Art: Everywhere the Glint of Gold

It was luck that the tomb of Tutankhamun, pharaoh of Egypt from 1334 to 1325 B.C., escaped the predations of grave robbers over the millenniums. Largely luck too that British Archaeologist Howard Carter found the royal tomb in 1922 after 15 years of fruitless searching through the sere Valley of the Kings. Perhaps the timing was also lucky when J. Carter Brown, director of Washington's National Gallery of Art, began negotiating with Egyptian authorities in 1974 for a U.S. showing of the tomb's contents: a wave of pro-American feeling was just sweeping Cairo....