From about 1539 BC to around 1075 BC, the Valley of the Kings, in ancient Thebes, was the burial site for the rulers and some nobility of ancient Egypt. Though known about, the exact whereabouts had been lost through the ages, until archaeological excavations led by Europeans during the time of Napoleon began in the early 1800s. With those explorations came grave robbers, who looted the newly discovered tombs of many of the precious artifacts as they were uncovered, the contents sold through the black market.

In 1899, English archaeologist Howard Carter was appointed the Chief Inspector of Upper Egypt. In 1907, he thought he might have discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun, the Boy King. It actually took many more years for Carter to make his famous discovery.

The 5th Earl Carnarvon had had a series of motor car accidents and was advised to winter in a warm climate as a way to recuperate. Always fascinated by Egypt, he traveled to Luxor in 1898 and installed himself in the Winter Palace Hotel on the banks of the Nile. There, he met Howard Carter. The two would become great friends and work together for 16 years. An American excavator, Theodore Davis, held the concession to dig in the Valley, but gave it up in 1914 to Lord Carnarvon, after declaring there was nothing more to find. There were lean years as the Great War depleted the Lord’s estates, increased his taxes and Britain was in a recession. In 1921, Carnarvon told Carter he might have to wrap things up, but Carter pleaded for one more season.

Carter arrived ahead of his patron in the winter of 1922 and began work at a new site. He sent an excited telegram: “At last have made wonderful discovery in valley a magnificent tomb with seals intact; recovered for your arrival. Congratulations Carter”. Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, hurried to Luxor, arriving on Nov. 23, 1922. Over the next two days, rubble was cleared from the passageway of the tomb and a hole was knocked through the door. As the gap widened, they began to see the antechamber, packed with chariots, furniture, “everywhere the glint of gold”. Further exploration led to three more chambers which included the golden shrine and coffins of Tutankhamun.

He had been a minor king, but this was, perhaps, the most intact tomb ever discovered and word quickly spread about the find, bringing in press from around the world. The Boy King had been lost for 3,244 years but once found, he became one of the most famous Pharaohs of all time due to his magnificent tomb. Everyone wanted access to the tomb and information (and rumors flew about what was being done with its contents). Carnarvon had to manage it all.

He was exhausted and sailed up the Nile to Aswan for some rest, then on to Cairo to deal with authorities about plans for how to deal with the preservation of the tomb and its contents. Worn out, and ill, having nicked a mosquito bite while shaving, the wound became infected.  Septicemia and fever set in. His wife flew in by a specially chartered biplane from England. His son, Lord Porchester (for those of you who watched “The Crown”, this was “Porchy”, the young Queen Elizabeth’s close friend and eventually, her Master of the Horse), arrived from Mesopotamia, now Iraq, where he was serving with the the British Army. Lord Carnarvon died, with his family by his side, on April 5, 1923, at the Continental Hotel in Cairo, months after his great discovery. Porchy was now the 6th Earl.

The contents of the tomb went to the Cairo Museum and in 1963, went on a grand tour to 16 cities across the United States, including Detroit. One Sunday in August, my family was at one of our large Sarason family brunches. I was 10 years old and don’t remember the exact reason for the gathering (perhaps my beloved cousin Alan was in town, but I can’t be sure). I just remember what followed. It was the last day the King Tut exhibit was at the Detroit Institute of Art and my dad decided our family should go see it. Perhaps someone at the brunch said it was a “must see”. This was before the era of timed tickets. Off we went into Detroit. I loved going to the DIA.

The line stretched on FOREVER. It meandered through many rooms of the museum and velvet ropes zig-zagged around the large main hallway. We waited for hours before we got to enter the special exhibit. We became friends with everyone waiting on line with us, but no matter. We all knew the wait was worthwhile. When we finally entered, we all drew a collective breath, like Howard Carter did half a century earlier. He was reputed to have said, “I see wonderful things.” We did too (though the large golden mask did not travel with this exhibit). The Featured photo is the cover of the catalog from the exhibit. I hand wrote “August 1963” inside the cover.  I was so excited by this exhibit that I wanted to give money to the Aswan Dam project in Egypt. My parents quickly ended that dream. I could plant trees in Israel, but not send my allowance money to Egypt.

