Just Making a Living Selling the Odd Souvenir:
The Watcher in the Valley of the Kings

There are designated souvenir selling spots and I am sure that some sort of "rent" is paid for them. You will sometimes run across a lone seller of souvenirs at the most unexpected places. This single approach to selling, of course minimizes overheads for the seller!

When we were walking up to one of the more distant tombs in the Valley of the Kings, we were suddenly joined by a local man who slithered and slid down the wall of the valley. In his hands he had two lovely soapstone scarabs and a piece of plaster with a postcard scene attached and artistically mutilated to look as if it had been torn from the walls of a tomb.

He, of course, began his spiel implying that the plaster was really taken from a tomb, and asked a rather large price. But I had been in Egypt more than a day and replied that I liked all the pieces, but we both knew they were replicas and offered a much lower price for the lot.

He grinned and accepted the price, looking over his shoulder to make sure that the guards were not around.

The scarabs are as big as the palm of my hand. Nice soapstone carvings, made with the help of a machine.

The scene is a photo attached to a matrix of hessian material,plaster and mud to simulate the wall of a tomb. It's origin frustrated me for almost 20 years. I could not find where it came from! Finally on our trip in 2007 I discovered the scene in the Tomb of Roy!, and in fact it is almost life sized. But I assure you the tomb scene is intact on the wall, not sitting on my souvenir shelf.

Egyptian Souvenir Stories from 1989

Index 1989 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |