king tut tour 1980s

The Return of the King: The Tut Tour Comes Back to the States

By Jason Sheftell

In 1979 King Tut, an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh who ascended to the throne at age 9 and died before he was 20, captured the hearts and minds of America. Like a Rolling Stones concert tour, the traveling museum exhibit of King Tut drew huge crowds and a cult following. King Tut was everywhere. Comedian Steve Martin even wrote a song dedicated to the Boy King that rose to the top of the pop charts.

Now, he's back. A traveling exhibit titled "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" is scheduled to stop in four American cities over the next 27 months. Having opened on June 16 in Los Angeles, the exhibit will hit venues in Ft. Lauderdale, Chicago and Philadelphia.

For information on the traveling show, go to www.kingtut.org . They have detailed schedules, ticket information and an education section detailing the history of King Tut's life, death and afterlife, a custom inherent to the mummification process of the ancient Egyptians. The reason for the exhibit and the return of King Tut is quite simple -- the Egyptians need additional financing to preserve and fund the upkeep of the their great ancient national treasures such as the Pyramids, Sphinx and Temple of Luxur. Egyptian officials believe their great sites are decaying and face ruin within 100 years if not properly cared for and preserved.

With over 100 artifacts dating as far back as 3,500 years from both King Tutankhamun's tomb and the Valley of the Kings, burial site of most of Egypt's great Pharaohs, this particular exhibit includes the gold crown placed upon the Tut's mummified body that he may have worn in life and a gold-tiled coffin that contained the young king's internal organs. When King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922, it was one of the world's most important archaeological finds ever. The great exhibit with all its artifacts takes you back in time to the world of the Pharaohs and the culture of the Nile. It's an especially incredible show for kids who become enchanted by the color of the exhibit and Tut's personal history. After all, what nine year old can't relate to a king or queen his own age?

Ticket prices vary slightly per city. Expect to pay $30 per adult on weekends or $27 during the week. For children 6 to 17, tickets will cost $14 or $15 vary per city every day. Senior tickets cost $22 during the week or $27 on a Saturday or Sunday. Tickets are available for the first two legs of the exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that lasts from June 16 to November 15, 2005 and for the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale that goes from December 15, 2005 to April 23, 2006. You can sign up to be notified when tickets officially go on sale for the final two cities at www.kingtut.org/sweepstakes.htm . Tickets are expected to go on sale January 24, 2006 for the Chicago leg of the tour showing at The Field Museum from May 26, 2006 to January 24, 2007. For the show in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute from February 3 to September 7, 2007, tickets should go on sale sometime in 2006 as well. You'll find detailed information on each of the venues including telephone numbers, addresses and links to the museums' individual sites at www.kingtut.org/venues.htm . (The exhibit is skipping the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York because of a disagreement between museum officials and the Egyptian curators over an Egyptian demand to charge a separate price for entrance into the Tut exhibit, a request in direct contradiction to the Met's pay-one-price policy.)

Official planning for this exhibit even included securing special hotel deals in each of the host cities. In Los Angeles, seven hotels have deals related to the King Tut exhibit ( www.kingtut.org/lahotels.htm ). The Wilshire Grand (tel. 888/773-2888 ; www.wilshiregrand.com ) has a one-night double occupancy rate that includes two tickets to the exhibit, Executive Level accommodations, free parking and continental breakfast in the Executive Lounge for $169 per night. Additional nights at the hotel cost only $119. The Fort Lauderdale exhibit struck a deal with Marriott where Ft. Lauderdale Marriott Hotels & Resorts the official hotel sponsor for the event. Starting at $149 per night with double occupancy, you get two VIP tickets to the exhibit that mean front of line access, two audio tours, an official King Tut catalogue and 10 percent off the museum gift shop. See www.marriottse.com/offers/kingtut or call 800/583-0179 for details. There are six Marriott's in the Ft. Lauderdale vicinity all of which offer the above deal ranging in price from $149 to $199 per night depending on hotel amenities, location and resort type. Keep checking back at the King Tut website or sign up for newsletter to see hotel deals as they come available for the Chicago and Philadelphia exhibits.

Do you have a question or comment regarding this article? Are you planning to see Tut or did you see the exhibit first time around? Tell us on our Cultural Immersion Message Boards today.

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King Tut: A Classic Blockbuster Museum Exhibition That Began as a Diplomatic Gesture

When the boy-king was the hottest ticket in town.

Close-up of a gilded statue of Tut wearing the crown of Lower Egypt.

© Images of Africa Photobank / Alamy

President Richard Nixon hung on to the brass rail of a Victorian parlor car, leaning out the window and waving to cheering crowds. The train huffed from Cairo to Alexandria, passing cotton fields, orange groves, and water buffalo. The date was June 13, 1974, and back in Washington, D.C., the House Judiciary Committee waited impatiently for the White House to turn over tapes of conversations recorded in Nixon’s office. The committee wanted to know what Nixon knew about the Watergate burglary.

People line the edge of the National Mall, waiting to see “Treasures of Tutankhamun” at the National Gallery in February 1977.

Washington Post

In this pectoral, a scarab made of yellow-green chalcedony grows falcon wings as its front legs hold up the moon as represented by the “Eye of Horus.”

© CULTNAT, Dist. RMN-GP / Art Resource, NY

On the train next to Nixon stood Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, with whom he was about to sign a bilateral agreement. Negotiated by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s secretary of state, it represented a step forward in forging a new partnership between the two countries after the termination of diplomatic relations seven years earlier. Tucked into the agreement was a clause devoted to culture. The United States would help the Egyptians reconstruct Cairo’s opera house, while Egypt would send the “Treasures of Tutankh­amun” to the United States.

After an explosive few years in the Middle East, Richard Nixon wanted the American people to associate Egypt with something more than oil and war. There are few things that survive from the ancient world more compelling or captivating than artifacts of Tutankhamun, the boy-king who ruled Egypt thirty-three centuries ago. By sending his treasures on tour across the United States, Nixon and Kissinger hoped to shape public perceptions about the United States’ newest ally. What they got was a cultural juggernaut.

From November 1976 to April 1979, “Treasures of Tutankhamun” traveled to six American cities with the help of NEH grants. As millions of people lined up for hours to see the show, museums became the hottest tickets in town, helping usher in the era of the blockbuster museum exhibition.

The discovery that captivated the world 

Tutankhamun, more commonly known as King Tut, has played an outsized role in our cultural imagination ever since archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, opened his tomb in November 1922.

For years, Carter had been digging in the Valley of the Kings, the ancient burial site of Egypt’s pharaohs, in search of Tut. Almost ready to call it quits, Carnarvon agreed to support Carter for one last season. Carter decided to focus his efforts on a small plot of land lodged between the tombs of Ramesses II, Merneptah, and Ramesses VI. Huts that might have belonged to the workers who built the tomb of Ramesses VI had been discovered there. From what Carter knew about Egyptian burial practices, it seemed unlikely that workers would have been allowed to camp on a pharaoh’s tomb, but it was the only place left to search.

On the second day of the dig, Carter’s workmen discovered a layer of flint chips, which often signified the presence of a tomb. On the morning of day four, they found the beginning of a staircase. It dead-ended at a door bearing the seals of the royal necropolis. Marshalling every ounce of self-control he possessed, Carter ordered his workers to refill the staircase with rubble, then posted guards. A pharaoh might lie behind the door, but finding out would have to wait until Carnarvon arrived from Britain.

After a series of ferries, trains, ships, and donkeys, Carnarvon reached the Valley of Kings on November 20. Workers removed the rubble on the following day. Seals belonging to Tutankhamun appeared, and holes had been cut into the door. Carter’s heart sank. Archaeologists had located more than thirty royal tombs since the nineteenth century—only to discover that grave robbers had looted all of them first. What if Tut’s tomb had also been ransacked? Beyond the door was a narrow passage twenty-five feet long. It too bore signs of tampering. As the workers cleared the rubble, another door appeared, also sealed and repaired.

On November 26, Carter drilled a hole in the door and peeked inside. “At first, I could see nothing, the hot air escaping the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold,” he wrote in his account of the discovery.

Carter had found the antechamber to Tut’s tomb. Priceless artifacts lay jumbled all around: thrones, boxes, vases, chariots, statues, weapons, and more. Grave robbers most likely created the mess, as no pharaoh would have entered the afterlife amid such disarray.

Realizing he needed help, Carter contacted the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had a team working in the valley. In particular, he wanted the services of photographer Harry Burton. “Only too delighted to assist in any possible way. Please call on Burton and any other member of our staff,” cabled A. M. Lythgoe, the Met’s curator of Egyptian art. As Carter excavated, Burton photographed his progress, providing a historic and intimate account of the process.

The throng of reporters who witnessed the opening of Tut’s tomb made the discovery front-page news and this once obscure pharaoh a celebrity. But the antechamber was only the beginning. Carter found three more rooms—annex, burial chamber, and treasury—stuffed full of golden treasures. It would take more than a decade to excavate Tut’s tomb, but Carnarvon did not live to see the results. In April 1923, the earl died of complications from an infected mosquito bite. His untimely death, along with the demise of other members of the expedition, inspired lurid tales of the “Curse of the Pharaoh.”

A good deal of mystery surrounded the man in the tomb. Tut reigned for nine (or ten) years during the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom, a period of imperial prosperity for Egypt. He ascended the throne at the age of nine, taking as his wife Ankhesenamun, his half-sister and the daughter of Nefertiti. The couple produced two daughters, both of whom were stillborn. Their fetuses were found in Tut’s tomb. The boy-king also possessed a clubbed left foot, which probably required him to use a cane.

His short life has led to ongoing speculation on the cause of his death. Some have claimed murder. Others believe he died following a chariot accident. The most recent findings suggest that a sour genetic cocktail, caused by intermarriage among Egyptian royalty, produced a sickly constitution, further compromised by malaria.