This spring, before I left to come to Martha’s Vineyard, I did a massive clean-up project in Newton. I went through and threw out old magazines, programs, piles of stuff that had been lying around for years. I went back through old boxes and found the King Tut catalog in a box packed up from my childhood, when my mother sold our house after my parents divorced in 1981. That winter, my brother and I flew home, went through our closets and drawers and determined what was really meaningful to us. At that time, I brought what remained back with me on my return flight to Boston. What had long been buried in a box was found again.

Like so many others in 2011, I became a huge fan of the PBS series, “Downton Abbey”. Sometime during the screening of the show, I learned that it was partially filmed at Highclere Castle, the ancestral home of the Lords of Carnarvon. I did not make the connection to the 5th Earl who supported Howard Carter’s work, though. Not until 2017, when I was fortunate enough to be part of a group that toured the estate and took tea in the main salon (we were not allowed to photograph inside the castle; we had to buy the catalog). I admired the room where Lady Mary came down the stairs, at last, as a bride to the waiting arms of Matthew, but Lady Edythe was jilted by her Lord on the same grand stair case.

After the group tour, we were allowed to wander the grounds for a bit on our own. That is when I discovered the whole exhibit on the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by the current Earl’s great great grandfather. Since Highclere has become a tourist destination, there is now a whole wing dedicated to the dig with facsimiles of many of the artifacts.

The display was informative and fascinating, adding a tremendous amount to my knowledge of events that took place almost a century earlier, and brought back fond memories of my day at the Detroit Institute of Art as a child; the day I viewed the real artifacts in person.

 

 

 

As I wrote about two years ago in Checkbook Gardener, we have a beautiful little garden oasis on a busy street in the heart of Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard. This summer, between the pandemic, four months of drought and a less-than-diligent landscaper (not to be confused with Teresa, who continues to take wonderful care of flower beds and boxes; a true artist; below is an invitation to her recent gallery show), we decided change was necessary.

Dan always comes early in the spring, before my arrival, to check things out. Since (as noted in my last pandemic update), he decided it was going to be “the summer of the backyard”, he looked for new furniture which had a fire element, so we could sit with friends and be warm as the days grew cooler. We purchased six chairs, though only have four around the table. Eventually the pandemic will pass and we’ll be able to sit closer together again. We also rearranged the furniture by the pool to allow another couple to come and still be socially distant.

We have already had several pleasant evenings, sitting with the fire lit, talking with friends well past sunset.

The front of the house, with flower boxes and climbing rose vines, were at peak in late June. These roses will bloom twice during the season. The flower boxes need to be cared for constantly, but add so much to the street-side of the house, where island visitors pass daily. After a scorching summer last summer, which burnt the flowers in the boxes by the door, Teresa solved the problem by planting hearty Coleus, colorful and fast-growing. I remember cultivating one from a cutting in 5th grade Science. This brought back memories.

By mid-August, our new landscaper was onboard. He came in with a large crew and immediately began to implement the clean-up and changes we envisioned. He gave the yard the TLC it had lacked for the past several years, pruning all the shrubbery back significantly. One “shrub” had gotten out of hand. It now obscured the entrance to the garage and the walkway beside it. It couldn’t just be trimmed, as it was all wood inside. It got pulled out entirely and was just replaced with two hydrangeas that will grow large, but can be pruned into shape. Now there is space where there had been a huge bush, but we don’t feel like we are in a jungle.

Slowly, we are coming back into stasis. Next year, everything will be better maintained and we will have our garden back. We were supposed to be on The Garden Conservancy Tour again this year, but it was postponed due to COIVD. We will look better by next year.

I hope everything, particularly our country, is in better shape by next year.

 

 

Front Row Seats

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice!   And if you’re really famous you get to Madison Square Garden.

I’ve seen The Rolling Stones at the Garden and two years ago we were there for Paul Simon’s farewell concert.   And a few years before that my friend Vivian and I were at the Garden to hear the wonderful tenor and crossover artist Andrea Bocelli.

I remember that our seats were way up in that cavernous venue,  and after the long climb we had to stop to catch our breathe before settling down to enjoy the concert.

