To celebrate the 100th anniversary of discovering the tomb of King Tut, many of the Boy King’s artifacts and other ancient Egyptian items will be touring the United States in the new year.
The largest ever international exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts from the tomb of its most famous pharaoh will open early next year in Los Angeles. King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh will visit ten different cities as it tours the world starting off on the West Coast of America on 24 March.
More than 150 items from Tutankhamun’s tomb will be on display at the California Science Center. The exhibition will be an absolute treat for Egyptologists – both amateur and professional – as never before have so many ancient items associated with King Tut been on display together outside Egypt. Many of the items would have been used by the Boy King himself including golden jewellery, elaborate carvings, sculptures, and ritual antiquities.
Forty per cent of the objects will be leaving home for both the first and last time before returning for permanent display in the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is currently under construction.
You can first see the exhibit in Los Angeles before it heads to Europe and then to its new permanent home at The Grand Egyptian Museum (which is located near the Pyramids of Giza). Be sure to pre-register for the L.A. exhibit now.
Of course you can’t talk about a King Tut without being reminded of Steve Martin’s bit on Saturday Night Live in 1978. The now-39-year-old sketch was satire on the Tutankhamun exhibit’s popularity when it traveled the US from 1976 to 1979. It has recently come under fire for being racist (“That’s like somebody … making a song just littered with the n-word everywhere”) by some Reed College students:
Biggest ever King Tut exhibition coming to America next year
Thanks, Karen!