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Exhibitions of artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun have been held at museums in several countries, notably the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, United States, Canada, Japan, and France.
Theartifacts had sparked widespread interest inancient Egypt when they werediscovered between 1922 and 1927, but most of them remained in theEgyptian Museum inCairo until the 1960s, when they were first exhibited outside of Egypt.[1] Because of these exhibitions, relics from thetomb of Tutankhamun are among the most travelled artifacts in the world. Probably the best-known tour was theTreasures of Tutankhamun from 1972 until 1981.
Other exhibitions have includedTutankhamun Treasures in 1961 and 1967,Tutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter beginning in 2004,Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs beginning in 2005, andTutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs in 2008. Permanent exhibitions include theTutankhamun Exhibition inDorchester, United Kingdom, which contains replicas of many artifacts.
All of the artifacts exhumed from the Tutankhamun tomb are, by international convention, considered property of the Egyptian government.[2] Consequently, these pieces are normally kept at theEgyptian Museum inCairo; the only way for them to be shown internationally is by approval of Egyptian authorities. Although journalists and government officials generally support the tours, some Egyptians argue that the artifacts should remain on display in their own country, where Egyptian school-children would have greater access to them, and where the museum's exhibit would attract foreign tourists.[3]
The first travelling exhibition of a substantial number of Tutankhamun artifacts took place from 1961 to 1966. The exhibition, titledTutankhamun Treasures, initially featured 34 smaller pieces made of gold, alabaster, glass, and similar materials.[4] The portions of the exhibition occurring in the United States were arranged by theSmithsonian Institution and organized by Dr.Froelich Rainey, Director of theUniversity of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, with the assistance of Dr. Sarwat Okasha, Minister of Culture and National Guidance of theUnited Arab Republic.[4] The exhibit travelled to 18 cities in the United States and six in Canada.[3]
The exhibition had a public purpose in mind, to "stimulate public interest in theUNESCO-sponsored salvage program for Nubian monuments threatened by theAswan Dam project".[4][5] The exhibition opened in November 1961 at the Smithsonian'sNational Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.[4]
The exhibition was shown in eighteen cities in the United States and in six cities in Canada.[3]
From 1965 to 1966 an enlarged version of the 1961–1965 North America tour took place in Japan. The Japanese exhibition saw nearly 3 million visitors.[3]
The French exhibit saw an attendance of 1,240,975 (It was titledTutankhamun and His Time and had 45 pieces on display)
The genesis of theTreasures of Tutankhamun exhibition reflected the changing dynamic ofMiddle East relations.
It was first shown in London at theBritish Museum in 1972. After a year of negotiations between Egypt and the United Kingdom, an agreement was signed in July 1971. Altogether, 50 pieces were chosen by the directors of the British Museum and theCairo Museum to be shown at the exhibition, including 17 never before displayed outside Egypt. For insurance purposes, the items were valued at £9.06 million. In January 1972, they were transported to London on two civilian flights and one by theRoyal Air Force, carrying, among other objects,the gold death mask. QueenElizabeth II officially opened the exhibition on March 29, 1972. More than 30,000 people visited in its first week. By September, 800,000 had been to the exhibition, and its duration was extended by three months because of the popularity. When it did close on December 31, 1972, 1.6 million visitors had passed through the exhibition doors. All profits (£600,000) were donated toUNESCO for conserving the temples atPhilae, Egypt.[17]
Treasures of Tutankhamun was the most popular exhibition in the museum's history.[18] It is considered a landmark achievement inEgypt–United Kingdom relations.[17] The exhibition moved on to other countries, including the USSR, US, Canada, and West Germany.
Egyptian cultural officials initially stalled prospects of an American tour, as Egypt was then more closely aligned with the Soviet Union, where fifty pieces had toured in 1973.[1] However, relations thawed later that year when the U.S. interceded following theYom Kippur War to sponsor a ceasefire and consequently a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.[1] U.S. presidentRichard Nixon thereafter visited Egypt, becoming the first American President to do so since theSecond World War, and personally prevailed upon Egyptian presidentAnwar Sadat to permit the artifacts to tour the United States – with the U.S. tour including one more city than the Soviet tour had included,[clarification needed] and several additional pieces.[1] The showing was the largest of Tutankhamun's artifacts, with 53 pieces.[3]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized the U.S. exhibition, which ran from November 17, 1976, through September 30, 1979. More than eight million attended.[19] The Metropolitan's exhibition was designed to recreate for visitors the drama of the 1922 discovery of the treasure-filled tomb. Included along with original objects excavated from the tomb were reprints fromglass plate negatives in the Metropolitan's collection of the expedition photographerHarry Burton's photographs documenting the excavation's discoveries step by step.[20] The Smithsonian described the exhibit as one of the initial "blockbuster exhibits" which sparked the museum community's interest in such exhibitions.[21]
After the six U.S. tour locations were named, San Francisco citizens bombarded the Mayor's Office with inquiries as to why the tour was not coming there. As a result, museum trustees flew to Egypt to meet with theEgyptian Museum in Cairo, where they worked out a mutual agreement for a seventh stop. Profits after exhibition expenses resulted in $10+ million going to the Egyptian Museum for refurbishing.[22]
After the exhibition left London in 1972, it toured the USSR from 1973 to 1975.
