egypt, you hear all those sounds, which mean you are in Egypt. And the system, the shish, shut, I love their words for some of their musical instruments. It must have been a wonderfully noisy, colourful world, much greener, much more with much more water than today, because the world has changed. Of all the books you've written, do you have any favourites?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh gosh, that's a good question. I suppose my favourite book probably is The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, where I attempted to write the whole story, the whole history of ancient Egypt from the very earliest times until the death of Cleopatra, and to do it in one volume. It was a big challenge because it's 3,000 years of history. And how do you cram that into a single volume? But I was again trying to plug a bit of a gap because there are lots of histories of ancient Egypt, but they tend to be written by multiple authors, so you lose the narrative voice. And it is one of the greatest stories ever told.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a really great book, actually, because obviously I've also read that one. Just because I wanted to understand the breadth, I think, of this extraordinary civilization. And we've got a pre-dynastic knife downstairs, the blade is, I think, pre-dynastic and the handle later, and things from earlier dynasties and the 12th dynasties as well as later dynasties. And then the story of Anthony Cleopatra. So it's an amazing book to read. And I think you could also read it in stages.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Because it's it is quite a large book. It is quite a very readable one.

SPEAKER_00:

It always makes a good doorstop, if nothing else.

SPEAKER_01:

No, Toby, not at all. You wrote that book, and what did you decide to write after that book? I can't remember if it was you wrote it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so after that one, I decided to write a book called The Nile, where I take the reader on a journey downriver from Aswan to Cairo. Yeah. Sort of peeling back the layers of history because one of the most extraordinary things, as you will know, when you go to Egypt, is you see so many periods of history layered one on top of the other. It's not just ancient Egypt, but there's Byzantine and Coptic, early Islamic and then the modern era intruding. And it's such a multifaceted country. I wanted to convey a bit of a sense of that. And also how different regions of Egypt had shaped Egyptian civilization in different ways. And you can see certain themes running through the centuries. Yeah, with each book I've written, I've tried to take the reader on a new and hopefully interesting journey.

SPEAKER_01:

And how much of the languages of ancient Egypt have you studied?

SPEAKER_00:

I studied ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Which dynasty did you focus on? Because it does change a bit differently. I could probably have a pretty good stab at translating anything written until the Ptolemaic period. Ptolemaic hieroglyphics are a world of their own, quite difficult to read. Probably only a handful of experts can read Ptolemaic Egyptian. But no, I think anything from the sort of early dynasties through to the sort of the 26th, 20th, 28th dynasty. I could give it a pretty good goal.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you study demotic or Coptic as well?

SPEAKER_00:

I study some Coptic. I never got into demotic, or indeed, which is the sort of cursive version of hieroglyphics. It's a bit like reading somebody's very bad handwriting. Yes. And you have to get your eye in, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. One of my great friends is Professor Brina Lepper from Berlin, from the Noise Museum, who has an extraordinary ability to read a whole plethora of ancient languages. It's amazing. I always give her my work because then she always comes back and corrects it. But she's very dramatic. The first thing I wrote, actually, was and I'd written more about Carnarv and not enough about Carter. And she had written more about Howard Carter. And she just said to me, Fiona, this isn't good enough, is it? And I thought, I'm sorry, Verena. And then I actually I then decided the way forward to extract from her all my weaknesses was to open a bottle of champagne and sit down and say, give me the Lausanne, and please help me improve what I'm trying to say here. I'm sure that helped enormously. It did actually. It wasn't where she was directly Germanic, I think. But I also appreciate that as well. Although she was perhaps a little bit more direct than she needed, but that was quite funny. But I've been I'm very lucky to have met a few proper archaeologists in Egypt, such as yourself. It has been an eye-opener into the most extraordinary world. And I've always tried to persuade people to go to Egypt because there is nowhere in the world like Egypt. And until you've been there, you don't really understand it. And I think the Nile, which I haven't read that book, so I can read that one, is so important because that is the reason ancient Egypt was able to exist.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And there is something, as you said, magical about the light, about the smells, about the soundscape of Egypt that just transports you to another world. And I would absolutely echo that and encourage anybody who's got the least interest to try and get to Egypt because it just brings the whole thing alive. And of course, what makes it exciting as an Egyptologist, there are always new discoveries. Almost every year, something new is being discovered. So another piece of the jigsaw puzzle is being put in place, and that keeps us all on our tiptoes.

SPEAKER_01:

It certainly does. So are you working on a project out in Egypt at the moment? Do you go out there to work on a specific area or project?

SPEAKER_00:

I do go out to Egypt, but I'm not working on a project in the field. I'm working on another book based in the UK, but using a lot of archival material. I can't talk too much about it now. It's all a bit hush. But maybe when it's published, I can come and have another chat.

SPEAKER_01:

Breaking news. Secrets from high school's treasure chamber. I can never quite decide what I'm trying to do next. But it is a joy to go out there, and I've begun to try to meet some of the archaeologists working out there at the moment and to work with us and welcome any Egyptian dignitaries or ambassadors down here to share where we are. Toby, this coming summer, we're having our lovely summer dance. In fact, the first Friends of Highclear summer dance at Highclear. I think we just need to have some fun from time to time. If you could bring anybody in the world, alive or dead, as your guest, who might you ask?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I say that is quite a difficult question. I think I might choose Nefertiti. I think she would have A presence. She would certainly have a presence, a commanding presence, and she might be able to reveal all sorts of tantalizing and indeed titillating secrets about life in the Pharaoh's court. How about that? And she would certainly know how to make an entrance.

SPEAKER_01:

She would be very stylish. I think you would be the centre of attention. Oh, did you know that the founding fathers of Egypt, such as Sazakul, came and stayed here?

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01:

Isn't that cool?

SPEAKER_00:

That is that is extraordinary.

SPEAKER_01:

It was amazing, actually. It was such a lovely thing to find and to find all the cinches in the book. They were visiting England in 21 as they were working towards the independence of Egypt in February 22. And there was a conference in London, and Lorcanaven asked them all to stay here because he knew them all and they respected him. But he wasn't involved in the direct political discussions, but could bring some of the politicians from London out here just for a jolly weekend.

SPEAKER_00:

That's wonderful. Isn't it lovely? Gosh, didn't Heightclear play a pivotal role in the 20th century history of Egypt in all ways?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's an amazing house in which to live because it's tried to do its best. God can't ask any more of any of us, or indeed a home, such as Heinclear, other than to try our best each day.

unknown:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Toby, thank you so much for joining me today. I've just loved it. Time has whizzed by.

SPEAKER_00:

Me too. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.