On Nov. 26, 1922, Howard Carter took out the little chisel his grandmother had given him on his 17th birthday, when he, an English lad, was already obsessed with ancient Egypt. Now pushing 50, a middle-aged archeologist who'd seemed promising and then washed up and then promising again, Carter was standing in a hole in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, sweating.

Hoping against hope, he tapped his childhood chisel through the underground doorway of what appeared to be a tomb — or at least some kind of repository — and poked a candle through.

"Can you see anything?" asked his companion and benefactor, George Herbert.

"Yes," Carter replied. "Wonderful things."

And I just saw them, too — the gold and glories (and knickknacks) of King Tut's tomb.

At "The Discovery of King Tut," a traveling exhibit that faithfully re-creates exactly what Carter saw when he became the first human to lay eyes on Tutankhamun's stuff in 3,000 years, you wander through room after room of amazing artifacts, with the special excitement of seeing them just the way they were when first discovered.

Which is to say: in a jumble. The room full of "amazing things" that Carter saw looks exactly like the attic of an eccentric aunt. There are beds shaped like animals, wheels leaning against one another like a bunch of ancient bike tires. There are trunks, stools, vases and — oh, yes — a baby throne made out of gold. It's sitting in the back, abandoned like any highchair you'd put in your own attic once your child (or child king) outgrew it.

Apparently, Carter had been searching for this trove ever since he learned that the statue of a certain pharaoh was actually of someone called King Tut. The later pharaoh had chiseled Tut's name off and replaced it with his own — but he forgot to remove Tut's name from the back. An ancient cup also inscribed with Tut's name made Carter increasingly certain that there had been a King Tut, but history and archaeologists had not accounted for him. Who was Tut? And why had no one found him yet?

Carter persuaded Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, to fund his search, and he spent years digging fruitlessly (well, directing a lot of Egyptian workers to dig fruitlessly), searching for Tut's tomb. Lord Carnarvon was about to call it quits, when Carter begged him for one more season of funding. Reportedly worried that Carter would finally find the tomb just when he pulled out, Carnarvon signed another check.

Weirdly enough, you can see how Carnarvon could have afforded this hobby if you watch public TV. "Downton Abbey" is shot in his modest little home. But back to Egypt:

Around the time of this final funded season, one of Carter's minions — a boy who brought jars of water to the workers — dug into the sand to make a little hole to hold one of the jars as he always did. But this time, his hand hit a smooth, flat surface.

It was the top of a long-buried staircase.

The rest is ancient history. But somehow, it doesn't feel that far removed. In an era when ISIS is blowing up monuments because it wants to erase the past, Tut's successor's chiseling his name off statues seems familiar. And once you learn the soap opera of Tut's family — his grandfather was a great and beloved ruler, and his dad reversed everything he'd done, and then Tut changed all of it back again — the young king doesn't seem so unreachable. You see the tiny coffin that contained his stillborn daughter. You learn there were still flowers on his casket when Carter uncovered it. It's as if you could reach out and (sorry) Tut him.

You leave wondering who will dig for us someday.

Lenore Skenazy is author of the book and blog "Free-Range Kids" and a keynote speaker at conferences, companies and schools. Her TV show, "World's Worst Mom," airs on Discovery Life Channel. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Hannah Pethen