Political arrangements

Throughout the fall and winter of 1974 to 1975, the State Department negotiated with the Egyptians. It was decided the exhibition would start in 1976 and serve as a gift of friendship from Egypt to the United States during the bicentennial year.

The inclusion of a Tut show in the Nixon-Sadat agreement upended plans by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to organize its own Tut exhibition. J. Carter Brown, the gallery’s director, had already received approval from Sadat and the Egyptian cultural ministry to host Tut in 1977 or 1978. Now that Tut had become part of Nixon’s diplomatic strategy, Brown wasn’t sure what role the National Gallery could or should play. Nevertheless, he offered the National Gallery’s services as the organizing institution.

Thomas Hoving, director of the Met, also stepped into the fray. Hoving didn’t think much of Nixon’s use of Tut as a diplomatic tool, but he changed his tune after Kissinger buttonholed C. Douglas Dillon, the president of the Met’s board of trustees. From his conversation with Kissinger, Dillon believed the Met might lose access to federal grants if it didn’t take an active role in organizing the Tut exhibition. Hoving, who had a flair for the dramatic, later claimed that Kissinger threatened to have his taxes audited if he didn’t show more interest. Soon, Hoving was knee-deep in his own negotiations with the Egyptians.

Having both the National Gallery and the Met vying to organize the Tut show complicated negotiations in Cairo. The museums had competed for decades, but the rivalry between Brown and Hoving was personal. Neither liked to lose—and Brown had consistently outmaneuvered Hoving in securing international shows. After the National Gallery beat out the Met to host another détente art show, “The Archaeological Treasures of the People’s Republic of China,” Hoving vowed to never lose another big show to Brown.

In the spring of 1975, the State Department asked Brown if the National Gallery would step aside and let the Met coordinate the exhibition. Hoving’s yearlong charm offensive in Cairo had worked its magic. Brown agreed, provided the Tut show opened at the National Gallery, in keeping with its bylaws, and the Met wasn’t given credit as the initiator of the exhibition. Hoving stewed over the Met being denied the chance to open the exhibition—Brown had once again managed to outmaneuver him—but calmed down when he realized, as he wrote in his memoirs, “that being last was actually better than being first—visitors would flood to the final opportunity to see the show.”

In late October 1975, Kissinger and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy signed an agreement outlining the exhibition. “Treasures of Tutankhamun” would begin in Washington, D.C., travel to Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Seattle, and finish in New York. Each museum would host for four months, with two months in between for packing, travel, and installation. The Egyptians had final say on the selection of museums. By having the Tut show tour six cities, the Americans also trumped the Soviets—which is exactly what Nixon wanted. When “Treasures of Tutankh­amun” toured the Soviet Union, it visited only three: Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev.

After seeing a copy of the budget from the British Museum’s 1972 Tut show, Hoving and Brown began to fret. The insurance costs alone were staggering, not to mention the additional staff and logistical support required. Help appeared on the insurance front when Congress passed the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Act, in December 1975, to help cover insurance costs related to hosting international exhibitions. “Treasures of Tutankhamun” became the first international art exhibition indemnified under the new law.

A grant from NEH to the Met in the summer of 1976 helped defray the upfront costs of organizing the show. The Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Charitable Trust and Exxon together matched the $250,000 provided by NEH.

Putting on a show 

With an official agreement in place, the Met and its partner museums had less than a year to design and assemble the exhibition. Christine Lilyquist, the Met’s curator of Egyptian art, chose the fifty-five objects for the exhibition in consultation with Hoving and the staff of the Cairo Museum. The Met also sent Lee Boltin to Egypt to take color photographs for a catalog, which I. E. S. Edwards, just retired as Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, agreed to write.

Hoving believed that once visitors moved past the “ooh” stage, the exhibition needed to provide context for the objects. William J. Williams, from the National Gallery’s education department, teamed up with David Silverman, an Egyptologist at the Field Museum, to write the wall text and to select images from the Met’s archive of Burton photographs.

When arrangements to transport Tut’s artifacts to the United States became hopelessly muddled, the U.S. Navy came to the rescue. The USS  Milwaukee  picked up the treasure in Alexandria, Egypt, and handed it off in Naples, Italy, to the USS  Sylvania , which delivered it to Norfolk, Virginia, in early September 1976.

Each museum received the same objects, wall text, and Burton photographs. They also agreed to organize the exhibition around the layout of the tomb. Beyond that, they were free to put their own spin on presentation. The National Gallery opted for a spare approach that showcased the gold artifacts against saturated walls, while the Met and the Seattle Art Museum both drew on Burton’s photos to recreate Tut’s tomb in the staging.

At each museum, the exhibition opened with a passage that mimicked the walk Carter took, back in the Valley of the Kings, from the steps to the second door. Visitors saw Tut first as a painted wood figure depicting him as the sun god: intense dark eyes, full lips, and an elongated skull. The figure, which would have allowed Tut to be continually reborn as the sun god, appears here because Carter discovered it beneath the rubble in the entranceway, most likely dropped by thieves as they scurried out.

From here, visitors progressed to the antechamber. A portable chest made of red and ebony woods is the only specimen of its kind that survives from ancient Egypt. A child’s chair, used by Tut when he was a boy, features gilded panels. The older Tut would have sat on the ceremonial chair, which has legs that turn into the paws of a lion and a carved back depicting Heh, the god of eternity. Sheet gold—imprinted with hieroglyphs, scenes of gods and kings, vultures, and flowers—covers the outside of a golden shrine. Archaeologists believe the shrine, which stands twenty inches tall, was intended to commemorate Tut’s coronation and sustain his dominion in the afterlife.

When it came time to open the burial chamber, Carter once again made a small hole and peered inside, using an electric light, before removing the entire door. “An astonishing sight its light revealed, for there, within a yard of the doorway, stretching as far as one could see and blocking the entrance to the chamber, stood what to all appearance was a solid wall of gold,” he wrote. When he removed the door, he discovered it wasn’t a wall, but a large shrine containing Tut’s sarcophagus.

The shrine and the sarcophagus didn’t travel to the United States, but items from the burial chamber, including some that adorned Tut’s mummified body, did. A lion carved of alabaster perched atop an unguent jar decorated with scenes of animals in combat. A three-and-a-half-inch solid gold rendering of a standing Tut, wearing a crown and kilt, topped a four-foot gold staff. Thirty brown and white ostrich feathers would have filled out a gold relief fan depicting an ostrich hunt, but insects had largely devoured them by the time Carter entered the tomb.

When Carter opened Tut’s sarcophagus, he found three coffins, one nestled inside the next. Tut’s mummified body lay in the final coffin, a funeral mask covering his head and upper body. The mask, which for all of its golden glitz makes it seem as if the boy-king still lives, has become synonymous with Tut. Obsidian and quartz create his soulful eyes, while lapis lazuli sketches his eyelashes and eyebrows. A fake beard appears below his full lips, its plaits crafted from the same deep-blue glass as the stripes in his headdress. As a vulture springs forth from Tut’s brow, signifying his dominion over Upper Egypt, a cobra puffs up beside it, proclaiming Tut’s sovereignty over Lower Egypt. A wide collar inlaid with green feldspar, lapis, and quartz covers his chest, swooping up to finish with a falcon’s head perched on each shoulder.

Beneath the strips of linen, Carter found a necklace with an intricate pendant portraying the blue-winged vulture goddess Nekhbet. Another vulture, this one in the form of an elaborate gold collar with glass feathers in shades of turquoise, lapis, and jasper, spread its protective wings across Tut’s mummified body.

From the burial chamber, visitors entered the treasury, which contained some of the liveliest pieces in the exhibition. A model boat measuring almost four feet and crafted of a single piece of wood helped Tut navigate the afterlife. A sculpture of a golden Tut portrays him standing on a raft made of papyrus (not unlike a surfboard), his arm hoisted and ready to throw a harpoon. Carter found Tut’s organs in an alabaster canopic chest inside a shrine guarded by four golden goddesses, each standing fifty-four inches high. The tight clinging robes of the goddess Selket give her an unexpected slinkiness.

Tut storms America  

When the exhibition opened at the National Gallery on November 17, 1976, the line wrapped around the three-block-long building. Tickets were distributed daily, on a first-come, first-served basis, leading people to regularly queue up at dawn. To bring visitors in from the unusually brisk winter, the gallery snaked the line through the entire building. Even so, once they reached the Fourth Street NW entrance, ticketholders still faced a four-hour wait before they could walk down the west marble staircase and descend into the tomb.

President Carter paid his respects ahead of a visit by Sadat to discuss Middle East peace negotiations. Standing with Sadat on the south grounds of the White House on April 4, 1977, Carter called seeing Tut “one of the most exciting experiences that I have had.”

Members of Congress paraded through, as did Hollywood royalty. Elizabeth Taylor, who had played the legendary Cleopatra, took in the exhibition with her husband, John Warner. So did Robert Redford, Marisa Berenson, Rex Harrison, William Holden, and Stefanie Powers. Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon also stalked Tut.

When the exhibition closed on March 15, more than 835,000 people had seen Tut—more than the population of Washington, D.C. Although a certified hit, the exhibition strained the gallery’s resources, requiring extra staff and security. The phones quit working halfway through. The gallery’s wood and marble floors suffered damage from the countless footsteps. By the end of each day, tumbleweed-sized dust bunnies lurked in corners.

Visitors spent $100,000 a week (in 1976 dollars) on souvenirs. Exiting the show, they stepped into a store stocked with three hundred Tut-themed items developed by the Met. There were coloring books, posters, and postcards, along with a Tut tote bag. The Tut-inspired jewelry collection ran to one hundred pieces. Hermès designed a limited-edition scarf, while Limoges produced a porcelain plate adorned with a falcon. There was also a $1,500 reproduction of the goddess Selket. The profits from the sale of merchandise were earmarked for the work of the Egyptian Organization of Antiquities, in particular renovations to the Cairo Museum.

From Washington, the exhibition moved to Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, where officials nervously welcomed the pharaoh and his belongings. The museum installed a new switchboard, arranged for more staff and volunteers, devised a different ticketing system, and upgraded its security system.

