Tag: B.C.

‘A nine year old king’ sounds like the stuff of a fairy tale yet it is no fairy tale! King Tutankhamun who ruled Egypt thirty three centuries ago was the son of King Amenhotep IV (better known as Akhenaten) & grand-son of King Amenhotep III. He came to the throne of Egypt at nine years of age! Just as Tut’s father, Akhenaten, had deserted his own father’s religion of many deities & upheld one deity, Aten the sun disk, young King Tut ended his father’s one deity practices, destroying its monuments & artistic manifestations, & returned to the numerous deities of his grandfathers. The young king did not live long though; some think he died at age 15 or 16 while others put it at 19 years of age. Modern DNA research & other state of the art technologies are increasingly revealing more about his life and death. But enough is already known anyway about his short reign, his half-sister-wife Ankhesenamun (Nefertiti’s daughter) & their off-spring (two still-born daughters whose fetuses were found in Tut’s tomb).

Howard Carter’s discovery of Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, officially known as The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in the West of Thebes, outside modern Luxor, is itself fantastic in its ups and downs and has captivated the world’s imagination alike with its facts as with its rumors of Pharaoh’s curse and other lore which kept the cinema industry going for decades.

November 4th, 1922 was the day Carter found the staircase which led to King Tut’s tomb. Although the antechamber has clearly been tampered with by robbers, Carter’s description of his first glimpse of its contents is still stunning. At first, he could see nothing in the light of the candle he inserted through a hole drilled in the door, but as his eyes “grew accustomed to the light, details of the room emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold — everywhere the glint of gold”. The actual burial chamber was opened in February 1923. This is where Carter found a series of gold sarcophagi at the heart of which lay the mummy of young king Tut with his solid gold funerary mask on his face & chest and gold sandals on his feet. There was yet another smaller room which contained the “greatest treasures of the tomb”; both of these chambers have fortunately escaped grave robbers for 3,000 years!

If having one’s name and life-story kept up in people’s minds and hearts renders one immortal, then young King Tut “is pretty spry for a guy who is more than 3,000 years old”, as Jesse Baker said in 2011. One might think that it is an indisputable fact that the young Pharaoh (with his treasure) has travelled more extensively after his death than in his life time! Only till one discovers that King Tut’s real remains have never left Egypt; what goes on display is an exact life-size 3-D replica made possible by CT scans. Nevertheless, it is the most widely archeological/artistic travelling exhibition from ancient Egypt. From the 1960s onwards, King Tut has so far visited the UK, Soviet Union, United States, Canada, Japan, France, Switzerland, and Germany etc. The last time an exhibition of King Tut’s treasures toured the US was not so long ago. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition started in Los Angeles County Museum of Art in June 16 to November 15, 2005. It then toured 18 cities in the US before leaving for Australia in January 2011.

A popular Egyptian saying claims that whoever drinks of the waters of the Nile is bound to return for more! It seems one can assert the same for the waters of North American rivers. King Tut is indeed back in Los Angeles. “King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” is at California’s Science Centre from March, 2018 onwards for ten months with extended summer visiting hours.

This exhibition is the result of the collaboration of Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities, Exhibitions International, IMG, and the California Science Center. Mostafa Waziry, the ministry’s secretary general, is on record saying, “To celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of the boy king, Tutankhamun, as a part if the celebration, Egypt is sending 150 masterpieces to tour all over the world”. Among those 150 artifacts and antiquities are sixty which are on display for the very first time outside of Egypt. “Some stories are everlasting, and that is the case with the legend of King Tut,” said President of Exhibitions International, John Norman who also produced Tutankhamun’s earlier exhibitions. “For this new exhibition, we have curated an extraordinary collection of treasures from King Tut’s tomb and given this historical discovery a timely new dimension. Visitors will be truly immersed in a modern presentation like no other”.

The pleasure of California Science Center President, Jeff Rudolph, is evident in his assertion, “We are pleased to host the world premiere of ‘King Tut: Treasure of the Golden Pharaoh’ “. He added further, “Its ornate artifacts and multimedia displays will stimulate interest in the many sciences related to archaeology”.
The exhibition is a truly memorable experience which enables the visitor to trace the boy King’s journey from death to the after-life and explains the significance of each artifact interred with him. Thus there is, for example, a statue denoting the pharaoh’s resurrection at dawn, an exquisite wooden shrine with scenes of Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamun giving a rare glimpse of the daily life of a royal household and a jeweled caffinette which held the King’s mummified liver with the goddess Isis depicted on each lid for protection. The exhibition features “nine distinct experiential galleries and an array of 3D visuals, digital content, 360-degree theatrical manifestations, custom soundscapes and more in an engaging, audio-guided tour”.

It is indeed a new experience altogether where dazzling multimedia enhances rare artifacts in ways never achieved before, taking us, the exhibition visitors, on an immersive journey of Tut’s quest for immortality. We were able to see and get in-depth information on the exquisite rings found on Tut’s fingers, the opulent jewelry that adorned his body, and those gold sandals which we have mentioned before. It is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime chance also to discover how the CT & DNA analysis of Tut’s 3,300 year old mummy together with other cutting-edge technologies have revealed new information about the boy king’s health , lineage and possible cause of death.

Zahi Hawass, the well-known archaeologist shares the same vision about the boy King’s exhibition. On August 11th “A night at the museum with Dr. Zahi Hawass” event at the California Science Center, Dr. Hawass is due to present the latest updates on his excavations in the Valley of the Kings. Then he will hold a private exhibition viewing of the KING TUT.

Last but by no means least, the boy king is clearly still looking after his interests and those of his people. If earlier tours of US cities benefited Egypt little financially, as Mark Lach, senior vice president for Arts and Exhibitions International, the organization which negotiated Tut’s return to the US, this is not the case this time around. When the boy king and his treasures go home this time, there will be also about $80 million to take back to Egypt. He is thus raising funds for Egypt, partially to preserve pharaonic temples and monuments but primarily to help the construction of ‘The Grand Egyptian Museum’ which will be his final resting place.

For further information about King Tut, you may consider the following links:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2018/03-04/findingkingtutstomb
https://interactive.wttw.com/remembering-chicago/tutmania-field-museum
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/septemberoctober, vol. 36, Number 5
https:// nationalgeographic.com
https://www.npr.org/2011/01/13/132743793/king-tutankhamens-farewell-tour
https://californiasciencecenter.org/exhibits/king-tut-treasures-of-the-pharaoh
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-night-at-the-museum-with-dr-zahi-hawass-tickets-47166098069
https://californiasciencecenter.org/Press-room/Press-releases/king-tut-treasure
https://foxla.com/entertainment/features/king-tut-treasures
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2018/03-04/findingkingtutstomb
https://interactive.Wttw.com/remembering-Chicago/tut mania-field-Museum