My Appointment with Mr. Tut

Yesterday was the much anticipated visit to see the King Tutankhamun exhibit at the Field Museum. An appointment with destiny it seemed, as I've been fascinated by the whole King Tut thing ever since fourth grade Egyptian history classes. I shared my own personal mummy history with Jason, prior to our tour. When I was 9 each student of Mrs. Weissinger's class made our own Tomb Book. Shaped like a mummy, we designed the cover as we wanted our sarcophagus to look, complete with our name in hieroglyphics. Inside we detailed the items that we wanted to take to the dead with us (for me: cabbage patch kid, Mac Plus computer, diary, etc), the meal we'd wish to have every night in the afterlife (lasagna, Pepsi and mint choc chip ice cream) and crafted a curse to doom any thieves and intruders to our tomb. So it was neat to see the little figures placed around real Egyptian tombs carrying authentic curses. I think the wickedness involved appeals perfectly to fourth graders... and some adults.
What appealed to the adult in me who now has to run errands, clean the house, and do the laundry was the small statues call shabtis, figures that magically performed any labor required of the dead, allowing the deceased an afterlife of leisure. Wonder if those work for the living.
However, do you see that mask that's featured so prominently on the banners on the entrance of the museum, and all other collateral materials promoting the exhibit? Yeah, it's actually far, far, far smaller than imagined. What a bummer. My hopes of truly coming face to face with the Boy King, looking eye to eye, (as the brochures promised) were not fulfilled in all their glory. That piece is a case that's about 15x smaller than the mummy mask you'd expect. What's pictured is the case that holds the King's liver. Face to face with an internal organ holder is not nearly as magical.
Also, after growing up being taken to the U of P archeology museum I was primed to see a decaying mummy, which was not in attendance at the Field (You can write your own name in hieroglyphics on the U of P website, by the way. Start designing your own sarcophagus now!) But I guess the life size mummy mask and King Tut mummy itself might be so valuable and delicate that they don't travel well.
However, the tour ended with a chuckle in the gift shop, with the pharaoh tissue boxes. Re-live the mortuary practice of pulling the mummy's brains out through its nose every time you sneeze! Fun!