I was browsing around looking for opportunities to get out the Haliburton business incubator story to prospects in the GTA. Somehow I hit on the AGO site. Like you and most other people I’m fascinated by ancient Egypt so I took a momentary detour to see whassup with Tut.
Lotsa chat on the site and clever ideas on how to get engaged with the exhibit but no pictures. What a let down. Suddenly, the thought came to me, what the hey, I’ve got pictures of my own.
Back in 1964, I think it was, I went to Egypt (ye gads, that’s 46 years ago), Jordan and Lebanon. That was back when Abdul Gamel Nasser was president of Egypt and the military controlled the country. That’s a reminiscence for another time.
I went to the Cairo Museum and paid a visit to Tut and the amazing array of treasures that came out of his tomb. It was breathtaking. The treasures were in plain glass cases and because of the lack of security the rooms were watched over by soldiers with sub-machine guns at the ready.
I remembered I had some pictures that I had taken and the urge hit me to dig them out. Slides. I took pictures on slides. As we all know, slide packages are small. It follows that they are not always easy to find when they have been mothballed in favour of digital media. I looked high and low and still no little plastic cases. I found a few of Beirut and Jordan but not one Egyptian shot. I had some beauties. Of course, once you have them, transfering them to digital is another journey, one which I don’t want to think about.
The only thing I could find was this momento.
The label off a quart bottle of Stella beer. Brewed in Cairo by Stella Artois. Nice beer. The memory is not as strange as it may seem. Stella was the only fluid you dare drink … unless you wanted the Revenge of the Nile. It was 12 cents for a quart bottle making it a very affordable health protection item. My companions and I willingly protected ourselves day and night.
The mystery of my King Tut slides is going to bug me. I’m committed. I’m going to continue the hunt for those slides. But right now I’m feeling just a tad thirsty.
Mike Jaycock 