People began lining up at five in the morning on April 15, 1977. A group of friends arrived after an all-night bar crawl. One lay on the museum steps “mummified” from head to toe in toilet paper. By nine o’clock, two thousand people were waiting. When the Field Museum halted sales at 1:30 p.m., it had issued 8,547 numbered tickets. Visitors receiving the last tickets faced a seven-hour wait, but could roam the rest of the museum before getting to see Tut.

In mid June, the museum began flying a gold flag, emblazoned with a King Tut mask, on the north side of the building to signal the availability of tickets to motorists on Lake Shore Drive. When lowered to half staff, tickets were gone for the day. The flag usually went down before noon.

To complement the Tut show, the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute hosted “The Magic of Egyptian Art,” an exhibition supported by NEH. The show featured thirty-seven objects used to embalm Tut, along with examples of Egyptian writing, portraiture, and religious items. Before Tut’s arrival, the Oriental Institute also sponsored a free lecture series, supported by NEH as well, covering everything from mummification to the history of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Not everyone in Chicago fell for Tut. Best-selling novelist Andrew Greeley lamented in the  Chicago Tribune  that in the rush to see Tut, people were ignoring masterpieces at the Art Institute. “I kind of feel that it’s tasteless to flock like sheep to see one set of artistic treasures and ignore all the others around.” The  Chicago Tribune , however, called Tut “a grand slam homer for culture.”

On Monday, August 15, when the last visitor, Keith Feiler, an English teacher from Elmhurst, passed through the exhibition, the staff enlisted his help to reenact an ancient Egyptian ritual. After high Egyptian officials placed all of the items into a pharaoh’s tomb, they swept away their footprints as they exited. Using a replica of an ancient Egyptian broom, Feiler helped sweep away the footprints of the 1.35 million people who had come before him.

From Chicago, Tut moved to New Orleans, running from September 15, 1977, to January 15, 1978. John Bullard, the director of the New Orleans Museum of Art, confessed to having “nightmares” before its arrival. The museum had never hosted anything to rival Tut. One month before the exhibition debuted, group tours sold out. The museum also stopped offering memberships, which included access to the exhibition, after subscriptions climbed from 3,000 to 12,000.

When Tut opened, the line meandered into City Park. The museum erected a striped canopy over the sidewalk to provide shade. Sixteen portable “Tutlets” were also stationed nearby. Lelong Drive, which leads to the museum’s front steps, was painted Nile blue and the Fairmont Hotel served Sphinxburgers, Queen Nefertiti’s salads, and bowls of Ramses’ gumbo. The museum also used a grant from NEH to offer a series of public programs about Tut and Egyptian history.

Bourbon Street couldn’t resist Tutmania either. While decked out like an Egyptian goddess, legendary burlesque dancer Chris Owens shimmied her way through a routine called “Pharaoh’s Favorite Toy.”

When the doors closed, 870,594 people had seen the show and spent $75 million in town. The museum saw Tut off with a jazz funeral.

The show traveled next to Los Angeles, where it ran from February 15 to June 15, 1978. Rates quickly spiked in all of the parking lots surrounding the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Ticket scalpers went to work. To manage the crowds, LACMA offered advance tickets at $2 apiece, selling out weeks before Tut’s arrival. By opening day, scalpers were selling tickets for $35 each.

LACMA built a Tut Shop on the plaza outside the museum. Frederick Cole, a labor contractor who witnessed the mania for Tut when he visited New Orleans, set up his own Tut Shoppe on Wilshire Boulevard adjacent to LACMA. “It just struck me that this is where it was at,” he told the  New York Times .

When it came time to pack up the exhibition, the museum gave the  Los Angeles Times  a front row seat to the painstaking process. No matter how gentle the curators were, the packing and display process enacted a toll on the objects. Curators from the Cairo Museum assessed items for damage and repairs were made before tucking the artifacts into special containers. Upon arrival in the next city, the process was repeated. “You learn the personality quirks of every piece—how strong they are, what they can take and what they can’t. It’s like being married—to fifty-five wives,” said Yale Kneeland, a conservator who supervised the packing process on behalf of the Met.

From Los Angeles, Tut traveled north, opening at Seattle Center’s Flag Pavilion on July 15, 1978. Built for the 1962 World’s Fair, the pavilion was renovated to host the exhibition with the help of a $1.2 million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration. The Seattle Art Museum, the sponsoring institution, lacked the necessary facilities.

Unlike in Los Angeles, which drew the majority of its visitors from the surrounding area, the show in Seattle relied heavily on tourists. Tickets for packaged tours could be purchased in advance. Otherwise, numbered tickets—$1 for an adult and 50 cents for students and seniors—were sold daily starting at 8:30 a.m. Monitors around the Seattle Center and downtown displayed wait times and ticket availability. On select nights, the museum offered private viewings to groups, such as the Junior League and Boeing, for a premium of $7.50 to $10 a head. Afterward, visitors rode to the top of the Space Needle and sipped Tut-inspired cocktails. By the time he departed for New York, 1.29 million people had viewed Tut’s burial mask in Seattle.

After organizing the exhibition and watching it enthrall audiences from afar, the Met finally had its moment. To handle the crowds—and keep people from freezing in line during the New York winter—the Met offered its free tickets through Ticketron, which charged a small service fee. They went on sale on a rainy September morning, and the line stretched along Fifth Avenue from 80th Street all the way down to 59th. Tickets were sold out in six days, but when one New Jersey agency advertised Tut tickets for $20 apiece in the  New York Times , it faced legal action. Scalping was illegal on both sides of the Hudson River.

During Tut’s run from December 15, 1978, to April 15, 1979, 633,500 out-of-town visitors descended on New York City, pumping $110 million into the local economy. When the Met closed its doors on the exhibition, 1.27 million people had gazed upon the objects the museum had helped Howard Carter excavate more than five decades earlier.

Tut, Tut, King Tut

As the Tut show at the Metropolitan wound down, Steve Martin lamented on  Saturday Night Live  about how “we have commercialized it with trinkets and toys, T-shirts and posters.” Dressed like a dime-store pharaoh and backed by a band attired in Egyptian garb and two gyrating dancers, Martin delivered what became an iconic routine: “(King Tut) (King Tut) / Now when he was a young man, / He never thought he’d see (King Tut) / People stand in line to see the boy king. (King Tut) / How’d you get so funky?” Halfway through the song, a saxophone player in head-to-toe Tut garb emerged from a sarcophagus at center stage. As he riffed on the song’s melody, Martin placed a blender before him as an offering.

While Nixon and Kissinger wanted the Tut show for diplomatic reasons, there was no denying, as Martin so deftly pointed out, that the exhibition made money for its host museums, savvy retailers, and local economies. The exhibition also captured the imagination of the American public, making Tut and his enchanting treasures part of the cultural zeitgeist of the 1970s.

Culture pundits tried to explain Tut’s appeal. Did the decadent golden treasures present an antidote to the cash-strapped 1970s? Were we just fascinated by mummies and Egyptian burial practices? A survey conducted by the National Gallery reported that 82 percent of attendees were drawn by “the beauty of the works of art” and 72 percent by “the age of the works of art.” Meanwhile, 62 percent professed an “interest in archaeology and ancient Egypt.” Only 15 percent claimed to have come because of the publicity.

“Treasures of Tutankhamun” brought several benefits with its oversized crowds. It forced museums to devise new ticketing systems for popular shows. The quality and success of the merchandising set a standard for future exhibitions. It also helped museums expand their membership rosters and interact with their communities in new ways. Whether or not blockbuster shows are good for museums remains an issue of contention. A 2001 Smithson­ian study noted that while they bring people into museums, blockbusters exhaust staff, drain resources that could be spent marketing the permanent collections, and create a “boom and bust” cycle of membership.

By allowing Tut’s artifacts to tour the United States, the Egyptian government raised $9 million to fund much needed renovations to the long-beleaguered Cairo Museum. Hoving, who resigned as director of the Met in 1977, helped mastermind an overhaul. While visitors to the museum in the early 1980s noticed improvements in how objects were displayed and labeled, Hoving complained in his memoir, published in 1993, that larger plans to reorganize the museum and train staff to maintain its collections had stalled. After arguing about it in committee for fifteen years, the Egyptians continued to disagree on how to best preserve and present Tut’s legacy.

Meredith Hindley is a senior writer for Humanities .

Funding information

The Metropolitan Museum of Art received a  $250,000  matching grant to support “Treasures of Tutankhamun.” The University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute received $108,894 to support a series of public programs on Egyptology and to support an exhibition, “The Magic of Egyptian Art.” The New Orleans Museum of Art received $97,492 to support an Egyptology lecture series. Sources: Material for this article was drawn from the archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art.

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• What Is Cinema?

The King of New York

By David Kamp

Approximately 3,336 years ago, Tutankhamun, a minor king in a major Egyptian dynasty—the 18th—breathed his last. He was in his late teens, and he had reigned since he was nine years old. After a brief mourning period, the pharaoh’s acolytes swung into action, mounting an epic of funerary ceremony worthy of Cecil B. DeMille.

First came embalming. Tutankhamun’s heart was left intact, but other vital internal organs—his liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines—were removed, preserved, wrapped in cloth, and placed in four mini-coffins, each about a foot and a quarter long and made of gold inlaid with carnelian stone and colored glass.

The pharaoh’s body was washed, anointed with herbs and unguents, adorned with more than a hundred amulets, rings, and bangles, and then carefully wrapped in strips of linen. The mummy was laid in a coffin of solid gold, the delicate face on its lid fashioned in Tutankhamun’s image and framed by the customary pharaonic nemes, or striped headdress. Before the lid went on, the pharaoh’s undertakers gently placed over his head a magnificent 22-pound portrait mask in burnished gold: the nose pointed, the cheeks smooth, and the lips and chin fleshy, with wide eyes outlined in lapis lazuli.

