Normally, you have to go to Egypt to visit the Tomb of the Pharaohs. But Ken Fox, the pharaoh-addicted co-owner of the Magic Makers national costume supply shop in Huntington, West Virginia, has made his own homage to the age of the pharaohs and Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. A collector of all things related to King Tut, mummies and pharoahs since a teen growing up in Huntington, Fox takes the Charleston Gazette on a video tour of his extensive collection, known to generations of schoolkids. Here’s an excerpt from the related print story by Douglas Imbrogno from the Feb. 6, 2010 edition of the Sunday Gazette-Mail in Charleston, West Virginia:
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – It’s about 3 a.m. in downtown Chicago in 1977. Ken Fox, co-owner of Huntington’s Magic Makers Costume Shop, fitfully attempts to sleep outside on the Field Museum steps. There are a few other people ahead of him to see that day’s 10 a.m. debut of the first American showing of treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
Well, actually, around 1,500 other people, according to his numbered ticket. But Fox doesn’t mind the wait. He has come to sate a thirst, a fascination, an obsession with Tut’s tomb and the era of the Egyptian Pharaohs that has not let up to this day.
That was when Fox had the brainstorm.
“I’m going to go back and someday make my own tomb for schoolchildren to see who may not be able to go to Egypt. That’s when I got the idea, and I’ve been working on it ever since.”
Fast-forward to 2010. Fox, wearing a tan vest decorated with hieroglyphs, enters a room not much bigger than your average garage. It’s on the second floor to the back of the storage area of his international costume supply shop at 545 Fourth Ave., a few blocks from the Cabell County Courthouse in Huntington.
Every direction you turn are hundreds of replicas of objects and statues from Pharaonic times, plus a sprinkling of real ones.
Hand-made mummies. Statuary of gods like Ptah, Horus, Osiris and Anubis, some made out of plaster of Paris and hand-painted by Fox. Replica gold and iron daggers akin to ones Tut clutched in his tomb (the iron dagger more precious in its day than the gold as it was made from meteorite iron, the rarest of metals).
“It’s a place where I eat my bologna sandwich,” Fox says, sitting in a wood chair also adorned with hieroglyphs. “It’s my getaway from the real world. It’s my sanctuary, my inner sanctum. It’s just a peaceful place to come and visit. But basically, we just call it ‘the Tomb.’”
READ ON | Follow the rest of the story at the Gazette at this link.
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RELATED | Magic Makers supplies costumes to the world, from caveman to astronaut days. Take a tour of the rest of the place with this video/story.
May 16, 2010
People, Video