For history lovers


Tutankhamen

It is my opinion that history should be left where it is.
Leave the ruins unearthed and the graves untouched.
A curious thing this quest for knowledge is-
We want to know what others thought should be hidden.
Unearthing the grave does not satisfy us,
Until we dissect the body piece by piece
To find out what is already obvious.

The boy king should have been left alone.
Moving his things and head mask
Is an insult to his rested spirit
For the mere excuse of knowing the past.
For what good excuse can one have,
To unearth another and claim him a discovery?
To unwind what had been wound with care-
Fine linen, artifacts, glue and amulets....
For others to even claim some treasure as booty
To keep in their hidden cabinets
What had been kept in sacred shrines,
And had been the property of the king;
To lock themselves inside the royal tomb,
Because the feel they own him now????

In trying to acquire more knowledge,
We forget about human value,
And equate royalty to a lab rat!
We forget the pain of his mother, the queen,
Of his family and subjects,
When they laid him to rest.
We belittle his royalty when we as commoners,
Unwrapped his mummified body to our naked eyes.

Even in our current civilized society,
With all the monarchs we boast....
Cannot dare unearth their graves
To 'analyze' their remains.
But in our haste, our pride, our egos,
Not only did we open the tomb, the coffin,
We also unwrapped his mummy to 'study' it.
Exposing blue blood.
Removing what had been safe for centuries,
Packing and unpacking them in boxes...
Shipping them to foreign lands and foreign people,
Disturbing the king's sleep for show and tell.

Do I believe in the 'curse of 'Tat'?
I am not a supersticious person
But with the disrespect that has been shown to his majesty,
A boy! A king! A human being!
I hope that the curse does exist,
To be a practical tutor to those who disturb the past
For the pride of discovery.
Maybe then, if there are any undiscovered kings,
Will stop fearing that their slumber be disturbed-
And we shall respect history for what it is.





Poetry by she
Read 771 times
Written on 2008-03-10 at 13:20

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What an interesting and very impressive text. Deeply felt and eloquent.. Fantastic, I usually shun longer poems, but this one I enjoyed very much.
2009-04-16


Elle The PoetBay support member heart!
An interesting view point. I saw Tutankhamen treasures in Cairo in the museum, have also seen in other museums around the world, Egyptian artefacts and mummies. I agree there is an almost gruesome feel, to think of those lives, once lived, now nothing more than museum exhibits and you wonder about the dignity of death. I suppose we are interested in cultures and what were once great deities and the remains that have been left behind. I remember first seeing the pyramids. I had seen pictures and films before them, yet seeing them for the first time, took my breath away - These incredible feats of engineering and building - I could not go inside, although the small one was open to the public, for some reason I had a fit of claustrophobia - maybe a feeling - I know of the curses - I believe that such things can exist. Anyhow, a very interesting text which I enjoyed reading immensely.
2008-03-10