Old Black Eyes is back, and his new tour is generating ticket sales—and controversy.
King Tut has been kicking up dust ever since British archeologist Howard Carter discovered his treasure-filled, 3,000-year-old tomb in 1922. That notorious unearthing—it supposedly unleashed a curse that doomed several people around the dig—inspired Hollywood horror movies and spurred on the art deco craze. The boy king's first U.S. tour, which began in 1976, was epic pop: it launched the era of museum blockbuster shows, with unprecedented crowds craning to see the tomb's gold and jeweled artifacts, while the cash registers ca-chinged in the nearby souvenir stalls. When you're talking Tut, the line between scholarship and showmanship has always been pretty thin.
We think this is mostly a non-issue blown out of proportion in a search for conflict. From the article, it seems as if the only people upset at this is the Met in NYC which isn't getting it because they have rules that don't allow themj to charge extra for special exhibits. And, if David Silverman (himself a respected Egyptologist) can be believed, this exhibit will be more than just showing off all the gold and shiny doo-dads; it also contains objects from other tombs and, so Silverman says, puts Tutankhamun's reign in some context. About anything anyone remembers from the last Tut Tour is the gold mask, which won't even be here for this one.
The LACMA ticket sales are described as "huge" so it appears that the high ticket prices may not be affecting sales. Still, this probably needs to be watched as time passes at each stop.
And we couldn't leave without relaying this important story: Giant balls of 'snot'
explain ocean mystery.