Senior staff at the British Museum have promised to launch an official investigation after tickets for their eagerly-anticipated Annual Symposium appeared on internet auction website e-bay at prices of up to £300. Meanwhile, tickets for this year's Glanville Lecture have also been changing hands for infinitely more than their face value of nothing.

The problem of professional re-sellers buying tickets to sell on at a vast profit, which until recently had been confined to concerts by mono-named popular music 'turns' such as Madonna and Prince, has increasingly affected the world of top-level Egyptology over the last few years, as the subject has been inextricably drawn into the world of celebrity. Young and passably attractive curators at the British Museum are now routinely escorted into work under heavy personal protection in order to protect them from their teenage 'groupies'. These predominantly teenage girls often wait outside the Museum for hours in all weather, clutching copies of obscure German periodical MDAIK and hoping to obtain the prize of their idol's signature alongside their latest musings. An inability to read German rarely seems to dampen their enthusiasm.

It is rumoured that the latest rush on tickets is directly connected to the rise of the so-called 'Beat Egyptologists'. Some of this new breed are known to possess a rudimentary understanding of some aspects of popular culture - one employee of the Egypt Exploration Society is even known to be in a rock band. Although the band is yet to hit the charts, its name has been seen scrawled in biro - often mis-spelt - on the backpacks of the teenage girls crowding the front rows of Egyptological symposia in recent months. Management at the British Museum are said to be worried that this phenomenon will draw attention away from the original purpose of their annual gathering - pompous intellectual grandstanding. One experienced, bearded curator told us: "The last thing I want is to open the floor to questions on the later monuments of Tuthmosis IV only for an overexcited young lady to ask about the release date of the latest long playing record of some beat combo or other. Or with the screaming and the fainting. After all, I do remember Beatlemania."

"I was at the Cavern Club in '61, you know", he added.

Share this on facebook | Tweet this