During the years 1976 to 1979 the exhibition was shown in the United States. While at the following venues, the exhibit attracted more than eight million visitors: (NGA)
After the exhibit left the U.S. it went to:
While the exhibition was on display in San Francisco, Police Lieutenant George E. LaBrash suffered a minor stroke as he guarded the treasures after hours. He later filed alawsuit against the city on the theory that his injury had resulted from the legendarycurse of the pharaohs.[24]
Originally entitledTutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter, this exhibition is made up of fifty artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb as well as seventy examples of funerary goods from other18th Dynasty tombs. The tour of the exhibition began in 2004 inBasel, Switzerland and went toBonn, Germany on the second leg. The European tour was organized by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), and the Egyptian Museum in cooperation with theAntikenmuseum Basel andSammlung Ludwig.Deutsche Telekom sponsored the Bonn exhibition.[25]
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs consists of the same items from the Germany and Switzerland tour but in a slightly different exhibition. Of the 50 artifacts from the Tutankhamun tomb fewer than ten were repeated from the 1970s exhibition. This exhibition began in 2005, and was directed by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, together with Arts and Exhibitions International andthe National Geographic Society.[26]
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs was displayed in the following venues.
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs displays actual items excavated from tombs of ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. From 130 authentic artifacts presented, 50 were found specifically during the excavations of Tutankhamun's tomb. The exhibition includes 80 exhibits from the reigns of Tutankhamun's immediate predecessors in the Eighteenth dynasty, such asHatshepsut, whose trade policies greatly increased the wealth of that dynasty and enabled the lavish wealth of Tutankhamun's burial artifacts. Other items were taken from other royal graves of the 18th Dynasty (dating 1555BCE to 1305BCE) spanning PharaohsAmenhotep II,Amenhotep III andThutmose IV, among others. Items from the largely intact tomb ofYuya andTjuyu (King Tut's great-grandparents; the parents ofTiye who was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaohAmenhotep III) are also included.Yuya andTjuyu's tomb was one of the most celebrated historical finds in the Valley of the Kings until Howard Carter's discovery in 1922. This exhibition does not include either the gold death mask that was a popular exhibit fromThe Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, or the mummy itself. The Egyptian Government has determined that these artifacts are too fragile to withstand travel, and thus they will permanently remain in Egypt.[30] The mummy of Tutankhamun is the only known mummy in the Valley Of The Kings to still lie in its original tomb,KV62.
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs was expected to draw more than three million people.[26] The exhibition started in Los Angeles, California, then moved toFort Lauderdale, Florida,Chicago andPhiladelphia. The exhibition then moved to London[31] before finally returning to Egypt in August 2008. Subsequent events have propelled an encore of the exhibition in the United States, beginning with theDallas Museum of Art in October 2008 which hosted the exhibition until May 2009.[32] The tour continued to other U.S. cities.[33] After Dallas the exhibition moved to thede Young Museum inSan Francisco, to be followed by theDiscovery Times Square Exposition in New York City.[34] In Melbourne, 797,277 people attended the exhibition, breaking Australian box office records.[29]
This exhibition, featuring completely different artifacts from those inTutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, first ran at theEthnological Museum inVienna, from 9 March to 28 September 2008, under the titleTutankhamun and the World of the Pharaohs. It featured a further 140 treasures from the Valley of the Kings, including objects from the tomb of King Tut.[citation needed]
The exhibition continued in North America with the following itinerary:[citation needed]
This exhibition fromIMG Exhibitions featured over 150 authentic tomb objects, with many appearing outside of Egypt for the first and last time.[36] It ran from March 2018 to May 2020, touring North America, France and the United Kingdom. A new permanent exhibition for the treasures is being constructed at theGrand Egyptian Museum in Cairo so this is the last time the contents of the tomb will be displayed outside of Egypt.
Due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition in London closed early on March 20, 2020, and the artifacts were returned to Egypt on August 28 of that year instead of continuing on to Boston and Sydney. A selection of artifacts from the exhibit were put on temporary display in museums inHurghada andSharm el-Sheikh pending the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum.[40]
Several exhibitions have been established which feature replicas of Tutankhamun artifacts, rather than real artifacts from archaeological sites.[3] These provide access to pieces of comparable appearance to viewers living in places where the real artifacts have not circulated. The first replica exhibition, a copy of the entire tomb of Tutankhamun, was built only a few years after the discovery of the tomb. This replica was temporary, staged by Arthur Weigall for theBritish Empire Exhibition atWembley, in 1924.[3] Modern replica exhibitions exist inDorchester, Dorset, England, inLas Vegas, Nevada, United States, and even inCairo, Egypt (where the replica exhibition is intended to reduce the overwhelming traffic to the real locations).[3] A travelling exhibition of replicas titledTutankhamun: His Tomb and Treasures, featuring several hundred pieces, has been shown inZürich,Brno, Munich, andBarcelona.[3]
TheTutankhamun Exhibition inDorchester, Dorset, England, is a permanent exhibition set up in 1986 by Michael Ridley as a re-creation of the tomb of the ancient EgyptianPharaohTutankhamun. The exhibition does not display any of the actual treasures of Tutankhamun, but all artifacts are recreated to be exact facsimiles of the actual items. Original materials have been used where possible, including gold. The storyline is based around the famous English archaeologistHoward Carter. The exhibition reveals history from Carter's point of view as he entered the tomb inValley of the Kings in November 1922.
TheDiscovering Tutankhamun exhibition at theAshmolean Museum in Oxford, England, was a temporary exhibition, open from July until November 2014, exploringHoward Carter's excavation of the tomb ofTutankhamun in 1922. Original records, drawings and photographs from theGriffith Institute were on display.[45] The complete records of the ten year excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun were deposited in theGriffith Institute Archive at theUniversity of Oxford shortly after Carter's death.[46] A replica death mask was displayed along with replicas of other items from the tomb.[47]
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