22. LIVING 20 FEWER YEARS

CLASSIFIED UN SECURITY COUNCIL FILE

The impact on just one person of living 20 fewer years due to Florence Nightingale now no longer being around with her health reforms:

Howard Carter (Archaeologist)

Actual Death Date: May 2, 1939 (aged 65).

Famous For: Discovering the Tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.

Death Date in a world without Florence Nightingale, May 2, 1919 (aged 45).

What Would Then Be Famous For: Digging lots of useless bloody holes.

The celebrated archaeologist Howard Carter, would have died in 1919, three years before locating the pharaoh Tutankhamun’s last resting place and his magnificent treasures. Thus, Carter would have become increasingly desperate to locate Tut as the following examples illustrate:

From The Times Dec 14, 1912.

ARCHAEOLOGIST ENLISTS MEDIUM’S HELP TO FIND MUMMY

Howard Carter yesterday approached famed medium Doris Burslems in his quest to find the illusive burial place of the 18th Dynasty pharoah Tutankhamun. Carter, 38, travelled to the London home of the psychic with the objective of asking the long deceased King of Egypt whereabouts he is entombed in The Valley of the Kings?

Contact was made with the pharoah who confirmed he was the genuine article by answering some security questions such as date of birth, his date of death and the name of his first pet. But thereafter it took a nosedive. 

When pressed by an increasingly frantic Carter the dead king revealed that his tomb was protected by comprehensive security, although this hadn’t been updated for more than three millennia, an oversight on his part. But that was all the desperate archaeologist could excavate from the conversation so the exact location of King Tut remains unknown.

From The Daily Mirror, July 26, 1916.

ARCHAEOLOGIST SOUGHT IN WAR OUTRAGE

Military Police are on the lookout for Howard Carter, 42, who disguised himself as a Field Marshal and then ordered several battalions of the Norfolk Regiment away from fighting on The Western Front, to Egypt to further the military campaign there. 33 miles of trenches were then dug in an area known as The Valley of the Kings before the archaeologist’s ruse was rumbled.

Military Police believe Carter is still at liberty in the Egypt area and armed with a shovel.

From The Daily Express, Dec 1, 1918.

APOLOGIES FROM THE EXPRESS TO ALL ITS READERS

In last Tuesday’s Daily Express the weekly Spot The Ball Competition set to feature a photograph of the Chelsea and Tottenham match minus the ball, was sabotaged by, an archaeologist called Mr H Carter. The intended football action picture was replaced with a picture of The Valley of the Kings and readers requested to ‘Spot The Hidden Pharoah’.

We do apologise once again for this error.