TUTANKHAMUN EXHIBITION A ‘MESSAGE OF PEACE’ FROM EGYPT TO BRITAIN
▶ Organisers behind a show of artefacts belonging to the boy king believe it will attract millions. Jack Dutton reports
When British archaeologist Howard Carter and financier Lord Carnarvon discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb almost a century ago, they captured imaginations across the globe. The UK’s ties with the golden pharaoh, dating back to that momentous day in 1922, are underlined in a major new exhibition in London, Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh.
“There is a very old and strong love story between Tutankhamun and the UK,” says Khaled El Anany, Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities.
The show, at Saatchi Gallery, is three times larger than the Tutankhamun exhibition that arrived in the UK capital in 1972. All 150 of the artefacts date to the reign of the pharaoh, between 1332 and 1323 BC.
El Anany says the London show serves as a “teaser” for the opening of Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum next year, which, for the first time in history, will publicly display all of Tutankhamun’s treasure under one roof. Produced by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh is curated by Egyptologist and archaeologist Tarek El Awady – former director-general of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Tahrir Square, who is overseeing its successor. Because of a lack of space, little more than a third of the child king’s treasure could previously be displayed at any one time.
“It’s a message of peace from the Egyptian people to the British people, telling them we are waiting for you to visit Egypt, to visit our archaeological sites, our new discoveries, the Grand Egyptian Museum,” El Awady says.
Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, who helped curate and write the catalogue for the exhibition, tells The National he would like to see the artefacts as part of an exhibition at Louvre Abu Dhabi. “If you have a famous guy there like Tutankhamun it will make this museum known to the world,” he says.
The ancient Egyptians believed that death was also a rebirth. Through nine immersive galleries that incorporate digital content, contextual material and creative sound design, the exhibition portrays Tutankhamun’s passage into everlasting life, exploring the way the ancient Egyptians believed his funerary objects would be used on the perilous journey to the next life.
Such pieces include statues, scarabs, vases and a white lotus chalice, which Howard Carter called “the wishing cup”.
Perhaps the most impressive, says El Awady, is the wooden Guardian Statue of the Ka of the King Wearing the Nemes Headcloth. The figure’s sandals and uraeus – a sacred cobra – are rendered in bronze, while its so-called “magic eyes” are made of volcanic obsidian.
“Try to look at this statue from any angle and you will see the eyes are not looking at you because they look far beyond you. They are looking to the eternal life of the king,” he says.
The Guardian Statue is one of 60 works in the exhibition to have never previously been shown outside Egypt. Carter found it and a second statue in Tutankhamun’s tomb. They were facing each other, and when the archaeologist examined the space between the two statues, he found the sealed burial chamber.
“That’s why he named the two statues the guardian statues because they were protecting the burial chamber of the king. And this is the only life-size sculpture found inside the tomb of Tutankhamun – that’s why it’s very distinguished.”
The second statue is in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities and will be moved to the new venue when it is complete. London is the third of 10 cities to host the exhibition. Previous shows, in Los Angeles and Paris, attracted crowds of 700,000 and 1.4 million respectively. Noting that the second show attracted twice as many visitors as the first, El Anany quipped that “the maths is simple” as to how many he wants to attend the third show – 2.4 million.
The exhibition serves as a teaser for the opening of Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum next year and features 150 artefacts
Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh runs until Sunday, May 3, at the Saatchi Gallery in London