On November 4, 1922, the Englishman Howard Carter revolutionized the world of archeology when he discovered the tomb of the very young Pharaoh Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings. It was quite an event after the discovery of the Rosetta stone that allowed the hieroglyphs to be deciphered.
Without knowing it, the Historical Archive of the Nobility, which is based in Toledo, kept a photograph of Carter. He is one of the most famous archaeologists and Egyptologists of all time. He appears supervising the transfer of the wooden bust of the pharaoh. “It was a surprise,” explains Alba María Villar, archivist in the General Subdirectorate of the State Archives of the Ministry of Culture and doctor in Egyptology from the Autonomous University of Madrid.
The snapshot is part of one of the numerous funds deposited in this state-owned archive since 1993. It belongs to the family of María González de Quintanilla, a rich heiress of Mexican origin who became Marchioness of Torrelaguna and Mendigorría. She ended up separating from her husband and went to live in Paris with her daughter Julia. Both dedicated themselves to traveling through Europe and Africa and ended up in Egypt in 1923, a few months after Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered.
“At that moment a real tutmania”, says Alba Villar. Of course, at that time visiting the Egyptian Valley of the Kings was reserved for a few people who could afford it.
María González de Quintanilla and her daughter Julia were part of that privileged group. In March 1923, the aristocrat was in Cairo staying in the most sophisticated hotels, a meeting place for European and Egyptian elites.
The news of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb aroused his curiosity. She and her daughter spent weeks in Egypt and, as has been discovered in the Toledo archive, they brought back numerous souvenirs and also more than a hundred customs postcards, including the Howard Carter portrait.
There are photographs in archaeological sites, such as the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid; the funerary temple of Ramses III or the temple of Luxor and even studio portraits of his young daughter taken by the famous Armenian photographer Aram Alban in the city of Alexandria. “I presented it at an Egyptology conference, in the academic field. The funds of this Historical Archive of the Nobility have given rise to several curious investigations and this is one of them,” explains the archivist.
And the noble archives are “authentic surprise boxes in which you can find privileges granted by the Catholic Monarchs in the 15th century, correspondence or personal photographs.” In this case they are a reflection of the relationships and friendships of those who held the political and economic power of each era.
María González de Quintanilla was a personal friend of the patron of the excavation in Tutankhamun’s tomb. George Herbert, known as Lord Carnarvon, was an ancient Egyptian enthusiast who, from 1907, financed excavations at the tombs of Deir el-Bahari. “It is known for that and also because the family owns Highclere Castle where the television series was filmed Downton Abbey”, says Alba Villar.
“What we have found are photographs of the moment. The discovery of the tomb was ‘the most’ for the aristocracy of the time, European and North American. The tutmania “It changed architecture, fashion, literature and travel,” says the Egyptologist. This particular club of the rich traveled to Luxor, becoming the world reference for tourism for a few. “They stayed in the Old Winter Palace where Agatha Christie wrote her novel “Death on the Nile.”
All of these characters became part of Howard Carter’s diaries. “He talked about ‘visitors’ in his posts. During the excavation they had to put up a wall to prevent them from falling inside. There are photos of that and they are very curious. There they waited with cameras, reading and even crocheting to see what would come out. “That woman and her daughter participated in all that.”
The personal photographs now provide another vision compared to what was collected by the press of the time. The grandson of María González de Quintanilla, the current Marquis of Mendigorría Rafael Fernández de Córdova, assures that his grandmother entered the tomb due to her friendship with Lord Carnarvon and with powerful Egyptian families of the aristocracy, although there is no graphic document of the moment. . “This indicates its position considering that the queen of Belgium at the time, Elisabeth of Bavaria, and her son Leopold, the future king, had entered the initial opening of the tomb.”
“We believe that there may be other things of historical interest in the archive. We have not yet been able to analyze the correspondence that allows us to advance with the historiographic puzzle. Carter’s discovery was exceptional. It was an almost intact royal tomb, which was exhaustively documented. The documents in this collection help us to contextualize the moment.”
In 2024, the Historical Archive of the Nobility will celebrate 30 years. On Monday, November 4, within the series of activities that have been organized for this year, this collection and what it can still reveal will be discussed through the conference Documents of a Spanish lady fond of Egyptology: María González de Quintanilla which will be given by Alba M. Villar Gómez at the archive headquarters, at 12 noon, in which some of these documents will be shown.
The current Marquis of Mendigorría, Rafael Fernández de Córdova, will also participate. “We want to open the archives, and in particular the noble archives, to the general public and demonstrate their potential,” says the archivist and Egyptology expert.
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