The gold coffin was placed inside a larger coffin of gilded wood, which was housed, nesting-doll-style, inside a still-larger coffin, also of gilded wood. The nested coffins were then lowered into a heavy, rectangular sarcophagus of yellow quartzite, its sides etched with hieroglyphs, its corners featuring relief carvings of the protective goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Selket, and Neith. For good measure, the sarcophagus was itself nested in four ornately decorated chests known as shrines, each bigger than the last. The outermost shrine, made of gilded cedar, was 16 1/2 feet long and 9 feet high. Tutankhamun’s preserved viscera got their own gilded shrine, its four sides guarded by the same four goddesses—this time spectacularly rendered as fully three-dimensional sculptures of gold-painted wood, each about three feet high, with arms outstretched and heads turned sideways, as if on the lookout for intruders.

The pharaoh’s remains were carried down into a tomb west of the Upper Nile, in the vast royal necropolis known as the Valley of the Kings. So, too, were all manner of mementos and goods from Tutankhamun’s life: disassembled chariots, a childhood gaming board, furniture, lamps, sculpture, weapons, jewelry. The tomb, a mini-labyrinth of tunnels, chambers, and blocked passageways, was sealed. And that was that. Tutankhamun’s followers had done what they could to equip the pharaoh for a safe journey through the underworld to a joyful afterlife.

Approximately 3,299 years later, in the summer of 1976, many of these same items, including the gold mask, lay swaddled and packed in one of the holds of the U.S.S. Sylvania, a navy ship bound for Norfolk, Virginia. This had not been the original transport plan. The American organizers of the six-city “Treasures of Tutankhamun” exhibition, which was to run from late 1976 to early 1979, believed that the most prudent course was to bring the ancient artifacts over to the United States by airplane. But Gamal Mokhtar, the chairman of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, was fearful of a crash or a hijacking. He demanded, more or less at the last minute, that the artifacts travel to America in secrecy, aboard a U.S. naval vessel. The Sylvania was what is known in U.S. Navy parlance as a combat-stores ship, its job to supply provisions, among them fresh and frozen foods, to warships out at sea. And so, the precious Tutankhamun artifacts made their way across the Mediterranean sharing cargo space with refrigerated boxes of hamburger patties.

In America, the boy king would at last encounter his real afterlife, albeit a rather different one than the ancient Egyptians had imagined. Here, Tutankhamun became King Tut, and King Tut became one of the most all-encompassing cultural phenomena of the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition broke museum attendance records, with hours-long waits and Studio 54-like queues to get in. (It was seen by eight million people, a million more than Tut had ruled as king.) The show significantly boosted the economy of every city it passed through—no small thing in the fiscally straitened 1970s. It sustained several cottage industries’ worth of collectibles, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s upscale line of souvenirs (which included a life-size replica of Selket, in resin coated with gold leaf, yours for $1,500) to cheap, unlicensed ladies’ T-shirts (HANDS OFF MY TUTS), and inspired a Steve Martin novelty single that made its debut in 1978 on Saturday Night Live and went platinum. Tut-mania was a bona fide late-70s thing, like disco and Halston and Roots, and with many of the same gawkers, participants, and champions: Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, Henry Kissinger, Billy Carter. When the exhibition reached its final stop, in New York City, an unnamed Metropolitan Museum executive told the Associated Press, “Seeing Tut is the status symbol right now in this city. It’s even superseded sex.” (Again, no small thing in the 70s.)

By Richard Lawson

By Katie Nicholl

By Chris Murphy

That “Treasures of Tutankhamun” got to America was extraordinary in and of itself: the unlikely outcome of a variety of intertwined political and personal agendas, among them Richard Nixon’s desire to salvage his legacy as his presidency unraveled, the image-building campaign of a dynamic new Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat, and the rivalry between two of America’s foremost museum directors, Thomas Hoving and J. Carter Brown. The confluence of these narratives, plus the simple fact that the objects on display were very old and very beautiful, ensured that “Treasures of Tutankhamun” would cut a swath like no museum exhibition before it ever had.

In a file in his desk drawer labeled “Speech Material,” Thomas P. F. Hoving kept a photocopied page from Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence —specifically, a passage in which the novel’s frustrated would-be lovers, Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska, conspire to meet furtively in late-19th-century New York. Hoving had underlined certain words for emphasis:

“Tomorrow I must see you—somewhere where we can be alone,” he said, in a voice that sounded almost angry to his own ears.

She wavered, and moved toward the carriage.

“But I shall be at Granny’s—for the present, that is,” she added, as if conscious that her change of plans required some explanation.

“ Somewhere where we can be alone, ” he insisted.

She gave a faint laugh that grated on him.

“In New York? But there are no churches . . . no monuments.”

“ There’s the Art Museum—in the Park, ” he explained.

That museum, described by Wharton as a place where treasured antiquities “mouldered in unvisited loneliness,” was Hoving’s domain: the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From the moment he became the director, in 1967, Hoving made it his mission to upend the perception that had held fast since Wharton’s day, that the Met was a drab, echoey place visited only by highfalutin aficionados of the fine arts. “My ideal museum is not an overstuffed storehouse,” he wrote in his notebook. “It isn’t one of those pompous Temples of Silence you hear some experts pant for—so properly quiet, so awesome in the quietude of its monied atmosphere that you feel you want to reach for your Dramamine.”

Hoving was a self-styled provocateur, a man who would title his memoir of life at the Met Making the Mummies Dance. (Its working title had been Troublemaker. ) But he was also knowledgeable and skilled, with master’s and doctoral degrees in art history from Princeton University and an innate gift for showmanship that he had inherited from his marketing-maestro father, Walter Hoving, the head of Tiffany & Co.

The younger Hoving was only 36 when he took the reins at the Metropolitan, after having run the Met-administered Cloisters museum of medieval art, in upper Manhattan, and after serving briefly as New York City parks commissioner under Mayor John V. Lindsay. Hoving wasted no time in trying to make an impression. For the special exhibition that kicked off his regime, “In the Presence of Kings,” a wide-ranging survey of items of royal provenance from the Met’s holdings—including one of Marie Antoinette’s velvet-covered dog kennels—Hoving ordered galleries to be repainted, re-lit, and generally reconceived, a radical departure from museum norms of the day. He opened a museum gift shop—a first in the annals of the Met, and of art museums in general. He tapped Stuart Silver, a junior member of the design department, to be his director of exhibition design, “effectively mandating the creation of a new discipline,” Silver says. “Later, he really started cranking it up, throwing exhibitions at us in quantity, up to over 50 a year. But what he wanted for ‘In the Presence of Kings’ was an exhibition that, right off the bat, was a whizbang.”

Two years after Hoving’s ascension, the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., got its own boy director: 34-year-old J. Carter Brown. Like Hoving, Brown was an American aristocrat, only more so. A scion of the Browns who had endowed Brown University, he could claim an educational pedigree that encompassed Groton, Harvard College, and Harvard Business School. Both Hoving and Brown were rangy, handsome men with fancy hobbies—Hoving a pilot, Brown a yachtsman. But, temperamentally, they could not have been more different. Hoving was extroverted, fun-loving, and occasionally exasperating in his penchant for self-promotion. Brown was reserved, scholarly, and inscrutable. What they had in common was intelligence and big vision. Hoving pulled off the acquisition of Egypt’s Roman-era Temple of Dendur and the construction of the Met’s glass-walled Sackler Wing to house it. Brown oversaw the construction of the National Gallery’s I. M. Pei-designed East Building, which effectively doubled his museum’s size.

The two men spent much of the 70s in competition for the same works of art, not to mention the same resources and benefactors, yet they were occasionally compelled to work together—arranging loans of artworks, coordinating exhibitions, and pooling expertise. They had a polite, if uneasy, relationship. Hoving, in his memoir, admitted that he often “screamed about” Brown’s competitiveness “in private with my staff,” while Brown, late in his life, reflected that he preferred working with Hoving’s deputy and eventual successor, Philippe de Montebello, because “here we had a rational human being.”

“It was hilarious, in a way, the competition between Tom and Carter,” says Silver. “They were both lean, all angles, and the two of them represented a certain facet of American aristocracy. To see them go at each other, in the most petty ways, was amusing, like watching Javanese shadow puppets kicking each other.”

One way in which both directors gave their institutions a jolt in the 70s was to rely less on their permanent holdings to draw crowds and far more on limited-run shows, particularly those involving objects and art from overseas. Hoving and Brown kept a keen eye on developments abroad to see what treasures might be pried loose from their native lands for a U.S. visit: the Book of Kells from Ireland, say, or Bronze Age archaeological finds from China. As privileged men of the world, Hoving and Brown were uninhibited about working their connections at the White House and the State Department to get what they wanted.

One person both men got to know well was Peter Solmssen, who, in the early 1970s, held the unlikely title of “adviser on the arts” to the State Department. In the Nixon era, the department was populated, to a degree that seems inconceivable now, with foreign-policy hands who genuinely believed in the value of cultural exchange as a means of fostering better understanding between peoples. As Solmssen recalls it, Nixon’s assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, John Richardson Jr., tapped him for the specific purpose of facilitating such exchanges between the United States and countries with which it had strained relations. “He called me into his office,” Solmssen remembers, “and said, ‘We’re really trying to get talks going with the Soviet Union, with China, with Egypt. Do you think you could find a way to get something going with these countries in the arts?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll try. How do you want me to do it?’ And John Richardson said, ‘Well, that’s your problem.’ Basically, he let me invent my own job.”

Of the same generation as Hoving and Brown, and yet another tall, dashing Ivy Leaguer (Harvard ’52), Solmssen had a C.V. atypical for a diplomat. Before joining the foreign service, he had been a photographer for Life magazine, learning at the feet of the masters Alfred Eisenstaedt and David Douglas Duncan. He continued shooting even while working as a U.S. cultural attaché in Brazil in the 60s, immersing himself in its music scene and becoming friends with Antônio Carlos Jobim, the godfather of bossa nova. Solmssen was as fluent in art talk as he was in bureaucratese, and Hoving and Brown were among the first figures to whom he reached out for cultural-exchange ideas. At the top of both men’s lists was a Tut tour of America.

