Oum Cartoon أم كرتون

“A7a!” says King Tutankhamun in this cartoon by Egyptian illustrator Muna Abdurrahman.  

The boy pharaoh is understandably pissed off. Brian Rohan reports:

The blue and gold braided beard on the burial mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun was hastily glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic after it was knocked during cleaning, conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said Wednesday.

The museum is one of the city’s main tourist sites, but in some areas, ancient wooden sarcophagi lay unprotected from the public, while pharaonic burial shrouds, mounted on walls, crumble from behind open panels of glass. Tutankhamun’s mask, over 3,300 years old, and other contents of his tomb are its top exhibits.

Three of the museum’s conservators reached by telephone gave differing accounts of when the incident occurred last year, and whether the beard was knocked off by accident while the mask’s case was being cleaned, or was removed because it was loose.

Egyptian illustrators (and meme producers) are already weighing in on the case of the broken beard.

Makhlouf, a political cartoonist for the privately owned Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, posted the following on Facebook:

“I bet my beard if you succeed,” says Tutankhamun’s beard.

The idiom of betting on your beard (or mustache) implies that you’ll shave it if you lose—only the confident place a wager on their facial hair. Of course in this case, Tut has already gotten trimmed. In his punny remark, Makhlouf illustrates the power of the pharaohs beyond the grave, signaling that we should be careful to not upset them. The cartoonist has personified the ancient before; in an October 2013 cartoon, a mummy avenges the robbery of his own tomb.

Was the reason behind the broken goatee corruption within the staff at the Egyptian Museum? That is the implication of this drawing by comic artist Tawfik:

“OK, sir…I took off the beard and left the goatee,” says the scruffy coiffeur. Under his breath, he adds, “Pay me already, so I can take off." The fat cat in the backdrop, chomping a cigar, smiles. 

Illustrator Hicham Rahma suggests that the mishap relates to religious staffers and their disregard for the pagan relics:

"Those pharaohs, sir, are, God forbid… Infidels… And they worship each other… Why do we build museums for them?” says the gluey-fingered worker.

“I don’t know, Mahmoud,” says the bossman, using the colloquial term  asta,an informal call that one might use to hail a cab. 

Tutankhamun sheds a tear, unless that’s just epoxy.