This article appeared in the March/April 2021 issue of Discover magazine as "Seeking Lost Light." For more stories like this, become a subscriber.
I never wanted to be an astrophysicist. While a lot of my colleagues were looking through amateur telescopes, I was dreaming of decoding hieroglyphics and brushing off hidden artifacts in newly discovered Ancient Egyptian tombs.
As is the case with most young Egyptophiles, for me there was one story that captured the excitement of Ancient Egyptian discoveries more than any other: the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. In November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter held up a candle and peered through a small drill hole in the tomb door. His patron, Lord Carnarvon, asked him if he could see anything, to which Carter, struck dumb with amazement, could only reply, “Yes, wonderful things, wonderful things!” He recounted later that, in the dim candlelight, “details of the room emerged slowly from the mist ... strange animals, statues and gold — everywhere, the glint of gold.”
