Chapter 6: The Griffith Institute

In pursuit of the origins of Evelyn Beauchamp’s ring, Angela turned to her computer. She knew Carter’s record keeping as he cleared the tomb had been meticulous and images of his original record cards together with the transcribed contents were all available on line from Oxford’s Griffith Institute. The web site also allowed Angela to view Harry Burton’s original photographs of the objects alongside the record cards.

Angela’s search at first was fruitless. As far as she could see there was no entry for a ring of the kind that Lady Evelyn had placed in the purse. She wasn’t altogether surprised. Even though she was hardly an expert on jewellery in the New Kingdom, the item looked to her to have been from later than Tutankhamun’s time.

A trip to the Griffith Institute itself, tucked away in the basement under the Sackler Library, proved no more helpful at first. It was wonderful to be able to leaf through Carter’s original drawings from his early years in Egypt and to see the original notebooks of the excavations but none of that gave Angela any help. It might have been helpful to her exhibition work if she could have persuaded the Griffith to loan some but stickers on the relevant folders showed that the Ashmolean had pre-empted her. “Note:” the stickers said, “this item will be unavailable from October to December 2022, on loan to the Ashmolean Museum.”

There were files of Harry Burton’s exquisite photographs of objects from the tomb, taken in the years after the discovery but there was nothing resembling the ring. Looking at Burton’s pioneering images, Angela thought that the “HB” who had written the letter she had found, might well have been Harry Burton. He would have been in Luxor at the time and he was credited with the photograph of Carter and Lady Evelyn that had first caught Angela’s eye. Could the two men have both been love-struck with Carnarvon’s daughter?

Finally though, she found something tangible. In a small notebook that Carter had kept to record the small antiquities that he had traded to supplement his income in the lean years working for Theodore Davies, was something that looked hopeful.

A line said, “Gold ring, inscribed ‘Isis, who bewitches everything’ on the face. Possibly late Dynasty 32. Reputedly found in Lower Egypt. Bought in Abu Sir Banna 17/04/15. £5.0.0” in Carter’s usual thin-nibbed writing style. Alongside had been added, in pencil “?MM” with a line drawn through it and the final letter “E” also in pencil.

The translation of the inscription agreed with Angela’s own reading of the hieroglyphs on the ring. “MM” she thought was probably the Metropolitan Museum – Carter had worked closely with them because of his association with Theodore Davies. There had even been suspicions that some objects from Tut’s tomb had ended up with them. If this was from Dynasty 32, it was – as she had suspected - too late by 1200 years for Tut, an 18th Dynasty pharaoh. The “E” could well be “Evelyn”. Satisfied that she had indeed linked the ring to Carter, if not to the tomb, she headed back to the Anstruther Museum.

Sitting at her desk contemplating the ring, she was asking herself what to do about it as Hugh Carfax came in. “So, is that your Tutmania piece?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I think it is rather fine and it fits me too.” As she spoke she slid the ring on to her finger, extending her hand to show Carfax just what she meant.

The effect was dramatic, instant and surprising. Carfax fell to his knees, a blank look on his face. He leant forward stretching his arms wide along the edge of Angela’s desk as though baring his back to someone standing behind him. He spoke, almost chanting. “All praise to she who bewitches everything and to she who carries her sign.”