King...What!?

It has been an exciting week because Matt's mom and aunt are in town for a visit. A Seattle vacation filled with shopping, sightseeing, and family time. We thought it would be fun to go see the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center and we were all excited to go see the king "on display for the last time in America!!" Check it out here!

I'm a sucker for a historical monument, artifact, or basically anything else scholastic or nerdy, so I was pretty thrilled to go see THE King Tut in all his glory in person. For $34 a ticket, you better be excited! Anyway, the exhibit started out with several different dimly-lit rooms filled with lots of amazing Ancient Egyptian artifacts. Everything from statues to jewelry, even a toilet seat...all  3000+ years old! Here are some pictures of just SOME of the amazing things we saw:

A cat sarcophagus - we'll have to get one for BA.

Just a 3500 year old statue- no big deal.

A torch holder on the left- and other trinkets found in the tombs.

This was WAY cool- the gold finger and toe coverings that were placed on King Tut- and his golden sandals. I think I saw ones just like that at the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale.

Most of the beaded necklaces still had their original string.

Hey, even Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh's had to take care of business- here is an Egyptian toilet seat.

A game board and pieces found in a tomb.

I want a golden wine glass.

Big ass Egyptian statue.

These were from some of the later Egyptian dynasties- you can tell by how they're more intricate and have finer details.

A chair.

The bed Tut laid on- they said it could have even been used in his palace as well.

Egyptian mask.

This was a sarcophagus from a Pharaoh's wife- it was made of cedar.

Apparently these guys hang out in the tomb with the dead Pharaoh. 

So we passed from room to room reading about and looking at all these amazing treasures that have been found over the years. Not all of them are from King Tut's tomb, but from the tombs of pharaoh's throughout Ancient Egyptian history.

We were starting to get really excited toward the end of the exhibit, because we knew the big show was coming up. The last leg is set up like King Tut's actual tomb. There's an annex, the treasury, and finally the burial room. Megan (Matt's sister) grabbed our hands and said, "let's all go in together!" so we headed in to meet the "Boy King", the center of all the hype.....aaaand he wasn't there.

But, there was a lovely gift shop. That's right, it turns out the ACTUAL King Tut doesn't get to travel, so basically we just paid $34 to see all of the contents of his hoarder-like tomb. Okay, I'm being unreasonable...it really was FASCINATING and I learned a TON of interesting facts, but we all felt pretty misled about the whole thing. Maybe it was our misunderstanding, but we (and most everybody I've spoken to, AND most of the people at the end of the exhibit today) thought King Tut himself, was going to be there. So needless to say, we were a tad disappointed.

After giving it some thought, I do recommend seeing this exhibit. How often do you get to be 2 inches away from a statue, necklace, or canopic jar (look that up here) that was created by people...humans like you and me...that lived 4000 years ago?? It's mind boggling to even think about, and quite frankly I can't quite wrap my head around it. Just keep in mind, the amazing "Boy King", the one and only Tutankhamun, will not be making a guest appearance!