The exhibition that is soon to open at the O2 represents the first time that
treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun have come to Britain for 35 years,
and only the second time they have visited these shores since their
discovery in 1922. The first such occasion – the famous exhibition at the
British Museum in 1972 – lasted for an unprecedented nine months and
attracted 1.7m visitors, still a record for a temporary exhibition in the UK
in the modern era.
The 1972 exhibition has embedded itself in the public consciousness worldwide
as the herald of the age of “blockbuster” shows. This was long before the
days of timed ticketing and, in an absurdly British way, the queues have
become almost as much a folk memory as the exhibition itself. Many
middle-aged Londoners still remember the excitement of queuing as children –
some for up to eight hours – for the chance to see the 3,300-year-old
treasures. Indeed, several British Egyptologists today attribute their
career choice to the inspirational effect the exhibition had on them.
The British Museum’s collections span almost every corner of the globe and
every period of human history, but, for many, the images conjured up by the
words “British Museum” are of mummies and animal-headed gods. The Egyptian
galleries remain the museum’s most visited areas, and the Egyptian
collection, the most importantany-where outside Egypt, has played a
significant role in shedding light on the ancient Egyptian world for tens of
millions of people. School visits make a beeline for the mummy galleries,
eager to learn about Egyptian attitudes to life and death.
Perhaps the best-known object in the collection is the Rosetta Stone, a stele
from the 2nd century BC that bears inscriptions in three ancient scripts,
and proved the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. That decipherment at
last revealed the world of ancient Egypt, revolutionising our understanding
of this civilisation.
If the Rosetta Stone is the most famous Egyptian object in the British Museum,
the most loved is a very stylish cat sporting a raffish gold earring, called
the Gayer-Anderson Cat, after the retired army major from whom the object
was acquired. It is perhaps the finest bronze statue to survive from ancient
Egypt, a superb example of ancient metal craftsmanship, and its elegant
form, gold jewellery and elaborate necklace with solar symbols encapsulate
the mysteriousness of Egyptian religion. The cat will be the focal point of
a new display at the museum, its Egyptian salute to the exhibition in
Greenwich.
The O2 exhibition will feature roughly the same number of artefacts from the
pharaoh’s tomb as the 1972 show (about 50), but it will set them in a wider
context, displaying a further 80 contemporary objects, including treasures
from the tombs of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Tutankhamun’s
great-grandparents, Yuya and Tuyu. The gilded coffin of Tutankhamun’s
great-grandmother is exquisite, as are a mar-vellous stopper from a canopic
jar (to hold the royal entrails), representing the head of Queen Kiya, and
the impressive statue of Akhenaten, thought to be Tutankhamun’s father, who
attempted to instigate wide-ranging religious changes during his reign.
Importantly for the UK, the exhibition will also include a gallery dedicated
to the fascinating story of Howard Carter, the tenacious British
archeologist who discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. The British Museum
has provided curatorial input for the design of this unique part of the
exhibition in London, as well as supplying the teaching resources for school
visits to the exhibition. A dedicated website provides downloadable teaching
packs and activities, and we hope the exhibitions will encourage greater use
and study of the outstanding Egyptian collections that are permanently shown
in museums across the UK.
The boy king’s visit also has a practical purpose. For nearly 200 years, the
British Museum has enjoyed excellent relationships with the authorities and
museums in Egypt, enabling a vital exchange of knowledge, ideas and skills.
As well as carrying out joint research, we confront many similar problems,
not least the difficulties of ageing buildings trying to adapt to meet
modern demands. Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, the world’s greatest treasure house
of ancient Egyptian objects and the permanent home of the Tutankhamun
artefacts, was opened in 1902 to hold 35,000 objects for about 500 daily
visitors. A century later, the museum is bursting with nearly five times as
many objects and more than 16 times as many visitors, which can make visits
stifling – particularly in summer. More importantly, the impossibility of
installing full air conditioning threatens the long-term preservation of the
ancient objects.
The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, under the energetic and
inspirational leadership of Zahi Hawass, has therefore started construction
of the Grand Egyptian Museum, a modern facility near the pyramids at Giza
that will enable the artefacts to be more appropriately displayed, studied
and conserved. Revenue generated from the millions of tickets sold for the
exhibition of Tutankhamun’s treasures – which has toured to four American
cities before heading to London – will go towards the cost of the new
museum. The exhibition will therefore help to rehouse Tutankhamun’s
treasures for the next 100 years.
What is it about Tutankhamun that draws such crowds? Why do the objects from
the tomb of this relatively insignificant boy king fire people’s
imagination? Undoubtedly, one of the answers is the quality of the objects.
Tutankhamun’s tomb is the only royal Egyptian tomb to have been discovered
entirely intact and unravaged by looters. The artefacts that come from the
tomb are not the battered fragments that often represent this period of
Egyptian history; on the contrary, they are exquisitely crafted icons of
ancient Egyptian culture that remain beautifully preserved more than 33
centuries after they were buried.
Another possible reason for the public fascination with Tutankhamun was his
youth: he reigned from the age of nine until his death at about 18. The
cause of the king’s death has been the topic of speculation since the tomb’s
discovery, but it now seems likely that he died from a complication –
perhaps an infection – associated with a severe leg fracture. His body has
just been moved into a protective glass display case within the tomb, where
visitors will be able to look on the face of the boy king.
The story of the tomb’s discovery is well known and intriguing in its own
right. The scholarly work of Howard Carter had confirmed the existence of a
previously forgotten pharaoh, Tutankhamun. Carter’s long-term patron, the
keen amateur Egyptologist Lord Carnarvon, had funded Carter’s hunt for the
pharaoh’s tomb for several years, but, by 1922, meagre results were leading
Carnarvon to think of withdrawing. Carter persuaded him to fund one final
season of digging. On November 4, steps leading to a tomb were discovered,
and the seals on its door confirmed it to be that of Tutankhamun. Carter
immediately telegraphed England to tell Carnarvon to head for Egypt. On
November 26, Carter, in the company of Carnarvon and his daughter Evelyn,
first saw the interior of the tomb and the treasures lying in it. His
persistence had finally paid off.
The manner of Carter’s discovery contrasts strikingly with the other great
archeological find of the 20th century, the terracotta army from the tomb of
China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi. While the discovery of the pharaoh’s
tomb was the result of years of dedicated study and painstaking exploration,
the terracotta army was found by chance in 1974 by a farmer who unearthed
the head of a terracotta figure while ploughing his field. Separated by
thousands of miles and created 11 centuries apart, the differences between
the two tombs are obvious. Tutankhamun’s consists of four small rooms, while
the burial complex of Qin Shihuangdi is estimated to cover 56 sq km, the
size of modern Cambridge. In life, the differences were even more marked:
Qin Shihuangdi was a successful and ruthless military leader who created
what we still know today as China, while Tutankhamun is universally
recognised as a rather run-of-the-mill pharaoh. Fundamentally, however, the
pharaoh and the emperor were both driven by the idea that their tombs should
be equipped to ensure their continuing prosperity in the afterlife. The
discovery of both tombs has ensured that both rulers are remembered today,
if not quite in the manner in which they expected.
For the next five months, and for the first time ever, Londoners – and those
visiting the capital – have an extraordinary chance to experience first-hand
and compare the two greatest archeological discoveries of the 20th century.
It is an opportunity that will not come again.
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs is at the O2, SE10, from
Thursday until August 30, 2008; Divine Cat: Speaking to the Gods in Ancient
Egypt is in Room 3 at the British Museum, WC1, until January 27, 2008
