The King Tut Expertease

Danno Sullivan, our audience tonight is composed mostly of Egyptians. And since the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen is your expertise, I thought we could probe your area. I beg your pardon? Of expertise. Spelled wrong? Naturally. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer Clare Sera and expert comedy writer Danno Sullivan bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Oh my goodness, what a happy day it is today because we are delving into the exotic, rich, and wonderful world of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen.

The breadbasket of Mesopotamia, Clare. That's Egypt. And pharaoh is not just a ruler, it's a life-giving grain. Welcome to my world of mysticism and good eatin'. I just, I loved your book so much. Pharaoh and pharaoh, spelled both ways, both times. I read that book a year ago and I'm still awake today. Well, that's one of the life-giving attributes of these ancient grains. Pharaoh, spelt with an F. It is so life-giving, Clare, that it doesn't just give life, it gives extra life. I mean, you are full of energy once you've started ingesting those grains. That's how the miracle of the afterlife works for these pharaohs.

With a P. Sorry, yes. These pharaohs, I probably should pronounce it that way, so you know when I'm referring to a pharaoh versus a pharaoh, the ancient grain. That would help so much because this is a podcast where they can't see if you're saying an F or a P. For our listeners who may not be as well versed in the magical wonder of Tutankhamen, he was a boy king, as you said, and it was roughly 1300 BC. We have opened his tomb to find golden trinkets and you have focused in on the grains. I feel like the grains of Tutankhamen are like the pants of Louis XIV, you know?

They were there, we just don't think about them. Picture Louis XIV, what do you picture? Pants. Curly locks, golden furniture. Puffy pants. Do you picture the puffy pants? Well, just because you said it. Only because you said it, I was picturing it. Because I feel like you're disrespecting me now, Claire. You're sort of undermining my theory. That when you think of Louis XIV, you don't think of pants at all. No, that's a better point. That's a better point. I'll edit out the part where when you said Louis XIV and I immediately pictured his pants. Okay, I think that says more about you than it does about my theory.

So Louis XIV, what kind of grains did he eat? Well, I don't specialize in Louis XIV. I specialize in other world leaders, particularly the boy king. Now, I do get a lot of blowback, and that's probably from just having so much grain in my system, for zeroing in on such a specific aspect of ancient times. But, Claire, why else to study ancient times if not to learn from those times and apply the lessons that we learned to today? I hope you don't mind, I did a little bit of research before you came on, and Tutankhamen died very young. And a lot of people say, well, isn't it ironic?

He's suffering from all these horrible, debilitating sicknesses while surrounded by these life-giving grains of the fertile crescent. And apparently his own crescent was not so fertile. It is interesting to me, if you don't mind me saying, as a woman, that this young Tutankhamen, a young boy, is literally worshipped. He was unable to bring an heir to continue on the dynasty for Egypt. I mean, he was a 14-year-old boy. How many sisters have you impregnated? According to all the research done on his mummified body, he was shorter than I am, definitely crooked, tilty in some places, pelvically horrifying to look at.

It sounds like you've been going through the slides I provide with the book. I mean, no offense, and in fact, some admiration. I mean, that description does match you. That's why I've been going through my Tutankhamen diet, Claire. The poor boy worked so hard to try to overcome all of these sicknesses, ailments, and physical deformities that he suffered from and failed. Clearly, he failed. He died at the age of 14. But Claire, I'm coming up on 29. I believe that I've done a better job interpreting the health-giving recipes from the inside of the tomb walls than Tutankhamen himself did.

So when people are skeptical about my notions that these are recipes on the walls, I'm saying, look, that is clearly a half-cup measure that's being depicted. If I may point out, you started this diet about 10 years ago. And beforehand, you were a fine, healthy young man, 6'1". Yes, broad in the shoulders. Yeah, you were a rower for Harvard, wasn't it? Yes, Harvard and Yale. I played for both teams. I was so strong. And then you started this diet that— That a lot of people say has contributed to this horrible weakening of my system, the tilting of my pelvis, as you've pointed out.

Honestly, I mean, it is your research, and I brought you on as the expert. But I just—I do want to point out that a half-cup of spelt is—that's not a recipe. That's an ingredient. Well, now I feel like we're splitting hairs, Claire. Which is another aspect of—I mean, our listeners can't, but your head— This frazzled head of mine. Every hair is split on there. I mean, I think that I speak for everybody who's ever laid eyes on you. Just have a hamburger, for God's sake. Well, as you point out, it's a book full of what I have called recipes, in which now I understand to more accurately be ingredients.

