King Tut Exhibit Outrages Activists

NBC 4 ^ | 4:03 pm PDT June 7, 2005

[echoBoomer]

King Tut Exhibit Outrages Activists. Critics Want Busts Depicting Tut As White Removed.

LOS ANGELES -- African-American activists criticized the Board of Supervisors Tuesday for allowing a King Tut exhibition at the county Museum of Art, saying that renderings of the boy king as white are inaccurate.

The "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs" exhibit opens a four-city, nationwide tour at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on June 16. Among the installations are three busts of Tut II reconstructed from the boy king's mummified corpse.

All of the busts, fashioned by three groups of researchers, show Tut as a caucasoid North African. That representation led to Tuesday's protest by about a dozen speakers, who asked that the busts be removed from the exhibit.

"There is no evidence that King Tut was white," Compton City Attorney Legrand Clegg told the board. "Egypt is on the continent of Africa."

[echoBoomer]

Talk about whining over ANYTHING.

[MikefromOhio]

"There is no evidence that King Tut was white," Compton City Attorney Legrand Clegg told the board. "Egypt is on the continent of Africa."

There is CERTAINLY no evidence that Tut was black either. Look at Egypt today. He was probably more Arab looking than anything else.

[Puppage]

You have the right to pursue happiness. You do NOT have the right NOT to be offended or, in this case.....outraged

[Conspiracy Guy]

What a bunch of loons.

[numberonepal]

Egypt is on the continent of Africa.

Yes, and does that make everyone there black? No, I don't think so. The "caucasoid North African" designation is most likely the correct one. He was most likely dark skinned with caucasoid features.

[mewzilla]

"There is no evidence that King Tut was white," Compton City Attorney Legrand Clegg told the board. "Egypt is on the continent of Africa."

Using that logic, then wouldn't any native-born U.S. citizen calling him or herself African-American be North American instead?

[shuckmaster]

ping

[GladesGuru]

So long as the "outraged" do not drool, let 'em rant and rage. That's their right. It is also my right to laugh at 'em. ;-)

[IronJack]

It's pretty pathetic when even an Egyptian mummy arouses controversy. But in an age when there is nothing to unite a society, there is always plenty to fragment it.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Logic? What logic?

[MikefromOhio]

yeah or Native American, one or the two :)

that would make me German then, as I was born in Stuttgart when my dad was stationed over there....

[Brilliant]

Ask yourself why they are so outraged that he's not portrayed as black. You've really got to have a low self-image in order to think that you are somehow helping yourself by wasting your time trying to convince people that some long dead boy-king was black.

They are basically waging this fight so that they can add a one liner to a textbook for a college black history class.

[nuke rocketeer]

The Coptic language of old Egypt is a semitic language, therefore, the ancient Egyptians were probably very Mediterranean looking with a strong admixture of negroid characteristics, just like today's Egyptians.

[MikefromOhio]

hows it going?

[mewzilla]

LOL. Good point!

[Conspiracy Guy]

Nazi!

[sweetliberty]

"You do NOT have the right NOT to be offended or, in this case.....outraged"

Actually, you have the right to be offended or outraged by anything you want; you just don't have the right to demand that the everybody else modify their behavior to cater to your pathological psychological need to whine be comfortable.

[MikefromOhio]

possibly.

When you blend the 2, its probably more in lines with what Arabs look like today......

Certainly their logic is failing. I hope the museum tells them to shove it.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Busy as heck but doing great. How about you?

[Rodney King]

Ugh. He was North African, which is not white, but neither is it black. All one has to do is look at any egyptian hyroglyphics (sp?) and see that the figures depicted are not a deep black.