Egypt had been on Washington’s “strained relations” list since 1967, the year of the Six-Day War, a humiliating chapter in Egyptian history. In that conflict, Israel scored a quick, decisive military victory over Egypt, taking control of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. In the climate of the Cold War, with Israel as America’s proxy and Egypt as the Soviet Union’s, Egypt broke off formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., and the American Embassy in Cairo was shuttered.

Only six years earlier, Jacqueline Kennedy, as First Lady, had stood with Egypt’s then minister of culture, Sarwat Okasha, at the opening of a small exhibition of minor artifacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb at the National Gallery, in Washington—the kickoff of a two-year tour that hopscotched its way across the United States and Canada. In 1972, a bigger, flashier Tut show in London, featuring the famous gold mask, proved to be the most popular in the British Museum’s history, drawing 1.6 million visitors over five months. Yet Hoving and Brown could only look on in envy—this collection of Tut artifacts was next scheduled to travel to Egypt’s military sponsor, the Soviet Union, with stops in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev.

For Hoving, the inaccessibility of the Tut treasures was especially irritating because his museum, the Metropolitan, had a distinguished department of Egyptian art, founded in 1906. Just five weeks before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, and only a few days after Hoving had formally assumed his duties as director, the Met was awarded custody of the Temple of Dendur, which Egypt had presented to the United States as a gift of friendship. (The temple had been disassembled, stone by stone, because the spot by the Nile where it stood was about to be flooded by Egypt’s biggest-ever public-works project, the Aswan High Dam.) Above all, Hoving wanted Tutankhamun because the Metropolitan had an institutional history with the pharaoh. When the entrance to the boy king’s tomb was first uncovered, by the British archaeologist Howard Carter in November of 1922, it was Harry Burton, a photographer working with a Met-sponsored excavation group nearby, who hurried to Carter’s site to document the discoveries. The 1,400 photos that Burton took, in adverse conditions with unwieldy equipment, are stunning in their quality and composition, and did as much to generate worldwide excitement as the news of Carter’s find itself.

The original wave of Tut-mania, over the winter of 1922–23, represented archaeology’s apex as a glamorous profession, at least until Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones movies came along. Carter had been digging, literally, for years. Since 1907, he had worked under the auspices of an affluent benefactor, George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. Lord Carnarvon had begun spending winters in Egypt at the turn of the century for health reasons. An early motoring enthusiast, he had a habit of driving too fast and getting into car crashes; as a result, he had damaged his lungs, making it harder for him to endure the cold, damp winters at Highclere, his huge, drafty estate in England. (Highclere now doubles as the title character in television’s Downton Abbey. ) An intellectually curious man, Carnarvon took up Egyptology as a hobby and, upon meeting Carter, agreed to finance his digs.

In 1922, Carter, now 49 years old, set out to re-explore a parcel of land in the Valley of the Kings that he had examined two seasons earlier, close to the tomb of Ramses VI, a 20th Dynasty pharaoh who had lived and died roughly 200 years after Tut. The original excavation of this tomb had left an area piled high with ancient rubble, and, near it, a series of huts built by and for the tomb’s laborers. Carter had uncovered the huts, but it had not occurred to him until 1922 that the huts and excavated rock for Ramses VI’s tomb might themselves be covering up an older tomb. On November 4, just a few days into the new digging season, Carter’s crew of Egyptian workmen, digging near the huts, found a staircase descending into the earth, and, at its base, a sealed door.

Carter was elated, but, rather than forge ahead, he gathered his patience, had the stairway re-filled, and cabled his patron, Lord Carnarvon, urging him to come down. It took Carnarvon and his daughter, the 21-year-old Lady Evelyn Herbert, two and a half weeks to make the journey by train and boat from Highclere to Luxor, the city across the Nile from the Valley of the Kings. The earl and his daughter then crossed the river by ferry and rode donkeys to Carter’s excavation site. On November 25, as Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn anxiously waited, Carter’s crew once again uncovered the staircase. The door at its bottom, the excavation team discovered, opened onto a 25-foot-long rubble-filled passageway, which, once cleared, was revealed to end with another door.

The next day, November 26, produced the most famous verbal exchange in the annals of archaeology. Carter, with Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn standing behind him, drilled a hole in an upper corner of the second door and peered through, using a candle to illuminate the space within. What he saw, once his eyes had adjusted to the dim light, left him speechless. Carnarvon, growing impatient, finally said, “Can you see anything?” To which Carter, jolted from what felt like a dream state, beatifically replied, “Yes, wonderful things.”

The view through the hole was of a room piled haphazardly, in a manner evoking a latter-day garage or storage unit, with exquisitely crafted 18th Dynasty artifacts: as Carter put it, “strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold.” This turned out to be just the antechamber of the tomb, which Tutankhamun’s buriers had filled with furnishings from his life: beds, baskets, sculpture, games, weapons, chariot wheels. It would take several weeks, with Harry Burton capturing the process moment by moment on film, for the antechamber’s contents to be painstakingly untangled, catalogued, and put into safe storage. A smaller room off the antechamber, which Carter called the annex, was found to contain a similar jumble of objects. Not until February 1923 did Carter and his team chip through a second door off the antechamber, which led to Tut’s burial chamber.

Word of the “Tut-Ankh-Amen” discoveries, as they were called in the papers, spread quickly around the globe, triggering daily reports from a ravenous press corps, Egyptianchic collections from fashion houses, and the first American wave of Tut-related kitsch, including Tut-branded California lemons, a Hollywood two-reeler comedy called Tut-Tut and His Terrible Tomb, and the Tin Pan Alley ditty “Old King Tut Was a Wise Old Nut,” which contained the couplet “He got into his royal bed, three thousand years B.C. / And left a call for twelve o’clock in nineteen twenty-three.” (For more on the 1920s outburst of American Egyptophilia, including the vogue for Egypt-inspired movie houses, see Bruce Handy’s VF.com article “Watch Like an Egyptian,” January 29, 2008.)

Another year would pass before Carter, ever patient and thorough, opened up the shrines and coffins, getting his first glimpse of the gold mask and of Tut’s desiccated, not particularly well-preserved body. Clearing Tut’s tomb would, in fact, more or less see out the remainder of Carter’s career. He died in 1939, at the age of 64, after having at last retired full-time to England. Carnarvon was less fortunate. At the very end of his and Carter’s triumphal 1922–23 season, he was bitten by a mosquito while relaxing on a Nile riverboat, and the bite became infected when it was nicked by a shaving razor. The infection overwhelmed his immune system, and he died in Cairo of sepsis-abetted pneumonia on April 5, 1923. Carnarvon’s death became worldwide news—and the basis for theories, enduring to this day, of a “mummy’s curse” that befalls those who dare disturb the tomb of an ancient pharaoh.

Richard Nixon was himself in a compromised state of health in June 1974, when, like Lord Carnarvon before him, he set out for Egypt in pursuit of one last moment of glory. His chronic phlebitis had subsided during the first term of his presidency, but with the Watergate scandal reaching its climax and the House Judiciary Committee in the process of drafting formal articles of impeachment, the flare-ups in his left leg recurred. Dr. Walter Tkach, the White House physician, strongly advised Nixon not to make the trip, but the president would not be deterred.

The event that set the trip in motion was the October War of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria simultaneously launched attacks on Israel. Israel beat back the Egyptians, to the point where Israeli forces completely encircled Egypt’s Third Army in the Sinai Peninsula. Though a cease-fire had been agreed upon, it was repeatedly broken in the days to follow, with both sides pointing fingers and the U.S. and the Soviet Union drawn into the fray. On the brink of what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a “superpower crisis,” there was a feverish round of diplomacy in which Armageddon was averted, the U.S. talked Israel down from laying waste to the Third Army, and Egypt’s newish president, Anwar Sadat, indicated to Kissinger his desire to shift his loyalties away from the Soviets and toward the United States.

Kissinger’s initial visit to Egypt, in November 1973, commenced the “shuttle diplomacy” era, in which Kissinger traveled back and forth between Jerusalem and Cairo as an intermediary in the peace process. Though trust was slow to build between the Egyptians and the Israelis, the Egyptian-American lovefest began almost immediately. Sadat confided to Kissinger in their very first meeting that he was disenchanted with the Soviet Union and tired of its condescension; Kissinger, for his part, departed Cairo certain he was “dealing with a great man.” By the time Nixon arrived the following year, he was greeted by crowds cheering “ Yehya Nixon! ” (“Long live Nixon!”), and Sadat went on the record to say that the American president’s impeachment “would be a tragedy.”

Carter Brown, alert to the good vibes between the U.S. and Egypt, saw an opening to make a bid for what he’d long coveted: a Tutankhamun show at the National Gallery. In January 1974, even before the two countries had restored diplomatic relations, and before Nixon’s visit, Brown flew to Cairo to propose the idea to Gamal Mokhtar. Mokhtar was amenable, and Brown, recognizing that he would need partners in other American cities to close the deal, reached out to Hoving. In Brown’s telling, Hoving initially turned him down. “He didn’t want to take it, I think, thinking that he could go ’round and do his own negotiating and get it first and do it his way and have a feather in his cap,” Brown recalled in an interview recorded in 1998, four years before his death, for the National Gallery’s oral-history program. “But after his research he found we had an absolute lock on this show. So he then calls up in a totally different mood, saying ‘Please, please, what does it take? How can I get back into this?’ ”

The two museum directors eventually agreed that Hoving would handle the commercial side of the operation—the catalogue, the promotion, the gift-shop items—and that the exhibition, however many cities it passed through, would open at the National Gallery and close at the Metropolitan. Hoving was not thrilled that Brown was getting first dibs; he complained bitterly to Ron Berman, the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the mediator in the matter, that his counterpart in Washington was “doing nothing, taking no responsibility.” Brown, for his part, lamented for the rest of his life that Tut came to be so identified with Hoving. “In spite of a lot of the propaganda from New York, it had been a show that the National Gallery had negotiated and had originated and grew out of a trip I’d made to Egypt and a meeting I’d had with the head of antiquities,” he said. “Then it languished for a while until the Nixon visit, and it got going again.”

