The Fever and King Tut
 By Dane Martin

Recently I was watching a special on King Tut, and it got me to thinking. What came to mind was the FEVER that attacked me in those early days when I was introduced into knapping.

Now the fever we’re talking about can’t be cured with antibiotics. It hits without warning -like being run over with a truck; it will really blindside you. It has been known to bring on heart palpitations, shortness of breath, stammering, hot flashes, eye twitching, palsy, dry mouth, ingrown toenails, hives and other maladies. I know a fellow who swore that when the FEVER hit him, his left leg grew longer than his right. I discounted this story because he always put all his rocks in the right side pocket of his pants, and it made him walk lopsided.

 But on the other hand, I was present when the FEVER overcame D.C. Waldorf, and I watched him loading his pants, shirt and pockets with the world’s best hammerstones until he lost his pants in the middle of the Snoqualmie River, -damned near drowned! He’s still a bit touchy about it, if you JUST HAVE TO ask him, you best stand at arm’s length.

Some catch it the instant they find that first perfect arrowhead in a plowed field on Grandpa’s farm. Others catch the FEVER by watching skilled knappers at work, still others from looking at points in a museum or relic show, and some from just reading about it. When it strikes you, it’s all-powerful and hits you like a pint of Ozark Mountain “White Lightning.”

Those many years ago, a friend came by the house with a handful of freshly made obsidian points, At first I wasn’t much impressed, but then I had a couple of shinning jewels in my hands and like a bolt from the blue, things changed. I had visions of determined men with spears in their hands, standing in front of a campfire while women and children were huddled and crying in the background. In front of the men, from the darkness, came a charging and bellowing, huge beast. Firelight was gleaming and dancing from the obsidian points on the spears, I was hooked!

The next A.M. I had a billet fashioned out of a piece of copper water pipe poured full of lead, and a cap on the end! With the fever burning, I hunted up the closest rock shop, and paid $10.00 for a coffee can full of small chunks of obsidian. An hour later, it had all been reduced to fine driveway rubble.

The fever burned bright, even at night I couldn’t think of anything else. Two weeks later, I stood like a conquering hero on the top of the Green Hill at Glass Buttes, Oregon, gazing across at Midnight point with thousands of pieces of broken obsidian gleaming in the sun. With a pick in one hand and a shovel in the other, the only thing capable of removing the wild-eyed stare from my face would be a thousand pounds of obsidian in the back of my old yellow truck. I had made the first Pilgrimage.

That night I faced THE MOMENT of truth, and learned the first of many Earth shattering concepts about knapping, and other things. I sat at the camp table with both a Coleman lantern and the fever burning in my eyes. I had a great rock in my hand and was fondling it, gazing into its rainbow of color.  My wife leaned over, rubbed against my arm and cooed into my ear, “Wish you would look at ME that way.”

Now the Fever told me that I would never live to be happy unless I could hunt for rocks and beat them into submission; it was time to act!  I told her, “I can’t appreciate what I can’t see, do something about it!” She did, I did, we did, and I have the best rock-hunting buddy in the world.

Of course, the FEVER is unrelenting for the first two or three years, until you can make a point that would at least do the job. Then it starts to let up a little, you look up from the knapping chair, and your children are half grown. It’s strange how that happens. Somewhere along the line, the car disappeared and I was driving a three quarter ton 4X4 pickup, and the bed was always seemed full of rock. Never have been able to get a washer and dryer in the back of that truck!

Somehow, a twenty-four inch rock saw appeared at our old shed, and my memory of how we got it and where it came from is foggy and a little blurred. The FEVER left little doubt; it was the right thing to do.

Now the good news, as the FEVER diminishes a little with time and a good supply of rock; we have  never lost anyone, that we know of. I have a couple of Doctor friends who have suffered through medical school and the FEVER, and both said the FEVER was the worst!

Several experts in the field have now told me that Flint Knapping FEVER is in fact, a deep-rooted instinct and not an illness at all, but you could have fooled me. They tell us that it’s right alongside of protecting your wife and family, the urge to go out and kill something to feed your family or to put a roof over their heads. After several thousand generations, it’s still there and doing well!  The best we can do is try to keep it under control in public, and work your way through it in private! Modern medicine can’t help!

