Wearied by Long and Difficult Journey, Kitchen Calls Royal Resting Place Hollow Mockery as Exhibit.
BY KARL K. KITCHEN
If you are planning a trip to Egypt to visit the tomb of King Tut-ankh-Amen take my advice—which is the same as Punch has always given those about to marry—Don’t.
For the tomb of King Tut-ankh-Amen—vulgarly called King Tut—is the most overrated mecca for tourists, boobs and travelers In the world today.
I know, for I have just been there! And take it from old Dr. Kitchen, if I may drop from my Cardinal Newman English to the vernacular of Broadway, it is the bunk.
To be sure, if one is an Egyptologist this last resting place of the dear departed is of considerable importance. But so few of us are! In fact, before I went to Luxor I hardly had a bowing acquaintance with a hieroglyphic. And even today, after many ghoulish adventures In the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, I doubt if I would recognize a dozen of the 290 characters in the Egyptian sign language—bless its dear funny old alphabet.
However, what I write Is not a text book for university professors with long white beards, or those who have made a life study of the times and customs of the Pharaohs. There are enough musty volumes of such subjects. I am writing for the much maligned man in the street. And I am going to set forth the facts about the tomb of King Tut-ankh-Amen as I found them.
What I set forth may make some of the old Pharaohs turn over in their graves. More than likely it will make Howard Carter, the alleged discoverer of King Tuts tomb, and his coterie of Egyptologists stand up on their hind legs. But I do not court the favor of dead Pharaohs and live Egyptologists—nor do I fear their displeasure.
RIGHT at the beginning I am going to make the statement that the tomb of King Tut-ankh-Amen with its golden coffin answers the description of the average gold mine that is exploited on the unsuspecting public. King Tuts tomb (Tut is pronounced to rhyme with shoot and not with shut) is a hole in the ground that has long been controlled by a press agent. And more remarkable statements have been printed about it than about all the motion-picture stars In Hollywood. For its press agent works while those of Hollywood sleep.
The tomb of King Tut, despite the fact that it is the best press agent tomb in the world, is one of the least interesting shrines In the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. It is much smaller than any of its neighbors. Its walls, except In the one chamber where the sarcophagus reposes, are bare of decorations, and even the decorations in the burial chamber, despite their exquisite coloring, do not compare with those on the colorful walls of the nearby tomb of Seti 1., which are in high relief.
Why, then, you ask, has the discovery of the hole in the ground in far-off Luxor been hailed as an event of such world-wide Importance? Simply because of Its funentry equipment. King Tut’s tomb Is the first royal tomb near Luxor to be discovered with its original contents more or less Intact. But as all of its contents, except the sarcophagus, have been removed, the tomb might well be described as a hollow mockery.
In the days when the Pharaohs of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth dynasties ruled Egypt—the three dynasties buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings—it was their custom to begin building their tombs when they ascended their thrones. As King Tut-ankh-Amen ruled but six years—he died at a tender age some thirty-two centuries back —his tomb was a rather incomplete affair cut out of the solid limestone rock in the royal burying ground.
If Tut had lived to a ripe old age, he might have had a tomb worth talking about —like Rameses VI, for instance, or Seti I. For one has only to see their tombs to agree with the American tourist who said, after examining them: “Those old boys certainly knew how to live.”
HOWEVER, when those tombs were discovered, press agenting had not reached the fine art it has today. No newspaper syndicate boomed the wonders of the sarcophagus of Amenhotep II when it was discovered with its royal occupant in his proper place. It is an actual fact that more “blah’’ has been made over King Tut’s tomb than all the other archeological discoveries In the royal boneyard put together. Rumors of buried treasure, sealed doors and other features that appealed to the popular imagination have been contributing factors. But back of it all has been the most efficient press agentry of modern times.
I admit that the contents of King Tut’s tomb are of great archeological value, but their Intrinsic value is relatively small. No great store of gold or precious stones has been discovered. The estimate of $50,000,000, made by one writer, is ridiculously fantastic. The entire contents would not fill two American freight cars, and, at a forced sale, wouldn’t bring $100,000.
