The year was 1923. The place was the Valley of the Kings. The people included the British Egyptologist Howard Carter, the expedition’s backer Lord Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn, Lord Carnarvon’s daughter. The point in history? The opening of King Tut’s tomb.

My fascination with this moment goes beyond the truly amazing treasures of gold and antiquities which were found there to a reverence for the passage of some thirty centuries since King Tut was laid to rest. Undisturbed and sealed off from the arid air of this barren valley, was this the air of Tut’s time? Or, like everything organic, did it grow into something we could only guess at?

Having chipped a small hole, Carter thrust a lighted candle through to test for “fouled air,” a simple but effective check on the level of oxygen and the presence of worse. Carter reports of “hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker,” You can almost feel the air rush out as if you are holding the candle yourself.

What I always thought – and Carter didn’t say – was that if the hot air of the tomb escaped, the air of the valley must have swept in to replace it. So even if he had stopped right there, the centuries old ecosystem of King Tut’s tomb was changed forever.

But Carter didn’t stop there. He and his team performed a number of activities we consider scientifically compromising, including the serious invasion of Tut’s mummy. Motivated in part to locate and remove the precious amulets within its weavings, the Carter team did far more damage than even that. Since interest in the mummy itself continues to this day, the original damage is palpable.

In 1968, it was x-rayed, and in this past year, it was removed again from its resting place, this time for a CT scan. In contrast to the handling of the mummy from the time of the Carter discovery, we believe these technologies to be nondestructive.” Yet only time will tell how future generations of scientists view these modern day efforts. They may have scientific data – as yet undiscovered – which shows this tampering to be as clumsy as Carter’s nearly a century ago.

It all began for me with the exchange of air. The air of 1923 in exchange for the air of 1000 BC, a span of over 3,000 years, not unlike the recent exchange of air at a cement quarry in Israel. Workers going about their business broke into a huge limestone cave, completely sealed off for what scientists now believe to be millions of years.

Unlike Carter and Tut, the discovery of the cave was pure happenstance. Yet scientists could be brought into play quickly. Climbing down to the opening on ropes, the scientists were able to enter the cave and collect some eight species of crustaceans and the like, none of which were previously known to science. DNA and other technical tests ascertained their uniqueness immediately, and the fact that none of the species sported eyes makes this underground ecosystem – with its self-contained lake – a poster child for evolution. No light? Who needs eyes?

The now-named Ayalon cave is sealed off now and in the hands of science. It is now scientists who shall go about their business, thrilled at the opportunity to study this unique windfall, which may be even greater than the gift of the Galapagos. And their respect for this gift is without question.

Heisenberg must be smiling now. Because of him, we know we can never observe this cave without changing it.

Yet even Heisenberg would agree, we must.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.