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Show THE HERALD, Provo. UUh, 1990 Sunday, September 23, - Vw.v 0;; Tourists are faking their toil on ancient Egyptian tombs Egypt (AP) - Give the tourists what they've come to see, but in facsimile. "If you want to have your tourists and save your tombs, building replicas is the only answer," says Theodor Abt, president of the h-based Society of Friends of the of Egypt. Tombs Royal "We haven't a minute to lose," he says. "Each time I come I'm shocked to see what has happened. The world can't afford to give up something so unique and precious." Egypt's pharaolis built their tombs to last an eternity. But some of the most magnificent of the royal resting places may not make it much past the 20th century. A main spoiler is man. Drawn by ancient Egypt's aura of mystery, thousands of visitors parade every day through the once world of dead pharaohs LUXOR, Zuric- ts and their queens. They violate tomb chambers designed by cient priests for one mummy-fille- d an- Egyptian officials agree. In March they approved a proposal from the society to duplicate two coffin. With that in mind, a Swiss group has come up with a multimillion-dolla- r answer: Custom-bui- lt tombs, clustered in a new "valley of death," especially groomed to accommodate mass tourism. the tiny, tombs: gold-paint- chamber of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamen, and the larger, beautifully decorated tomb of Nefertari, powerful chief queen of warrior broken leg won't stop you in Italy - Stampella: Radiografia: crutch. Gesso di Parigi: plaster of Paris. The dictionary did not disclose why America no love soccer (futbol). In days ahead the American was to have unending opportunity to ponder this question. Propped up in bed in tiny but immaculate Italian hotel rooms, the alternatives were: stare dumbly into air shafts echoing with radio broadcasts of opera, memorize the carved cornices of the inevitable painting of a cathedral on the wall, watch World Cup soccer on TV. There is no finer place to break a leg than Italy. Hospital admissions asks only your name and address. At no point does anyone say anything about paying. Italian motorists stop for only two things: lunch and a cripple hobbling across the road on crutches. Otherwise they drive 100 mph on gas that fetches $4.40 a gallon. With a gamba rotta, an Ameri; can can be highly selective about th cathedrals, ruins and museums his wife and sister would otherwise Insist on dragging him to. Instead, the itinerary has few hassles. Verdi hv the air shaft in the morning. ;Fettucine for lunch. A little Chianti classico. Nap. Egitto (Egypt) versus Costa Rica or somebody for the soccer matinee. Tagliatelle with the rest of the wine for dinner, topped off with West Germany against some other guys in red shirts. Better yet, World Cup soccer action is continuous. No commercials. The announcers are indecipherable, so you can concentrate on the game. That's the only problem. Soccer is a game of much skill. Too much. The skill has done away with scoring. The American watched 260 minutes of soccer one day. Nobody scored until the shootouts. They are preposterously unsatisfying climaxes, like picking the next monarch of Great Britain by drawing lots. The American remembers that when he was a soccer goalie in prep school there was always a lot of scoring, a lot of it his doing. It also took a broken leg in Italy to demonstrate why Europeans invented the bidet. It's for bathing when a shower would melt the cast. Clever people. rotta in Italy also A gamba brings intimations of connoisseur-ship- , even martyrdom. Who but a person driven by a passion for art e imoulse would or a ones." struggle through the heat and pebg bles and stairs on his stampelle to gaze rapturously at a mosaic ceiling? Italians love a good show. But they hate standing in line. Clump into a bank where the natives are murderously elbowing and eouuine each other at thp teller's window and the crowd melts away at your crippled advance. You can glower with impunity at other tourists. Or even slyly try to trip them with a stampella in their headlong dash to trample you dead in pursuit of their guide to the next death-defyin- with a difference. Tourists will see them as the ancients did, not the faded and damaged chambers visited today. And with modern touchy traffic and air condies: tioning. Abt, a Zurich psychoanalyst, says engineers have selected the fault-fille- d bone-drWestern Valley for the reproductions, lying just over the hills from the tombs of Tutankhamen and fellow pharaohs. The Western Valley was chosen because of "its beauty and emptiness. The sacred atmosphere so important to early tomb builders is something we don't have to duplicate," Abt says. "It's already Upper Egypt's summer. Humidity, dust and salt brought into the tombs by sweaty bodies and the touch of countless fingers are eating away at the timeless but fragile decorations on their walls. The only sure way to save them would be politically and economically explosive: bar tour groups from the most popular tombs. Most visitors travel in groups, carried across the Nile by special launch and bused to the various valleys of death. Only about two dozen tombs are open to the public at any one time. Permanently closing the tombs is an option that's hardly figured in years of debate over monument conservation because of a national push to bring ever more tourists into Egypt. Some 2 million visitors now pump $2 billion a year into Egypt's dollar-starve- d economy. The government predicts the number of tourists will double within the next of masses away from endangered A The orTRENTO, Italy (AP) thopedist is slathering plaster on a broken American leg like Michelangelo preparing a fresco. He also pieces together the bulk of his equally fractured English. "Why America no love soccer?" The American leg had been broken because its owner had failed to heed the advice of Fabius, the ancient Roman general: Festina lente. Make has'e slowly. The operator of the scenic cable car in the precipitous Dolomite Mountains had just broken for. a siesta. The American set off down a ski slope, now wet grass, that would have given a mountain goat acrophobia. A misstep, fall and ... snap! On the way to the hospital in this city in northern Italy, the American had used a pocket dictionary to more than double his command of Italian. Gamba rotta: leg busted. Pharaoh Ramses II. They are among more than 400 tombs stretching for five miles along the Nile River's western bank opposite ancient Thebes, now Luxor, 450 miles south of Cairo. Saving both tombs has been a great worry for antiquities officials. "It's a wonderful project, the answer we've been searching for," says Sayed Tawfik, chairman of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization. "Now we can save our tombs without depriving our tourists of their beauty. "And if we have to close one or more of them for restoration and conservation, we won't feel so bad about it." Tawfik says tourists still will be allowed in the original tombs, but he expects the replicas "to deflect Not even Egypt's mightiest kings foresaw that their secret burial chambers, carved in valleys so desolate they were unfit for the living, one day would attract a tourist boom of monumental proportions. But they do. Each day 3,000 tc 5,000 people crowd the land of the dead, even in the horrendous heat two Sennedjcm, official, and labor foreman i Nubian sites south y, Abt t.'i!:';- : ; ! "Each cluster uill APPINESS 11- nung. new in K;;pt. biaidm to save antiquitn s is not replicas new concept. While - IS LATESTCLINIQUE BONUS S HER benignly overseeing his o. 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S.M ca ae'e'e bCKi-- a roc-Cimia- v sr Z OJVI ping Kids do netter. Provo, Utah 84504 : i i CLINIQUE -- nutLl i KNOWING YOUR Numerous days, kilometers and soccer games later, the American stood before the cathedral in Orvie-tFacing the facade, on the right was a detailed carving of Judgment Day. Writhing at eye level in torment were the damned. Fiendish beasts choked them and plucked at their eyes. The American thought they all looked like his friends back home. The next level showed those souls on hold for admission to hell, probably the types who answered "none of the above" to polls of the day. Way, way up almost out of sight were the goody-goodiwhose celestial ascent was only a matter of time. You couldn't see who they were. Musing over a cool glass of Orvieto's fine white wine while waiting for England to take on Cameroon, one could wonder what happened to boys to turn them into rude, assaultive young men in 15 years. You don't have to break a leg falling down a mountain in Italy to have such reflections, but it helps. As for your question, Doc, America probably no love soccer because you can't use your hands. In America's favorite game you have to catch a ball. Also, there isn't any money in it. The Italians, says their biographer, Luigi Barzini, know you can't win but it's fun to try. In that spirit, they have a saying to wish someone good luck: In la bocca del lupo. Ma-- you land in the mouth of the wolf. The recipient to such good wishes replies: And may he spit you out. The American equivalent is approximately: Break a leg. In Italy, you could do worse. semi-divin- be against the mountain and rover:? with rocks to give the .,::- !Vv:i,i of antiquity as the an ioi:i Nuab-- , Abt says. To ensure that each tomb u il; i correct historically, tlu Suis group's 50 international mem'include as vice preside;,' a a.. thority on the West llr,': i grounds. Basel professor 1'rik i A broken leg affords a new perspective on the way of the world. The southern Italian town of Eboli was wrapped in streamers of the national colors for the World Cup, like a medieval Christmas present. The American halted traffic on the main drag to limp his way across to photograph a combination of balconies, flags and laundry. Three happy street urchins about 10 years old steadied the stampelle while he focused an overhead shot. A parked car provided support on the other side. At the critical moment of focusing, an Italian in his 20s exited a pizzeria, got in the car, backed into a crutch and drove off without a word. Such incidents provide pasta for thought. The American had made a painful pilgrimage to a basilica outside Ravenna to gaze at the ancient mosaic above the choir. It shows a brilliant green field and fleecy apostolic lambs and a kindly flock. .A- and decorated hv t antians using techniques cients. Originally, tombs '.n r. d;i into the landscape to lade :vr: robbers tile from would-b- e a riches accompany nm the pharaoh into the afterlife. icon. Jesus tl; - to ili.v.tt.M- built llocations The West Bank's most popular tourist spot is the Valley of the Kings, where New Kingdom rulers were buried for 500 years. But ancient architects originally gave the royal nod to the Western Valley, where they placed the mummy of pharaoh Amenophis III in 1353 B.C. The area later was abandoned in favor of vallevs to the east and south. Abt says plans call for the first cluster of duplicate tombs to include, in addition to Tutankhamen's and Nefertari's, those of the warrior Pharaoh Tuthmosis III and officials, whose job is to protect relics, copying the best and most endangered tombs offers an acceptable alternative to locking doors. It leaves room for tourist expansion. Also, the replicas will be tombs l.uv: of says duplicate low-slun- g, there." years. For antiquities . IhIutk-hau- He estimates each riu.itt'i will cost as much as $80 million, raised l'.hS-Cin a campaign like the drive that saved t:i.' mvtv.i ..: i t.lv" ments of Abu Simln-- one-wa- few couri ;i non-royal- s, SHOP SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY SALE HOURS: MONDAY AND TUESDAY U ORDER BY PHONE: WTH OUBZCWl CHARGE AC: 24 riOu"?$ A DAV SAJLAr'E 321-666- E.St 10-- 9, A'E if, ,"AH A' ,: WEDNESDAY 9-- 5 VS0C-"- : |