Nixon’s decision to visit Egypt set off a flurry of activity at the State Department, not just among the heavy-duty policy teams but also in Solmssen’s office. Shortly before the trip, the arts adviser took an urgent call from the White House. “They literally said, ‘We want something that the president and Sadat can sign. He needs to sign something,’ ” Solmssen says. “They asked, ‘What could you produce that would be appropriate?’—that wasn’t, you know, a new treaty with Israel or something. Something non-controversial, easy to sign, that you could make a ceremony of.” Recalling his conversations a couple of years earlier with Brown and Hoving, Solmssen suggested a traveling exhibition of the Tutankhamun treasures. “And they said, ‘Whatever. Have it here in the morning.’ ”

On June 14, Nixon’s last day in Egypt, he and Sadat issued a joint communiqué announcing that the people of the United States would get a chance, on their own turf, to see the treasures of King Tut. Tut-mania, as silly as it got, grew out of the heady sense of possibility that June ’74 produced.

The arrangement that came to be made was that “Treasures of Tutankhamun” would tour six cities between November 1976 and April 1979: Washington, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York. The Metropolitan, with its strong Egyptian-antiquities department and its dynamic, shameless, pushy director, would serve as the manager of the six-museum consortium. Hoving initially thought that procuring the Tut items would be a breeze, but what he hadn’t prepared for was the languidly paced culture of Egyptian negotiation. Arriving in Cairo in 1975 to meet Mokhtar for the first time, he discovered a byzantine receiving system. You entered Mokhtar’s enormous, ramshackle office on Rameses Street, took your seat among the many chairs and couches arranged along the sides of the room, and waited your turn to meet with the great man—lurching forward one seat at a time, carousel-style, as Mokhtar, roosting imperially at his desk, conducted individual meetings in full view and earshot of those waiting.

“We would call those meetings one-cup-of-coffee, two-cup-of-coffee, three-cup-of-coffee meetings,” says Christine Roussel, who ran the Metropolitan Museum’s reproduction studio and accompanied Hoving on several trips that followed. “Because every half-hour or so a servant would come in with a tray of demitasse cups of Turkish-style coffee for us while we waited, until we finally got to talk with Mokhtar.” And even when one’s moment with Mokhtar arrived, he would, if favorably disposed toward his petitioner, suggest that the meeting continue later over dinner at the high-rise Sheraton overlooking the Nile, where his favorite belly dancer, Nagwa Fouad—a titan of her craft, known as “the Rita Hayworth of Egypt,” and also a favorite of Kissinger’s as he became a Cairo regular—performed nightly.

Hoving, recognizing a fellow hustler when he saw one, came to like Mokhtar, whom he described in his memoir as a sort of real-life Sydney Greenstreet character: “a short, plump man with a cherub’s face, a sly smile—with most of the teeth in front missing—and a bald pate.” It took several Nagwa Fouad floor shows’ worth of negotiation, but finally they hammered out a deal: Egypt would receive 100 percent of the profits from all gift-shop sales of books, posters, replicas, jewelry, and so on for the duration of the exhibition’s run in the United States. It was a good deal for Egypt, which was officially guaranteed a minimum $2.6 million payout from the show—the final tally would prove to be more than twice that amount—and a good deal for the Met, which would thereafter retain worldwide rights in perpetuity to the Egypt-related product developed in conjunction with the show.

The next step, arranging sufficient preparation time in the Egyptian Museum, in Tahrir Square, where the Tut artifacts were housed, presented its own challenges. To Hoving and his Met retinue, viewing the artifacts for the first time was a mixed experience: part awe—“everywhere the glint of gold”—but also part shock at the shoddy conditions in which the treasures were displayed. The Egyptian Museum was in disrepair, with display cases covered in dirt and paint splatters from some botched spruce-up job. Birds flew in and out of the galleries through a broken skylight.

The Metropolitan had shipped two and a half tons of equipment to Cairo for the purpose of lighting and photographing the Tut items (to produce pictures for the catalogue) and taking molds of those same items (to make reproductions for the gift shop). The situation at the Egyptian Museum was untenable. There wasn’t sufficient electrical power for the lighting rigs that Lee Boltin, the Met’s photographer, needed to capture the items in their full-color glory. What’s more, the Met staff was informed that it could work only mornings, since the museum, lacking funds to pay its guards for full days, was closed in the afternoons.

Roussel, well traveled and worldly, became the operation’s de facto fixer and operations chief. When Abdul Quader Selim, the Egyptian Museum’s director, informed her that the Met gang could get in a full day’s work if the Met paid the guards to stay on for the afternoons, she worked out the terms and found a money changer in Cairo’s main souk who gave her a favorable return on the Met’s dollars—via suitcases stuffed with Egyptian pounds. Hoving himself solved the electricity problem by paying off the director of lighting at the Great Pyramids, Fouad el-Orabi (later Egypt’s undersecretary of culture), who, accompanied by some minions, drove up to Cairo late one night and hot-spliced a huge spool of electrical cable into a streetlight near the back wall of the Egyptian Museum, thereby supplying the Met team with the voltage it required.

It’s surprising, given how massive the Tut phenomenon came to be, how modest in physical scale the exhibition was. It totaled a mere 55 objects, most of them on the small side. Hoving later wrote, “I recognized that the finest Tut things were the more intimate objects.” Actually, says Christine Lilyquist, who was then the Met’s young curator of Egyptian art, this was really a practical choice; given the six-city itinerary, the exhibited items needed to be lightweight and easily transportable. “The objects are fragile, mostly wood, pottery, and gold—sheet gold at that, rarely solid,” she says. “With a large item like a coffin, you’d have harmed it every time you moved it.”

Still, the pharaoh’s relatively heavy gold mask was a no-brainer. Carter Brown was certain that it should be the show’s capper, the thing to which the exhibition built up. But Hoving, with nudging from Lilyquist, argued that the 55 objects should be displayed in the order in which Howard Carter discovered them, along with blowups of the corresponding Harry Burton photographs—a narrative masterstroke that even Brown acknowledged as such. “Give Tom his due,” he later said. “He and I didn’t agree at the beginning about how you should put the objects, because I felt the gold mask was the big climax and should be at the end. He convinced me that the story—since you don’t have a chronology of the art, the way you do in so many other art exhibitions—the chronology is only the chronology of discovery, and you should put it in the order in which it was discovered. So I really give him credit for that. And it worked.”

Of the 55 objects that Hoving and Lilyquist selected, 18 had never before been seen outside of Egypt. Hoving’s favorite was the gilded-wood statue of the goddess Selket, which had guarded the chest containing Tut’s organs, known as the canopic shrine, and no wonder: she is exquisitely and almost erotically rendered, in a transparent sheath that simultaneously drapes elegantly off her shoulders and clings close enough to her body to reveal in detail the shape of her breasts, the indent of her navel, and a slight puffiness to her abdomen, possibly a signifier of fertility.

In August 1976, the moment arrived for the 55 items to be transported from Cairo to the Port of Alexandria, where a U.S. naval vessel, the U.S.S. Milwaukee, would pick up the goods for the first leg of their journey to America. (In Naples, Italy, the items would be transferred from the Milwaukee to the Virginia-bound Sylvania. ) Mokhtar was adamant that both he and a representative from the U.S. Embassy escort the items to the port. Tom Homan, a young cultural attaché, was the American deputized to join the antiquities chief. He remembers being surprised at both the modest size of the boxed-up exhibition—the U.S. Navy had readied a forklift, wholly unnecessarily, as it turned out, to load the crates—and the informal mode of transport that Mokhtar had arranged for the three-hour ride.

“It was just one open flatbed truck, with the boxes tied down with rope, and two ordinary taxis,” he says. Homan and Mokhtar rode in one taxi, and security personnel in the other. Everything in the show went on the truck except the box containing Selket, which was packed into the trunk of Homan and Mokhtar’s taxi. Homan’s equanimity was put to the test when Mokhtar had the mini-motorcade stop in his hometown, a village along the way, for a drink. The taxi’s driver also happened to be from the town. “We were dropped off at some watering hole, and I watched Selket disappear with the taxi,” Homan says. “I said, ‘Dr. Mokhtar! Selket is driving away!’ He calmly said, ‘Yes, yes, he’s going to have tea with his wife.’ ” Immediately upon the driver’s return, Homan asked to have the trunk opened so he could be reassured of Selket’s presence. She was still there, and, not long thereafter, she, the gold mask, and the other 53 items were safely en route to America.

The “Treasures of Tutankhamun” show was unveiled on November 15, 1976, at a gala dinner at the National Gallery hosted by the museum’s president and foremost benefactor, Paul Mellon, and his wife, Bunny. Writing about the event, John Sherwood, a reporter for The Washington Star, observed of the gathered swells, “The amazing thing was what overcomes everyone who enters this exhibit. They shut up. They whisper at first, just the way Howard Carter did.”

The show was installed in the windowless Central Gallery of the West Building, which the museum’s director of design, Gil Ravenel, turned into a dimly lit, dramatically tomb-like space. Ravenel had the gallery’s walls painted a shade of gray, Brown recalled “that tuned in with the silver bromide color” in the enlargements of Harry Burton's 1920s photographs and “just happened to be the perfect color for gold objects to be seen against.”

