If you ever made a King Tut drawing using tin foil and a Sharpie, this post is for you.
- Suzanne Nicole
- Nov 25, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 26, 2018
And like me, you have wanted to visit Egypt ever since.
Anyone who knows me from my Anasazi year might remember Triple-Threat Katie Leslie (wait, you didn't call her that?...oh, well, I did). I'm not sure what she is doing with her life, but she is still the most talented 6th grade artist I ever knew. We shared an art class where my love for Egyptian history burgeoned, but my art skills disappointed. Yesterday, I stood at twelve o'clock to King Tutankhamun's death mask alone for exactly 13 seconds before my slow-breathing trance was interrupted by the security guard irately squawking, "NO PHOTOS," to other, equally memorized sightseers, and I broke my focus as I recounted how precisely accurate Katie's drawing was 22 years ago. I haven't been that speechless since I ogled the Hope Diamond for the first time in 2010.
The Pyramids at Giza
No educational video or previous museum visit can adequately prepare you for the majesty that is grasping the magnitude of tens of thousands of workers life's work over roughly twenty years. Our Egyptian tour guide Milad generously paused to let us take in the wonder of the last standing of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; drink it in we did. Better yet, no one had told me that I could go Tomb-Raider style and enter the belly of the largest of the three built by and for Pharaoh Khufu. I felt my asthmatic body overheating from the hunchback, steep climb to an empty sarcophagus that I could not lay in (what?). I broke the rules and took a picture in the Splash Mountain-esque entrance to commemorate the journey. Pretty sure there is some cursed antediluvian cacodemon coming for me. The other two pyramids, one for his son Khafra and the other for Khafra’s son Menkaure, were just as august as we approached on camelback.
The Egyptian Museum, Cairo
Here Egypt lost a little of her luster, and really for a snobbish reason: the museum did not take a credit card payment for entrance fees. Sourpuss Suzy began to talk shit, and it continued into the vast halls of what could be a more aesthetically pleasing museum. I don't have a teenager living in my house, but I have come back to my classroom after a substitute cancelled - so I had "friendly coverage" for each period - to find the contents of the classroom, furniture and all, strewn about, tempest-tossed. Yeah, that's kinda how this museum displays their holdings. Missing are elements vital to any functional museum: a clear map or path to view the exhibits, user-friendly, clear informational plaques, selections of key pieces to tell a complete story, flow through the corridors from one display to the next, ... a credit card machine. We could accurately rename the museum "Ancient Egyptian Warehouse" and advertise an estate sale: "Everything must go!" to clarify how crowded and overwhelming the amount of artifacts displayed really was. I was curious if I would find a placard written in Papyrus font just to bring the chaos full circle. You're curious, too; I did ...
This disenchantment led me to envisioning my participation on a dating show using mummies and statues as the contestants:
"Bachelor #1: I'm in my baby-making years. How old are you?"
"Bachelor #2: It's my first time in Egypt, but it seems like you've been here a long time. Are you willing to relocate to Kuwait to give our relationship a chance?"
"Bachelor #3: Work can be stressful. How do you unwind after a long day at work?"
"Bachelor #4: I don't like keeping secrets from my boyfriend. Do you tend to keep things under wraps?"
This distraction might have encouraged me to seductively brush up against all the male statues telling Zak to "cover me" in case any museum staff was nearby. In summation, these witticisms are not meant to say don't go to the museum - remember King Tut; you may, however, find yourself swamped by the stockpile. If so, go have a drink and get over it because it's not Kuwait, and according to Milad, "Egyptians don't follow the rules."
Photography Creds to Gregg, Rosie, Milad & Zak as needed.
I think I would cry if I stand in front of Tut's mask, I almost have on learning they have broken parts of it when cleaning. I don't feel they deserve these artifacts if they cannot take care of them, forget national pride and put these irreplaceable items first.
I would have loved to talk Egypt with you Suzy, that was my intended field Egyptology, but didn't finish. I recognize that feeling of being overwhelmed in the museum, that's exactly how I felt at the British Museum.