Sofitel Winter Palace Hotel the hotel and speeches. The architect was Leon Stienon, the Italian construction company G.GAROZZO & Figli Costruzioni in Cemento Armato, Sistema SIACCI brevettato. During World War I the hotel was temporarily closed to paying guests and employed as a hospice for convalescing soldiers. A regular guest at the hotel from 1907 on was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, better known simply as Lord Carnarvon. Carnarvon was the patron of Egyptologist Howard Carter, who in 1922 discovered the intact tomb of Tutankhamun. After the discovery was announced the Winter Palace played host to the international press corps and foreign visitors
Tutankhamun willed the throne to Paramessu, who founded the Ramesside family line of pharaohs. Tutankhamun was nine years old when he became Pharaoh, and he reigned for about ten years. Historically, Tutankhamun is significant because his reign was near the apogee of Egypt as a world power and because he rejected the radical religious innovations introduced by his predecessor and father, Akhenaten. Secondly, his tomb in the Valley of the Kings was discovered by Carter almost completely intact—the most complete ancient Egyptian royal tomb found. As Tutankhamun began his reign so young, his vizier and eventual successor, Ay, was probably making