Treasures From King Tut’s Tomb Are Heading to London Before Returning to Egypt Forever. See Highlights Here
The largest-ever trove of
treasures from King Tut’s tomb is coming to London on the third
stop of a world tour that will end with the artifacts being
returned home to Egypt forever.
The 150 items are included in
the exhibition “TUTANKHAMUN: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh,”
which will run November 2, 2019, through May 3, 2020 at London’s
Saatchi Gallery. Eventually they will be permanently housed at
the forthcoming Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, which is being built
at a cost of more than $1 billion.
The public has had a seemingly
endless fascination with the boy king since his tomb was discovered
a century ago by the British Egyptologist Howard Carter and the
financier Lord
Carnarvon.
The 1922 discovery remains the only
Ancient Egyptian royal tomb ever found intact, and exhibitions in
London, in 1972 and then 2007, drew record crowds of well over one
million visitors.
London is the third stop on a
grand 10-city tour, which began at Los Angeles’s
California Science Center, where it
attracted some 711,000 visitors, followed by Paris’s Grande Halle de la Villette, where it drew more than 1.4 million visitors,
becoming France’s most-attended exhibition of all time, according
to the talent and event management company IMG. Future tour
destinations include the Australia Museum in Sydney in 2021,
followed by locations in Japan, Canada, and South Korea, among
others that are yet to be announced.
Tutankhamun’s wishing cup in the form of
an open lotus. Image courtesy of Laboratoriorosso, Viterbo,
Italy.
For the exhibition, 60 artifacts
have left Egypt for the first time. Curator Tarek El-Awady tells
artnet News that moving and transporting the precious treasures
required a “well-studied and planned protocol.” This included
specially designed crates and packing materials, as well as
condition reports and preservation guidelines.
“Tutankhamun’s treasure is not
only ancient artifacts, but it is also the most precious treasure
from the ancient world, and the only treasures found intact of a
king from Egypt’s new kingdom,” El-Awady says.
A Passage Into the
Afterlife
The primary focus of the
exhibition is the meaning of the burial items in the royal
tomb. The artifacts
include a statue of Tutankhamun, a gilded wooden bed, a shield,
shrines, and a wishing cup, to help the golden pharaoh on his
journey into the afterlife.
At the Saatchi Gallery, the
story of the funerary objects will be told through nine galleries
that incorporate digital content, contextual material, audio and
custom soundscapes. There will also be some recent discoveries made
possible with the help of modern technologies such as CT-scans and
DNA analysis.
“The discovery of Tutankhamun’s
tomb is a timeless story known throughout the world, and this
exhibition will present these important historical artifacts in a
highly innovative way through immersive displays,” Saatchi Gallery
director Philippa Adams says in a statement. “We are thrilled and
honored to be hosting this culturally significant
exhibition.”
Gilded wooden “Ostrich Hunt” fan. Image
courtesy of IMG.
Timed tickets are available for
purchase online, with adult tickets during peak hours costing
upwards of £37.40.
While exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery are typically free to the
public, the exhibition has
been produced by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and events
company IMG to raise funds for the forthcoming Giza museum, which
has a planned footprint of 5.2 million square feet.
El-Awady stresses that this
could be many visitors” last chance” to see the treasures before
they’re permanently installed in Egypt.
The museum will cover 3,000
years of ancient Egyptian history, housing more than 100,000
artifacts. Tutankhamun’s
treasure was previously housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but
fewer than 2,000 objects could be displayed at one time because of
space constraints. In the new home, which is slated to open in
2020, there will be room for all the treasure to be displayed at
once. See more items from the exhibition below.
“TUTANKHAMUN: Treasures of
the Golden Pharaoh,” will run November 2, 2019, through May 3, 2020
at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
Gilded wooden figure of Tutankhamun on a
skiff, throwing harpoon. Image courtesy of IMG.
Gold inlaid Canopic coffinette of
Tutankhamun Dedicated to Imseti and Isis. Image courtesy of
IMG.
Wooden ceremonial shield with king as
sphinx trampling on Nubian enemies. Image courtesy of IMG.
Wooden gilded mirror case in form of an
ankh, inlaid with blue glass and carnelian. Image courtesy of
IMG.
The post Treasures From King Tut’s Tomb Are Heading to
London Before Returning to Egypt Forever. See Highlights Here
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