The exhibition was busy from the get-go, but, in its initial weeks, it was merely crowded, not thronged. As word of its magnificence got out, however, along with heavy print-and-television promotion by the show’s corporate sponsor, Exxon, would-be museum-goers began to anticipate epic waits. “Some kids assumed there would be a long line, so they pitched their pup tents in front of the National Gallery,” says Solmssen. “And the TV stations covered that, so everyone else thought, Hey, we gotta go. And, all of a sudden, there were lines. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

While mere civilians waited and waited, V.I.P.’s pulled strings to get in. Among those charged with serving as their guide was the National Gallery’s current director, Earl A. Powell III. Then a newly hatched junior curator at the museum, he recalls escorting President Jimmy Carter’s devout and homespun mother, Miss Lillian Carter, through the exhibition. “When Mrs. Carter came into the gold-mask room,” Powell says, “she held firm to my arm and said, ‘You can feel the spirit!’ ” Other V.I.P. visitors included the future senator John Warner and his then wife, Elizabeth Taylor; First Daughter Amy Carter; former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson; future First Lady Nancy Reagan; and such arts-and-letters figures as Andy Warhol, Robert Redford, Mike Nichols, and Lillian Hellman.

Accordingly, the remaining five museums in the consortium geared up for unprecedented foot traffic. In the days between the National Gallery’s run and that of the next institution up, the Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago, an official from the latter admitted, “The Washington experience scared us. There’s been lots of panic planning here.” It was the Tut show that compelled the museums, for the first time, to issue show tickets separate from the lapel pins that came with general admission. Depending on the museum, these tickets were either free or cost only a nominal fee, but demand was so high that even some ticketed visitors faced snaking lines and all-day waits. Scalpers got in on the action, hoarding $2 tickets and reselling them for 15 to 20 times that amount. In Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York, the tickets were put on sale in advance, their respective four-month runs selling out in a matter of hours.

The Metropolitan Museum, by virtue of being the last stop, had the most time to plan. Richard Morsches, the museum’s vice president for operations, packed off a group of Met staff members to Disneyland to observe and analyze how real pros handled crowd control. “Morsches called us his Tut Ops people,” says Stuart Silver, the Hoving-era design director. “I heard ‘It’s a Small World’ so many times that I still can’t bear to hear it.”

All the planning in the world, though, could not prevent crowds from packing the Metropolitan Museum’s steps, not to mention the blocks on Fifth Avenue running south from the museum along Central Park. The New York Times published an “About New York” column that led with the story of a woman whose husband began to suffer chest pains as they were on the verge of gaining admittance to the exhibition. Before bundling into an ambulance with him, she sought assurance from museum officials—priorities!—that she could retake her place in line when her spouse’s medical emergency was resolved.

The wryly reported dispatch from the waiting-to-see Tut line became a staple of late-70s newspapers and magazines, as did jaded commentary from the hype-averse; in Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau portrayed a museum guard boasting, “The Boy King Necrobilia Collection is the hottest ticket since Elvis!” But Tut-mania also begat an exuberant return of 1920s-style Egyptophilia, though of a more glammy strain. Bloomingdale’s, then at the height of its taste-making pomp, unveiled lines of Tut-inspired jewelry and housewares, including linens and a tote bag bearing the I ♥ NEW YORK slogan spelled out in hieroglyphics. Candy Pratts Price, who at the time designed the store’s window and floor displays (and is now a contributing editor at Vogue ), ordered a life-size knockoff of the masked Tut in his tomb, surrounded it with sand, and put her faux pharaoh on display in the home-furnishings section. The heiress turned bank robber Patty Hearst, before she was packed off to jail, caught the Tut show with her parents at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she ran into Cher. Linda Ronstadt, admiring the statue of Selket at the New Orleans Museum of Art, remarked, “Just look at her—that pose just tells men to stay away. I could use that with my drummer.”

The Tut phenomenon was so all-encompassing that it became a prism through which pundits and pontificators discussed whatever they felt like discussing. *Time’*s longtime White House correspondent Hugh Sidey used the fact that Jimmy Carter had worn a sweater rather than a jacket and tie when he viewed the show in March 1977 as a telling commentary on the then new president’s folksy appeal. While “his retinue of white-shirted ambassadors, National Gallery factotums and Secret Service agents looked faintly uneasy,” Sidey wrote, “Jimmy was like the tourists, who gave up neckties a long time ago.” Meanwhile, an Afro-centric magazine called Sepia complained, “Most of the viewers who wait hours for a chance to glance admiringly at the priceless collection do not realize that King Tut was black!” Quoting African-American historians, among them one who declared that Egypt’s 18th Dynasty “was of almost unmixed Negro strain,” Sepia concluded that the organizers of “Treasures of Tutankhamun” had willfully neglected to educate the public about the pharaoh’s race: “What other name is appropriate for their road show of borrowed trinkets and treasures that, mislabeled, wows a nation? We call it the big Tut ripoff!”

As for Steve Martin, he preceded his lavish, willfully tacky Saturday Night Live production number—the most elaborate in the young show’s history—with a speech in which he mock-solemnly lamented, “It’s a national disgrace the way we’ve commercialized [Tut] with trinkets and toys, T-shirts and posters. . . . Maybe we can all learn something from this.”

In keeping with Hoving’s iconoclasm, the Metropolitan Museum mounted the Tut show in a fashion different from that of any of the other institutions. Just a few months prior to the December 1978 opening at the Met of “Treasures of Tutankhamun,” the museum had installed the Temple of Dendur in its new, glass-skinned, 48-foot-high, 200-foot-long Sackler Wing. The Tut show was placed in the mezzanine-level Egyptian galleries on the museum’s north side, some of which overlooked the temple, balcony-style, thereby allowing in some natural light. (This balcony has since been sealed off, and only a single small window overlooks the temple now.) Silver had studied the previous installations of the show and come away persuaded, he says, that “we were not going to do the nightclub, caveman, ooga-booga darkness approach like everybody else. You can light the shit out of something, but you’re always going to lose something. These objects just glistened in the daylight, and it was beautiful to see. And they glistened at night, but in a different way.”

Brown, predictably, was dismissive of the Metropolitan’s anti-tomb approach. The Met visitor, he said, “came out onto a mezzanine overlooking the Temple of Dendur space, which you’d think would be logical because it was Egyptian, but the whole point of the Tut show was that this stuff came from underground. You got into this dark atmosphere, and the spookiness of it was part of the appeal. Suddenly, at the Met, when you were two-thirds through, you turned a corner and you were out in that blaze of gray New York north light looking out onto Central Park. It just changed the whole mood and took away the whole sense of concentration on an imaginative, fictive experience.”

Regardless of Brown’s criticisms, the Met experience was the smoothest in terms of crowd flow, even with as many as 40,000 visitors a day, and Brown and Hoving could take pride not only in realizing their mutually held dream of a Tut show in America but also in pulling it off beyond anyone’s expectations. A survey commissioned by the Met concluded that “Treasures of Tutankhamun” had pumped $111 million into the New York City economy, taking into account money spent by Tut-goers on hotels, restaurants, shopping, and transportation. Chicago officials estimated a $42 million municipal boost over their four months with Tut, while New Orleans estimated its Tut stimulus to be an astonishing (for a small city) $70 million.

As for Hoving, he was already gone from the Met by the time “Treasures of Tutankhamun” actually made its way to the museum, having moved on to start his own consulting firm and to serve as an arts correspondent for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20. With the tour’s itinerary all set, he relinquished his post in mid-1977. Says Silver, “Coming as the culmination of over a decade of Hoving extravaganzas, Tut left nowhere else for Tom to go but up or out.”

Hoving died of lung cancer in December 2009, with the term “blockbuster exhibition” inevitably appearing in the first paragraph of his obituaries. To some, this was and remains a tragic term, akin to the movie Jaws’ emergence in 1975 as the first blockbuster movie—a delineation between a time when art museums were governed primarily by artistic concerns and the more box-office-obsessed reality to which we are now accustomed. But to Hoving and his acolytes, getting great masses of people into art museums was the whole point. “He told me long afterwards that his finest achievement as director of the Metropolitan was Tut,” says Silver. “It wasn’t. His finest achievement was creating the crowds in the halls.”

Photos: King Tut’s Fans, From Elizabeth Taylor to Andy Warhol

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King Tut exhibition comes to L.A., but it’s not the same as you might remember

Mayor Eric Garcetti and archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass usher in the new King Tut exhibition at the California Science Center, which celebrates the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of his tomb.

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The golden relics of Tut, evoking the life, mysterious death and storied afterlife of the 19-year-old Egyptian King Tutankhamun, is, for many of us, embedded in our childhood memories — along with those long, long entrance lines.

A touring King Tut exhibition in the 1960s was followed by the blockbuster tour of the ’70s — the one that broke records at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, drawing more than 1 million visitors and to this day the museum’s most highly attended show. Two exhibitions have roamed the globe in this century, including “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” which showed at LACMA in 2005, and another one in 2008.

For the record:

1:55 p.m. March 21, 2018 An earlier version of this article reported that a “coffinette” containing King Tut’s mummified liver will be on view in new exhibit. The coffinette will be on view, but the mummified liver will not be inside.

Now he’s back: “King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh,” timed to the upcoming 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tut’s tomb, opens at the California Science Center on Saturday.

British archaeologist Howard Carter unearthed the 3,300-year-old bedrock tomb on Nov. 4, 1922, revealing a wealth of ancient Egyptian secrets — and schoolchildren’s field trips were forever altered.

But “Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh,” for better or for worse, is not the King Tut exhibit Mrs. Felsen dragged you to in eighth grade. Organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the management company IMG, the new exhibition has about triple the number of objects that have previously toured — many leaving Egypt for the first time — along with advanced display technology and new science about King Tut’s life, health, death and lineage.

But along with the additions, Tut completists will note some absences in the exhibit inventory. Here’s what you will find when Tut rolls into town.

More is more

A core of about 50 objects have consistently traveled with King Tut exhibitions in the past. You remember, the small, gold “coffinette” that contained King Tut’s mummified liver, the gold shrine etched with images of King Tut and his wife, King Tut’s carved wooden bust.

