For the first time the general public, made sensitive to the plight of the defenceless dead by the First World War and the major flu epidemic that followed it, started to question the archaeologists’ easy assumption that the dead were a legitimate target. News of the death travelled fast, stimulating intense debate. Here was a dramatic Tutankhamun story that everyone could report. A younger, fitter man may have been able to throw off the infection, but the 57-year-old Carnarvon was still suffering the effects of a severe motor accident in 1901 that had left him weak and vulnerable to chest infections. Blood poisoning set in and pneumonia followed.

With his condition worsening he travelled to Cairo for expert medical attention. Then, soon after his return to Luxor, he accidentally sliced the scab off the bite while shaving. During this trip Carnarvon was bitten on the cheek by a mosquito. While Carter stayed in Luxor, Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, sailed south to spend a few days at Aswan. In late February 1923 the excavation was closed to allow the exhausted excavators a brief holiday. Carter, watched by assistant Arthur Callender and an Egyptian foreman, opens the golden shrines surrounding the sarcophagus.

Just cause 3 ancient tomb