By Roberta McKern
For The New Era
Why King Tut?
The real topic is about legacies left behind to preserve the passage of time. King Tut, the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, reigned from 1332 to 1323 B.C.
He died young and was given a somewhat hasty burial in a borrowed tomb among other pharaohs’ resting places in the Valley of the Kings. His fame came from his having been located and dug up by British archaeologist Howard Carter who was in the employ of Lord Carmarvon, George Herbert, in 1922.
Digging up Egyptian pharaohs was a hobby then, but most tombs were found to have been looted in antiquity. Tut’s place of honor had been missed and his gold-adorned sarcophagus and sundry grave goods made of exotic materials remained intact.
Some of us got to see them decades ago when the collection traveled through chosen cities in the United States, including Seattle.
Although they were originally intended to last Tut into the afterlife, these goods have become a legacy left to most of humanity.
Some of us have no interest in what is preserved unless it attracts fictional archaeologists, like Indiana Jones, by having promises of riches. Tut’s tomb was a prototype for this. Upon its discovery, it became a sensation.
Not everyone called the young pharaoh “Tut,” however. He was hailed in this country by a recorded song about “Old King Tut, Tut-tut.” Unfortunately, the East Linn Museum does not have this recording, nor does it have any of the Egyptionized costume jewelry featuring scarabs inspired by the popularizing of Tut’s legacy.
Nor do we have Tut’s remains, no dried, blackened mummy nor canopic jars carved from alabaster to hold his innards.
The museum does have a few animal hides, but they don’t hold up to comparison with the Egyptian habit of embalming respected animals thought to represent certain gods, like cats, bulls, apes and crocodiles.
However, the museum is ahead of King Tut’s legacy in many ways. Compared with the 3,500 or more years’ age of King Tut’s goods, ours are more recent. The Museum is but 50 years old, if we allow for the two years of its being founded and planned to open in 1976, the bicentennial of the United States.
Tut’s tomb represented stability and a lack of change. His father, Akhenaten, had been a heretic who tried to disbar most of the old Egyptian gods in favor of one god, Aten. King Tut’s reign scratched out this attempt and his father’s name was erased from all commemoration.
The East Linn Museum commemorates our past as well as change. But we are not really comparing the laying to rest of a pharaoh 2050 years ago with its history. We are looking at legacies left by the long history of humanity deliberately or otherwise done.
Tut’s history has been turned into a legacy inherited by us even if only the gods were meant to see his preparation for an immortal future. We know more or less what killed him due to human curiosity and autopsies of his mummy.
At first it was held he was a murder victim, but further examination has him dying of malaria and a possibly infected broken leg. It also showed some congenital problems associated with the inbreeding common to Egyptian royalty, in which brothers and sisters were married to each other to preserve the royal lineage.
Nowadays, the graves of Egyptian pharaohs continue to be sought but none have turned out to be as exciting as King Tut’s, having been robbed in antiquity.
If we follow archaeology, we see as much excitement being generated over the discovery of a terra cotta beer bottle as if it is a golden hoard, because a greater attempt is being made to understand the lives of ordinary people like those who lived under the pharaohs.
This is where the museum is ahead. The East Linn Museum has not only a shorter history than King Tut’s era, it started out to praise settlers here. Our elites were saw mill owners, storekeepers, stock raisers and miners like those pictured on the museum walls.
The goods they left us are primarily for day-to-day existence with prized pieces on the side – for the most part, anyway. One exclusion is the steam boat whistle once used by the Santiam Mill to call its workers.
Thinking of King Tut helps us see how different human histories can be and how fortunate we are to have the East Linn Museum as a legacy to pass on. Establishment of the museum was an act of civic pride and considering what can be found in it many contributed.
We wish our museum had the same capacity to draw visitors as King Tut’s funeral goods, but since we represent a democracy, not a theocracy, we admire the effort made to collect what we do have.
If it can continue, some day perhaps the East Linn Museum will attract attention similar to King Tut’s. History is always being reshaped by the present and recharged memories can bring surprises.
The East Linn Museum does have a little gold on display. In the mining room there is a flake.
It’s worth coming in to see, even if it does not grace a sarcophagus.