While based in the north at Saqqara, Carter became involved in an incident with some French tourists that was to change his life. Because of his stubbornness and his sense of propriety, he ejected some French tourists who were drunk and had been fighting with the Egyptian guards at the burial vaults of the sacred bulls. When the French tourists complained, Carter was asked to give an apology, which he adamantly refused to do. Maspero was eventually forced to transfer Carter to the Delta, the area where the Nile River empties into the Mediterranean Sea, from where Carter resigned his position with the Egyptian government.
For the next year and a half, Carter made a living as a watercolorist and as an antiquities dealer. He sold scenes of both ancient and modern Egypt to tourists, and sold antiquities predominantly to wealthy English people. While today, such activity would be frowned upon or chastised, at the turn of the twentieth century, such behavior was condoned.
Carter and Carnarvon
When the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, an Englishman who was in Egypt for his health, wanted to dig at Thebes, Maspero recommended Carter.
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