The last Tutankhamun show enthralled an entire generation. And little wonder. As if the world of the pharaohs wasn’t already exciting enough with its scarabs and cobras, its falcons and sphinxes, its bandaged corpses and its brainextracting hooks, here was the mystery of a handsome boy king and his tomb full of treasures. Here were rumours of murder and a real-life mummy’s curse. No wonder the British Museum’s 1972 show set the turnstiles spinning. It attracted more than 1.5 million visitors. The modern-day blockbuster exhibition was born.

Now, like some cross between a Rolling Stones comeback and a new Tintin adventure, the next Tutankhamun show arrives in our country. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs opens tomorrow at the O centre. Can it match up to the visions that glimmer in the Aladdin’s cave of our excitable imaginations? Or have expectations been cranked to unrealistic levels? More than 325,000 people have already bought tickets to find out. Are they about to bear witness to the latest curse of the Dome?

A big plastic bubble hardly seems a happy substitute for a pyramid. But what this show lacks in natural setting it more than makes up for in artificial atmosphere. From an introductory voiceover by Omar Sharif through the sort of piped music that accompanied a Liz Taylor Cleopatra, to the Pharaoh’s Palace lounge bar at the end of the exhibition, designers shamelessly camp up the Egyptian mood.

Mostly it’s tacky. Forget the hushed atmosphere of a scholarly institution. Think of Tutankhamun goes to Hollywood. This is a rapaciously commercial show. It charges you £20 a pop and shamelessly peddles the most ridiculous King Tut tat in its shop – including its most famous bad-taste bestseller: a sarcophagus tissue box that dispenses its contents through one nostril.

But try not to be put off. About twice the size of the last Tutankhamun show, this exhibition displays some 130 of among the most historically important objects in the world.

About half of these are not in fact from his tomb – or even from his reign, for that matter. They are there to set a short-lived (he died at the age of 19 after only about ten years on the throne) and actually fairly insignificant pharaoh in the context of his family and the historical period that their dynasty defined. It’s a case of meet the folks – from Ahmenotop II, his putative great-great-grandfather, the warrior ruler of an empire that covered much of the known world, to Akhenaton, his father, the so called “heretic pharaoh” who broke with age-old religious tradition. For the first time in recorded history there are records of a single god.

This was a fascinating period. It is brought to evocative life (or uncomfortable death if you happened to be a Nubian enemy) by a selection of exquisitely crafted and densely symbolic objects that offer insights into anything from changing religious beliefs to their accompanying aesthetic shifts, from the significance of the river Nile to a delight in visual puns, from ostrich-hunting to the application of cosmetics.

Maps and photographs help to explain, and, though the accompanying texts are concise, someone seems to have struggled to put in more than the bare minimum.

But what you really have to do – if you can ignore the noise of the audio-guides buzzing about you like a cloud of Nile mosquitoes – is to focus hard on the objects. Walk round them. Read their details. Admire their immaculate craftsmanship. It is here that the clues to this exotic culture lie. What this show, with the luxury of some 200,000 sq ft at its disposal, can offer us is a chance to study them properly. A monumental and entrancingly beautiful sculpted head of Ahmenotop, is given not only its own gallery but its own pillared approach. It merits the ceremony. It is a masterpiece.

But what about the tomb treasures? Do we get our own mini-version of the Howard Carter experience? Do we sense the thrill that the great archaeologist felt back in 1922 when, by flickering candlelight, he first squinted into a chamber undisturbed for 33 centuries? “Can you see anything?” hissed the impatient Lord Carnavon, from behind him. It was all Carter could do get out the words. “Yes . . . wonderful things,” he supposedly whispered. “Gold . . . everywhere the glint of gold . . .”

The visitor descends to a second level of this show – to galleries dedicated exclusively to the boy king’s burial treasures. Only a fraction of the more than 5,000 excavated objects can be shown. Among these is a handful of star pieces: the snaking cobra diadem that protected the mummified pharaoh, the precious gold dagger that lay by his side, the falcon-shaped pectoral that wrapped his royal neck, the inlaid collar that he wore when first crowned. They have a glint, though even amid the surrounding darkness not quite the brightness that some might expect. Egyptian gold, apparently, has a high iron content that gives it a burnished red depth.

Still, many will feel swindled not to see the face that launched a thousand museum queues. The totemic gold mask that caused impassable bottlenecks in the last Tutankhamun show is apparently considered too fragile to leave Cairo. The golden image that gazes, kohl-eyed, from all the advertising material is actually a blown-up depiction of a miniature coffin made for the liver. Examine this closely and you will see that it is one of the most spectacular objects in this show. But still, if it’s the boy king’s bling you are after, this show will probably disappoint.

This exhibition is less about the glint of treasure than about the man behind the golden mask. It is less about distant admiration of mythical splendour than about discovering more intimate truths. It is the story of a boy with a shy, bucktoothed smile who succeeded in presenting himself as a splendid living god before his final transformation into the poor, crumpled, leathery creature so recently revealed beneath unravelled bandages.

This show is at its most moving where it is most intimate. Look at the delicately engraved little shrine for a statue, for instance, and study its images of Tutankhamun and his queen (who was probably also his half sister – and hardly surprising that he should take her if an entrancingly beautiful statue of her own sister bears any family resemblance). See the slender boy king pouring wine for his wife; watch her tying on his heavy collar or anointing his skin; witness the tenderness in the mutual touch of their hands. No more intimate picture of a pharaoh’s life exists.

Imagine Tutankhamun opening his pretty cosmetic box with a big cat lounging on the lid, or pressing his hand hopefully to some little scarab charm. Look at the miniature funerary mask for a foetus which may well have been intended for one of the two stillborn daughters who were buried along with him. Or examine the lovely little game box that the boy king took with him to the afterlife, much as a modern boy might take his PlayStation on holiday.

So try to forget all the Hollywood-style trash. Let your imagination run its own course. There are plenty of treasures in this show that can still annihilate, as Carter so famously put it, the passing of 3,000 years.

— Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs runs until August 31, 2008

See the treasures for yourself: our ticket guide

Tickets are timed and dated.
Admission is 10am-7pm daily

PRICES SINGLE TICKETS

Adult weekday £15, weekend £20;
children (5-15) weekday £7.50, weekend £10;
under-fives free;
concessions (Seniors, disabled, unemployed with ID) weekday £12.50, weekend £16;
family (2 adults, 2 children) weekday £45, weekend £50.

GROUP TICKETS

A group consists of a minimum of 10 paying customers (under-fives are free). 1 free adult place with every 10 schoolchildren. Coach parking is free. Adult group weekday £13.50, weekend £20; concession weekday £10.75, weekend £16; school & youth weekday £6.75, weekend £10.

TO BUY TICKETS

ONLINE

www.visitlondon.com/tut or www.kingtut.org
Limited edition Tutankhamun Visitor Oyster Cards for prepaid Tube, bus, DLR and tram transport can be purchased with tickets at www.visitlondon.com/tut.

BY PHONE

Individual tickets 0844 8440003; group tickets 0870 5949494.
There is no maximum ticket allocation, but if you are buying more than 10 you will be directed to group sales.

IN PERSON

Visit the O2 box office at the O2, London SE10 0DX (nearest Tube, North Greenwich) 12pm-7pm.

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