King Tut has always had a special place in our hearts. His heart was removed and buried near him a little box with his organs and a few other ‘bits and pieces’. It was the Egyptian way. But King Tutankhamen wasn’t like the BEST EVER pharaoh, nor the tallest, sexiest, ugliest, meanest, most successful or in any way particularly notable. Yet he’s the one we know. And by ‘we’ I mean everyone in the world. It’s that picture, the beautiful face with kohl eyes, the headdress and scarf-thing, that is so instantly recognisable. Not Ramses, (the only other I can think of, so I’ll make up a few others just for good impression), not King Kevin, Pharoah Phil nor Nigel the Great! But Tutankhamen. Tut was a king at age 9 and died just 10 years later. Hardly set the world on fire. That was Nero.

So why Tut? Because they managed to find him. That’s why. He ‘survived’. Ok, not ‘him’ in the normal sense, but his tomb. Unlike the other Egyptian royalty three and a half thousand years ago, Tutankhamen’s grave was never found by the gangs of grave-robbing tomb raiders. Even before Angelina Jolie was born those wily ‘gyptians worked out that kings were buried with more material wealth than 2000 regular civilians could make in 2000 years. So in a rather pre-Marxist way they worked out a system of wealth distribution. Called theft. Much like most post-Marxist forms of wealth distribution. They robbed the tombs. Filled with gold, jewels and shit-loads of stuff. Intended to see the dead king through his passage in the underworld.

And thus yesterday, Mel & I ventured to the Valley of the Kings (Road) to see what was hailed as Tutankhamen’s Final World Tour!!!! by those misrepresentative fuckers at the Saachi gallery, who used that iconic King Tut image in all their advertising.

But he weren’t there. The king. Nah, mate, he’s in his final, FINAL resting place in a museum in Cairo. With his most famous sarcophagus and lots of other old gear. What we got ‘ere is ‘the stuff wot was buried in the tomb with ‘im’. Ahhhhhh.

And it is quite amazing, and magnificent, verging on obscene what was buried in the other 3 rooms of the tomb which the king didn’t occupy. Shitloads of stuff. All beautifully, airlessly preserved for 3,500 years. Tons of stuff (literally) including this fearsome ‘guard’ of the body.

The stuff is great. The building now home to the Saachi looks fab from the outside but feels like a disused school building or hospital from the inside. Smells like it too, unfortunately. But its Chelsea, so its posh, and a bit poncey. And fitting for a king. Dead or otherwise.

Happy Friday

A xxxx