I’m sure that about all knappers have horror stories of some type to tell about how the FEVER hit them! On the other hand, some folks who had nothing to do with Flint Knapping, have gotten caught in the crossfire and paid dearly; here is one such case.

During the reign of King Tutankhamen, ancient Egypt was on a roll; gold flowed like the Nile, and a thriving flintknapping industry was present up and down the mighty river. This industry was made possible because of the huge quantity and high quality of their flint.  The major flint source being used in the Thebes area was across the river, in dry streambeds and old channels of the river. This is very near the Valley of the Kings.

 Most of the tools being made were the type to be used in excavating tombs into the soft limestone of the area.  (Seton-Karr:1905, Mackay:1921, pp.155-6). A side benefit were the nodules of flint that were imbedded in the limestone, and removed while the tombs were chiseled into the mountain side. These were stacked outside the tomb and saved for later use, and with this being a frost-free area, the flint would last nearly forever.

Suddenly things changed for King Tut, the reigning Pharaoh of Egypt in the New Kingdom. He was very young (about 19) and died suddenly, or was more likely murdered. It took 70 days to properly prepare him, and to gather up the wealth of Egypt to bury with him; then he was put to rest in a tomb that was made for someone else, but hurriedly reworked to accommodate the young King. He lay in all the splendor of ancient Egypt, encased in a 1800-pound, pure gold coffin. Gathered around him were all the things that he had treasured, and felt he would need in the afterlife, safely buried 100 feet into the mountain, under tremendous security. Time would prove that these elaborate measures protected him for 3,300 years. But it only took a short amount of the FEVER to undo it all.

Immediately after his death, Tut’s tomb was put under heavy guard. These guards worked specifically for the new reigning pharaoh.  Their job kept them camped and on-duty at the site of the tomb, in the Valley of the Kings. They were well paid, for the time, on the same scale as the ancient, master stone engravers, the ancient tablets reported.  One of the “perks” was an endless supply of both beer and grain. These guards had the honor of being some of the very first bureaucratic “double-dippers.”

For some 1000 years, the guards placed on his tomb spent their spare time knapping. We have to speculate at this point, on whether the FEVER bit them, or they were just plain greedy. But irregardless, knap they did. The products they turned out included small arrowheads to trade to nomadic tribesmen for tabular flint. Knife blades for general use, as well as picks and mauls were produced, which were used for cutting tombs. The money flowed in, both in the form of gold and premium flint that was delivered to the site. You have to remember that flint was indeed a form of currency; Even though the Egyptians made and used bronze, for the working man this was still the Stone Age.

All good things have to come to an end. As Egypt declined with time, all the guards were pulled off of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. At this point, Tut’s luck was still holding. 1000 years of knapping had covered the entire entrance to his tomb with debitage (flint chips). Also, still neatly stacked around the entrance were tons of tabular flint.

After the passage of another 2000 years, Howard Carter showed up in the Valley of the Kings. In his pocket was a fat contract with Lord Canarvan of England, and a permit to dig in the Valley of Kings, from the Department of Antiquities of Egypt. Mr. Carter soon found that the money he received each year was enough to maintain a massive dig with several hundred employees, and for himself, to live as he had only dreamed about.

It was discovered many years later in his own notes, that some 6 or 7 years before he proclaimed finding King Tut’s tomb, that he had in fact, deciphered the secret of the flint chips and flint boulders around the entrance to the tombs (Carter:1972 pp. 29-30). But, not wanting to give up the money that he received each year (known as a stipend) he managed to prolong his exploration and high living, and lead Lord Canarvan down the proverbial garden path.

After many years of disappointment and huge amounts of money, Canarvan wrote a scathing letter to Carter informing him to produce very quickly, or the money would stop. Within days, Carter cabled Canarvan that he had located King Tut’s tomb. It was clear that he had known of its location for some period of time. The rest of the story has been well documented, by many others.

The moral of the story is, that if the FEVER hadn’t severely attacked a number of flint knappers, King Tut would probably still own that 1800-pound, solid gold coffin. It’s amazing what a few flint chips can do to you!