Tutankhamun in Portugal: reports in the Portuguese press (1922-1939). The journal Diónysos, Humberto Pinto de Lima and Tutankhamun

Abstract

The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, in 1922, was reported, in an unusual way, by the international press, making this pharaoh and the archaeologist responsible for the finding very well known to millions of readers. Ironically, Tutankhamun was one of the less known pharaohs of ancient Egypt’s history and Howard Carter an archaeologist without consolidated credits that suddenly went from obscurity to the pages of the periodicals. In the Portuguese press, from 1925, the journal Diónysos reserved a space, in three numbers, to small essays generically entitled “Quem era Tutankhamen”, by Humberto Pinto de Lima, at the time an Assistant in Historical Sciences of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto. In this article a detailed analysis of those texts is presented, revealing the scientifically domain of the author of the problematics and his contribution to the discussion of the themes of Egyptian history among us.