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Just came back from the King Tut exhibit in LA. I saw the exhibit in '76, and have seen the Tut exhibit in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and have been to the Luxor Museum / Valley of Kings / Valley of Queens / Abu Simbel / etc.

It must be nice to have all that kind of exposure. I haven't so I thought more of the exhibit than you and your eager-to-please girlfriend. Still, I do agree it borders on fraudulent given that the actual number of Tut exhibit items are few. But the overall exhibit gives a good look at the workmanship of the ancient culture including a poke in the eye to western abortion-lovers in the form of one of the fetal death masks.

It wasn't worth the special trip north to L.A. but it wasn't a complete waste of time either. My understanding is none of the significant objects you complained about the exhibit lacking travel outside Egypt anymore. How long was your wait in the tent? We had 'anytime' tickets so we had barely a five minute wait.

My wait in the tent was 0 minutes. There was almost no one there, so we just walked right in.

I just wanted to comment on your statement that "....the overall exhibit gives a good look at the workmanship of the ancient culture." Of course, the exhibit does give a good look at the workmanship of the goods had by the Egyptian nobility. The workmanship is fantastic, no doubt. All that stuff is a lot nicer than anything I'll ever own. However, the wonderful thing about the '76 exhibit, and the ongoing exhibit in Cairo, is that they display the next level of workmanship, namely the workmanship associated with ROYAL goods. THAT stuff is simply amazing. I think it's fair to say that the royal stuff is overwhelmingly amazing, and it's that "Amazing Pharonic Stuff" that is simply not present at the '05 exhibit.

I don't want to be too critical of the '05 exhibit. It's got some nice stuff. However, the '05 exhibit shows only glimpses of the real artistry available to an ancient Pharaoh.