Two jokes persist from a certain period in my childhood.
The first; "how do you get a car into a pyramid?........just Toot and Come in" and the second, "Why bother to buy outright when you can hire oglyphics".
They are both on the same subject of Egyptology being, albeit, rather vague and tenuous references to the boy Pharoah Tutankhamen and stone carved friezes or hieroglyphics found at many ancient sites.
My childhood was full of interesting things to capture my attention for short but intense phases such as a pedal car race driver, toy gun toting soldier, replica kit footballer, climbing frame astronaut (if the Kelloggs token saved metal climbing frame was carefully laid down on one of its sides it made a great play-rocket), doctors and nurses with the girl next door, wounded soldier and nurses with the girl next door but one, cowboy on a bicycle (inspired by Butch Cassidy in the movie), intrepid explorer in a small linen tent in the depths of the back garden with the girl next door and deep sea diver in the shared kiddie paddling pool.
However, nothing caught my attention and imagination more than the stories of the excavations of Egyptian Tombs and the mystery and myth that revolved around it.
The arrival of the Tutankhamen exhibition in London in 1972 when I was age 9 and all of the media coverage only served to fuel my interest and fascination. The TV schedules and comics were full of related articles and even at school a few terms were taken up covering ancient Egypt from colouring in death masks to building pyramids out of wooden blocks and a lot of sand and desert related topics.
In subsequent years I could maintain a discreet eye on all things Egyptologistic (if an actual word) through blockbuster movies when I was otherwise supposed to have put away all childish things and act my adult age.
My own children went through the same basic educational syllabus which allowed me to indulge again and legitimately in the land of the Pharoahs.
I was understandably feverish and excited by the recent news of the discovery by members of the Czech Institute of Architecture of a previously unknown Egyptian Queen in a tomb in Abi Sir some 20 miles from Cairo and not far away from the well excavated and document antiquity sites in South Giza and Saqqara.
The location in what has long been known as an Old Kingdom Necropolis was the site a number of tombs including that of Pharoah Neferefre who ruled for two to three years around 4000 years ago. The opening up of a side tomb complex amongst a number of some of the earliest known pyramids from the Fifth Dynasty revealed an inscription by its builders referring to the wife of a king and the mother of a king which was researched to be the mysterious unknown character of Queen Khentakawess the Third.
Unfortunately in the mists of time the tomb had been plundered by raiders of anything of actual or perceived value but 30 Utensils in limestone and copper were found intact as part of the essential paraphenalia to accompany a member of a royal household into the company of the Gods.
The discovery was complicated by the physical layout of the tomb with an upper part Mastaba, translated as House for Eternity or Eternal House, and Chapel with a narrow shaft leading to the burial chamber, The find at Abi Sir comes close behind the work of a new wave of archaeologists from Europe in the ancient Egyptian sites which has also included the tomb of the mythical Osiris, God of the Dead.
It is strange that such revelations should come so close together after many had thought that the were no mysteries left in the very crowded world of ancient civilisations.
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