Now that the tomb is practically stripped of its treasures, any one but a blind man would find the tomb of Amenhotep II, close by, where its royal occupant can be seen in his glass sarcophagus, much more illuminating—and I do not refer to the powerful electric light which shines on his royal knob. Unless King Tut’s remains are similarly exposed to view, when his tomb is opened to the public next year, all the columns that have been written about it will not make it the seventh wonder of Egypt. The only real wonder about it will be that some travelers will actually make the trip to Egypt to see they take my tip.
Mind you, I do not advise you to remain away from Egypt, despite some of its drawbacks, which I shall detail later. There are older, more interesting and better preserved ruins of bygone civilizations to be seen in the land of the Pharoahs than any where else in the world. But the tomb of King Tut—even the entire Valley of the Tombs of the Kings—is not engaging enough to lure any one but an Egyptologist across 5,000 miles of the rolling wet, to say nothing of the 500-mile journey by train, rowboat and donkey into Upper Egypt.
At least that is my opinion, and my opinion is neither humble nor quickly arrived at. I visited Luxor ten years ago, before Tut-ankh-Amen had become a household word, and the majority of those who have shown enthusiasm about the wonders of this boy Pharaoh’s shrine have not been there at all.
ADVICE is so cheap that few will take it. And so I am not going to warn any one further about the footlessness of visiting King Tut’s tomb. But when I feel the cosmic urge of visiting a 3,000-year-old Egyptian tomb this is what I am I going to do: Instead of spending $1,000 for a round-trip ticket to Luxor—and that, by the way, is the minimum amount required to make the journey in first-class style from New York—l will go up to Central Park on a hot summer day and engage a carriage to drive to the Metropolitan Museum.
Before starting I will allow myself to be short-changed at several shops and hire several beggars to chase me through the park to the lake, where I will rent a rowboat and be rowed around for half an hour in the hot sunshine in lieu of the Nile. On leaving the rowboat I will have a street cleaner dump the contents of his car over my head and then drive for six miles over the roughest roads in the park with an illiterate, unwashed stranger, who is unable to speak English, but who will insist upon talking to me. Arriving at the museum entrance, will throw a handful of money to the crowd on the steps and make my way to the Egyptian collection on the ground floor, tipping every one meet.
I will then enter the replica of the tomb of Perneb, sit down on a few hieroglyphics and figure out how much I have been short-changed since starting. I will listen to an authorized account of the splendors of the tomb and the activities of Mr. Perneb from my strong-smelling companion, write a few picture postal cards to my friends and give a tip to the museum custodian, who will place a few fleas down my neck when we take our departure.
And after another six-mile ride in the carriage, another row around the lake and a hand-to-hand encounter with a lot of beggars, I will go back to my cool apartment, take a bath and call It a day. And I will have had exactly the same sensations as if I had visited the shrine of King Tut, in the far-off Valley of the Tombs of the Kings—without the expense and fatigue of an 11,000-mile journey.
Mark you, and mark you well, I do not advise you to do this. I merely state that you can get the same sensations by this inexpensive method as by a costly trip to King Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb. If you want to make the trip to Egypt for drinking purposes or for any other reason except visiting this particular tomb, by all means do so. But don’t make King Tut’s tomb the reason for your pilgrimage—make It merely an excuse.
THERE is no necessity of going to Luxor if you want to see the funerary equipment of the tomb. The greatest treasures, aside from its sarcophagus, are already in Cairo Museum. The throne, couches, chairs, chariots, vases, boxes, statues, jewels and other ornaments found last year are on view in rows of glass cases on its second floor. And a new wing will be built to house the complete collection, for it has been practically decided by the Egyptian government that the entire funerary equipment of the tomb will be kept in Cairo, although the sarcophagus and its royal mummy will remain in the tomb near Luxor.
Aside from the alabaster vases, which are of unusual beauty and design, and some of the boxes, the contents of the tomb now on view are not at all Impressive, except from their age and excellent state of preservation. Personally, I would not give them house room, but it is only fair to state that I am not a collector of antiques. Evidently Mr. Howard Carter, who represents the estate of the late Lord Carnarvon, attaches greater value to them than I do.
There is a fight over the contents of the tomb —a fight that may end in the courts and be dragged out for years. For the estate of Lord Carnarvon claims half of the material found in the tomb, and the Egyptian government, through its department of public works, claims all of it.
The Evening Star, Washington, DC, March 30, 1924