So I've sort of basically created a shopping list. Tootin' Commons shopping list. You know, for our listeners at home, would it help to just go down the list and maybe name some of the ingredients for folks who might like to, if not eat like the pharaohs, at least shop like the pharaohs? I think that's a great idea, because who wouldn't? We all love to think of eating like our ancestors. Right at the top of the list, grains. Yes. You know, I'm all about the life-giving grains. I feel like the grains are life-giving. Yes. And that if you need something to give life, then grains would be the life-giving grains to go with.

So definitely grains are on the list. Yes, yes, for life-giving. That's great, and I imagine, you know, the leeks and onions. Those are vegetables, Clare. But they wouldn't be on the shopping list? Oh, sure, sure, sure. Sure. But just, you know, as your expert, I just don't want to confuse the grains column with the vegetables column. Now, what they did in ancient times, Clare, we know this from the hieroglyphics on the tomb walls. Yeah. They basically had a painted checklist, and these are just beautiful. You can see the gold leaf and the natural plant dyes that have been used to kind of color-code these checklists.

And there's that beautiful—it looks like, what's the jackal head figure? Oh, yeah, that god. That god. Yeah, that god. So that's used sort of as a checkmark to show that that item has been picked up and placed in the basket. It's interesting to me that he would do his shopping himself. Very interesting. I don't know if it was Nefertiti who was actually going up and down the aisles, you know. Right, right, right. He would not be in the grocery store racing up and down the aisles. Sure, I mean, he couldn't race. Clearly, he was hobbled and... Tilted pelvis. Yeah.

Yeah, so there were a lot of reasons for him to stay at home at the tomb. Just, you know, adding things to the list, having a scribe paint them onto the wall, and then sending out slaves to collect what he needed. So we can take this to modern times just directly. What I recommend is just grab a sheet of papyrus and, you know, some sort of a goose quill. Yeah, and a little gold plating. You'll need some gold leaf, absolutely. And, you know, slaves are not as available now as they were at the time. Right. So you're probably going to have to do a lot of this yourself.

Okay. You can do a lot of it actually in the store while you're going up and down the aisles. So you might say, you look at your list, you see the word spelt, you rush over to the ancient grains aisle. And then you need to heat that gold up to liquefaction. How did they do that back then? They wouldn't do it in the grocery store. And I wouldn't actually recommend that you do it. But this is a great little trick that I've picked up. If you go to the nice ladies that do the handouts, the free samples. Yeah, right. They almost always, Claire, have a little hot plate going to keep the samples warm.

And you just say, look, I've got this gold in layer that I need to warm up. Right. And they would know. Just hot enough to just liquefy a millimeter thin sheet of gold in order to mark this off my shopping list. This just makes so much sense. Finally, before we let you go, we touched on it quickly, but I feel like our listeners are going to be putting two and two together. And we've talked about what a healthy young man you were and what a sad, sad specimen of a human you've become. And we also just touched on the curse of the tomb. Could it be part of Tutankhamen's curse that has afflicted your body to such a, frankly, off-putting level?

There's no doubt about it in my mind, Claire. I'm such a devotee of Tutankhamen. Yes. Such a fan. I mean, if I saw him racing up and down the aisles, even with his off-center pelvis, you know, his awkward gait, his dangling flesh and falling hair, I think I would just fall over in a faint with excitement. That's what a fan I am of this pharaoh. Yeah. I have to say that I feel like you're taking this interest in me merely because I do have a regal bearing, not unlike, you know, it's sort of a sympathetic regal bearing that I've got. Yes, right. As, you know, a pox as well.

Yes. But I feel like there's a subservience that you're willing to submit unto me. Right. Just because I have this superiority, you know, this natural king-like pharaohmanship. I can definitely get a whiff of Tutankhamen off of you, if that's... Yeah. Yeah. It does. It just exudes from me. And I know so does the pus. It's like necrosis almost, wafting. But I want you to treat me like you would treat any commoner, Claire. I do not want to be wrapped up in sheets of linen. I do not want to have my brain sucked out through my nose for crying out loud. Oh, excuse me.

I think that was just accidentally a little bit of my brain coming out my nose. Got a little something right there. Let me just grab that tissue. Well, I really do feel like this is probably as much as I can look at for the hour. Thank you so much, Daniel Sullivan. I would ask you back next year, but I have a feeling you might be a spirit in the sky with your own open dew. Claire, thanks so much. Pyramid power to you and everyone out there. Pyramid power. The Expertise, spelled wrong, podcast is free. And like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.co and follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are.

And since the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen is your expertise of area, I thought we could probe yours. Spelled wrong? Naturally. All right. I think that works. You must have written it down wrong, Claire. I can't even copy and paste this.