Then as we and his 20,000 other fans waited in anticipation for Bocelli to take the stage,  Vivian  chatted with two very attractive young women who happened to be sitting next to her.

We had turned our attention back to the stage when we heard two ushers obviously flirting with our two pretty neighbors.

”Follow us,”  we heard one of the ushers say,  “and bring your two friends.”

Vivian’s neighbor tapped her on the shoulder.   “Come on,”. she said,  “they’ve got front row seats for all of us!”

The ushers assumed we were four friends who had come to the concert together,  and Vivian and I weren’t about to disabuse them.   So down we all went in time to see Bocelli led on stage just a few feet from where we were now sitting.

How was the concert you may ask?   Well,  to tell you the truth,  you haven’t heard Andrea Bocelli sing until you’ve heard him sing at Madison Square Garden from front row seats!

Me and Vivian at the Garden

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Still Life

My mother Jessie was a damn good pinocle player. (See My Game Mother)

But she was also a wonderful artist.   A fine arts major in college,  she later studied at New York’s renown Art Students League with the Russian-born artist Raphael Soyer celebrated for his paintings of social realism.

Jessie went on to teach art in high school but although she continued to sketch and would often paint portraits for friends,  she didn’t pursue her own art and was never interested in selling her work.    I don’t know why,   maybe because she was a  polymath,   a Renaissance woman of sorts  –  capable and interested in so much else in life.

But as a child I remember her early watercolors and oils of portraits,  landscapes,  and still lifes on our walls.   Some hung in the house for years,   and a few I especially loved I took when I left home,   but others were lost to me and forgotten over time.

Then in the late 1990s  my father,  and then my mother died,  and I had the bittersweet task of cleaning out their house.    Down in the basement I found dozens of Jessie’s canvases,  some images  I hadn’t seen in decades.    Seeing them there as I knelt in the dusty basement my heart stopped.

Of course my sister and I kept some of the canvases,  and some we offered to family and friends.   And many others,  as well as many of my mother’s art books,  I gave to my friend and colleague Karen,  the art teacher at the high school where I was working.   Karen had  taught previously  at my mother’s school,  and by serendipity Jessie had been her mentor.

Karen hung several of those paintings in her classroom to inspire the students,  and I often found myself going up to her art room just to look at them again.

And then just a few years ago I was to find more of my mother’s lost art when my aunt Babs,  the last of my parents’ generation,  died in Florida at 92.

Babs and my mother’s younger brother Paul met as kids on the beach in the Rockaways,  and became high school sweethearts.  (See Aunt Babs and Uncle Paul)

When they married.  my mother painted a Rockaway beach scene for them and on the back of the canvas she wrote,  “Where it all began!”

My cousins Deb and Robin remember that painting hanging in their parents’ home in New York,   and then in Florida when Babs and Paul retired down there years later.

When we gathered in Florida for Babs’ funeral,   I was moved to see that Rockaway beach scene still on the wall in her house.   But then I saw another of my mother’s paintings I hadn’t seen in years and had forgotten.

It was a still life of a small ceramic planter in the shape of a donkey who was pulling a little yellow cart.   In the cart was a tall snake plant,  and when I was a child that little donkey stood on a table in our living room.   Now seeing my mother’s painted image of that little donkey planter I felt my heart stop once again.

Deb and Robin were planning to keep their parents’ Florida house and spend more time there.   But Robin lives in San Francisco and can’t visit very often,  and so for sentiment’s sake,  she decided to take the Rockaway beach scene back home with her.   Then my cousins pressed me to take the donkey still life.

But the paintings were each too big and bulky to take on a plane,  and so Robin and I brought them to the local FedEx office.   We explained that we wanted one sent to California and the other to New York.

”Considering their size and the distance you want each one shipped,  they both will be rather costly.” the FedEx agent explained.

We both said that was fine.

”Do you want each one insured?”  he asked.

We both said we did.

”What is the value of each painting?”   he asked.

My cousin and I looked at each other and smiled.  “Priceless!”   we both said.

”Where It All Began”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessie – photo circa 1937

– Dana Susan Lehrman