‘Dinner With King Tut' Review: The Taste of Ancient Egypt

Wall Street Journal

a day ago

The science writer Sam Kean's all-in approach to research is evident not only from the ink on the pages of his books but from the ink on his skin. In 'Dinner With King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations,' Mr. Kean spends time with various specialists devoted to understanding the lives of our distant ancestors. In the course of his travels, he makes stone tools, tans leather, mummifies a fish and renders seal blubber into oil.
The depth of the writer's commitment is tested when he meets with a Southern Californian tattooist proficient in ancient methods of body art. While he is, in his own words, 'not a tattoo guy,' the author feels obligated to submit to the artist's needle, settling on a small asterisk on his thigh. 'Given how universal tattooing was in prehistory, I realized I'd always have a gap in my understanding of life unless I sucked it up and got a hand-poked tattoo myself,' he writes, referring to the manual method some experts believe was used to ink Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered in the Alps.
Traditional archaeology holds little appeal for Mr. Kean. He recalls time spent at archaeological digs, where he observed practitioners meticulously sifting through dirt, as 'such a letdown, the most godawful tedium I could imagine.' He's instead drawn to the burgeoning subfield of experimental archaeology (also known as experiential or living archaeology), whose adherents attempt to accurately replicate elements of ancient people's lives.
Each chapter of this lively book covers a specific time and place, beginning 75,000 years ago on the African savanna and concluding with 16th-century Mexico. Stops along the way include ancient Egypt, Imperial Rome, Viking Europe and medieval China. Each chapter presents an overview of life during the period and introduces the experimental archaeologists Mr. Kean meets in his travels. (Some, it should be said, aren't technically archaeologists but are, in the author's fond description, 'screwball enthusiasts.')