Many of the favorites are back, like the coffinette. The new exhibition has 166 total objects, the largest number of King Tut items ever displayed publicly outside Egypt. About 40% of the works haven’t left the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities before.

Some items, however, are not returning. Among them: the gold, crown-like diadem from the mummy’s head, as well as a wooden King Tut mannequin.

In curating new material for the exhibit, organizers said they aimed for intimate objects like the gold sandals on the mummy’s feet when it was discovered, and a pair of worn linen gloves he may have used in real life, circa 1336 BC. There’s also a ceremonial wooden bed with lion feet, created for King Tut’s body to rest during the afterlife, plus jewelry galore, including gold bands embedded with semiprecious stones and wrapped around the mummy’s exterior.

A limited-time offer?

Whether or not it sounds like a marketing ploy, organizers of “Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” said this may be the last time the Tutankhamun collection travels as a whole outside Egypt. The exhibition will appear in 10 cities internationally over seven years, then the objects will go to the still-under-construction Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where they will remain permanently.

Immersive galleries

“Immersive” may have been the arts buzzword of 2016 , but it’s still going strong today. “Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” will feature an “immersive environment,” organizers said. That begins with a four-minute introductory film on a 180-degree screen meant to transport people to the Valley of the Kings, where Tut’s tomb was discovered.

During the nine-gallery exhibit that follows, guests will pass through six gates of the underworld as they travel with King Tut on his quest for immortality. Along the way, they will encounter good luck amulets, weapons meant to fight off demons, alabaster containers of oils that the ancient Egyptians believed enabled him to see and hear in the underworld, and figurines of gods meant to guide and protect him.

New 3-D scans of objects are animated on video screens on top of display cases, so viewers can zoom in and spin the objects onscreen for an interactive experience.

“There’s a lot more technology in this exhibition when it comes to being able to help tell the story,” says John Norman, IMG’s managing director of exhibitions, who also organized the 2005 and 2008 Tut exhibitions. “With these videos, you really get to see these objects in a way you’ve never seen them before.”

Scientific analysis

The last galleries in the show focus on the discovery of the tomb itself and the history of Egyptian archaeology along with new scientific analysis of the mummy.

Tut was only about 9 when he became king and 19 when he died, but his exact cause of death has long been a mystery. It still is.

But thanks to technology and new analysis over the last decade, researchers have a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding his death.

A video table in the exhibition shows CT scan data of King Tut’s mummy. The scan is from 2005, but advances in technology have made it possible to glean more information about it. King Tut had a club foot and an impacted wisdom tooth. New DNA testing shows that King Tut also suffered malaria.

The child king had a badly broken left leg above the knee that pierced his skin. That likely resulted in an infection that caused death.

A new family tree in the exhibit highlights who’s who in King Tut’s lineage.

“The one thing we absolutely didn’t want to do,” Norman said, “was duplicate what had been done before.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

‘King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh’

Where: California Science Center, 700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles.

When: March 24-Jan. 6

Admission: $19.50-$30

Info: (323) 724-3623, californiasciencecenter.org

“Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” exhibit lands at California Science Center

[email protected]

Follow me on Twitter: @debvankin

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Deborah Vankin is an arts and culture writer for the Los Angeles Times. In what’s never a desk job, she has live-blogged her journey across Los Angeles with the L.A. County Museum of Art’s “big rock,” scaled downtown mural scaffolding with street artist Shepard Fairey, navigated the 101 freeway tracking the 1984 Olympic mural restorations and ridden Doug Aitken’s art train through the Barstow desert. Her award-winning interviews and profiles unearth the trends, issues and personalities in L.A.’s arts scene. Her work as a writer and editor has also appeared in Variety, LA Weekly and the New York Times, among other places. Originally from Philadelphia, she’s the author of the graphic novel “Poseurs.”

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Blockbuster King Tut Exhibitions and their Fascinating History

The Mask of Tutankhamun, c. 1323 BC. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

King Tutankhamun—or King Tut—first entered the Western zeitgeist in 1922, when his tomb was opened by the British archaeologist Howard Carter and his financier the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. The near-perfect preservation of the tomb’s 5,398 artifacts fascinated the world. Ever since, the ancient pharaoh and the treasures he was buried with have played a central role in Western imaginations of the historical and exotic.

The most significant touring exhibition centered on the boy-king was The Treasures of Tutankhamun (1972–1981). Although other traveling exhibitions such as Tutankhamun Treasure (1961-67) had already occurred—and many others have since—no other exhibition has generated nearly as much attention and excitement.

This breakout touring show came about as part of a new series of diplomatic efforts between Egypt and Western countries, starting with the United Kingdom early on in the 70s. Via the creation of a banner exhibition, officials hoped primarily to change public perceptions of Egypt from war-torn to cultural mecca.

A few years after these talks with the UK, Egypt and the United States entered similar negotiations. Fascinatingly, these occurred during Nixon’s presidency, in 1974—right around the early stages of the Watergate investigations.

President and Mrs. Nixon with Mr. and Mrs. Anwar Sadat at the site of the great pyramids at Giza, 1974. From the Nixon White House Photographs.  

Between the UK and US tours, The Treasures of Tutankh­amun was hosted by three museums across the then Soviet Union. And, after the US tour, the exhibition was sent to several locations in Germany and Canada.

Of course, the particulars of these tours changed from one country to the next. In the case of the US tours, the director of the National Gallery of Art in DC and the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art fought for the chance to lead organizational efforts. Thomas Hoving, of the Met, ultimately won out.

The Met’s curator of Egyptian art, along with Hoving and officials from the Cairo Museum, chose fifty-five items for the tour, including the King’s golden burial mask. The show was a major hit.

In 2015, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) published a reflection piece on the lasting impact of this tour on everything from local economies to museum practices. Special ticketing systems had to be devised and efforts made to prevent scalping. According to the feature, over the course of the US tour, “Visitors spent $100,000 a week (in 1976 dollars) on souvenirs” alone.

When the show came to the Met , it drew 1.27 million visitors—633,500 of them from out of town. In total, the US rendition of The Treasures of Tutankhamun attracted about 8 million visitors and raised $9 million for the Egyptian government to use in the renovation of cultural venues.

Actress Elizabeth Taylor and US Senator John Warner at Treasures of Tutankhamun (November 17, 1976–March 15, 1977).

As mentioned previously, several other touring exhibitions have occurred over the decades. One of note was Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs (originally entitled Tutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter ). The show toured across Europe and the US from 2004 to 2011 and was considered special because it mostly featured objects that were not included in the 1970s tours.

Today, 100 years after the initial opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb, King Tut’s remains and the most fragile items of the collection no longer leave Egypt.

A few years ago, a touring exhibition billed as the final time any items from the King Tut collection would ever leave Egypt was scheduled to run from 2018 to 2021. Entitled Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh , the show featured 150 items. More than sixty of these had never been seen outside of Egypt. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic , the tour’s last two stops—in Boston, Massachusetts and Sydney, Australia—were canceled.

Currently, the King Tut collection is mostly located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Officials plan to eventually move it to the Grand Egyptian Museum which, after several years of more pandemic-related delays, is finally scheduled to open in November 2022.

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Mobile navigation, after 30 years, king tut returns to the de young.

San Francisco (October 6, 2008)—A new generation of Northern Californians will have a chance to view the artifacts of Egypt’s best-known pharaoh when Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs opens at the de Young on June 27, 2009. This marks the first time in three decades that the treasures of King Tutankhamun will be seen in Northern California since the first record-breaking exhibition at the de Young in 1979.

The current exhibition includes an extensive array of more than 130 important artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun and other ancient Egyptian sites such as the gold diadem found on King Tut’s mummy’s head when the tomb was discovered. The exhibition will also include a selection of artifacts that are new to the traveling exhibition including an elaborate pectoral necklace that features a yellow-green carved stone of unknown origin that is thought to be millions of years old.

A collection of photographs, “Opening Tutankhamun’s Tomb: The Harry Burton Photographs” will feature 38 prints from Harry Burton, the photographer who accompanied explorer Howard Carter on the Tutankhamun expedition and documented the discoveries. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs will remain on view at the de Young through March 28, 2010.

“San Francisco is a perfect place for King Tut,” said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. “I want everyone in California to know that the boy king is coming to town, and I personally invite everyone to see this great exhibition so that a new generation of people will experience the history and magic of the boy king.”

“Since a trip to Egypt is out of reach for most people, we are bringing a collection of King Tut’s exquisite treasures back to the de Young so that the Bay Area can experience the beauty of the Golden Age of ancient Egypt,” said John E. Buchanan, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “The first Tut show in 1979 was one of the most popular exhibitions ever to be presented at the de Young. We look forward to providing this new educational and cultural exploration as part of our 30-year tradition of hosting exhibitions that feature ancient art and antiquities at the Fine Arts Museums.”

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is the latest in a long tradition of presenting exhibitions of Egyptian and Middle Eastern art and antiquities at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Previous exhibitions have included: Highlights from the Israel Antiquities Authority: The Dead Sea Scrolls and 5,000 Years of Treasures (2008), Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh (2005-2006), Eternal Egypt (2002), Pergamon: The Telephos Frieze from the Great Altar (1996), The Search for Alexander (1982), Treasures of Tutankhamun (1979) and Images for Eternity: Egyptian Art from Berkeley and Brooklyn (1975). The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have presented 17 such exhibitions since 1975.

A portion of the proceeds generated from the world tour are being used to help preserve Egypt’s treasures, including the construction of a new museum in Cairo where antiquities will be housed.

Since opening in June 2005, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs has drawn more than 5 million visitors, setting records in each city in which it was presented, including Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Philadelphia, and London. The exhibition began its US encore tour in Dallas at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) on October 3.

ORGANIZATION The exhibition is organized by National Geographic, Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

“Egypt’s ancient treasures are among the world’s greatest cultural legacies, and we’re delighted that we are able to bring this exhibition back to the United States so that more people will have an opportunity to view some of the most important artifacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb and other ancient Egyptian sites,” said Terry Garcia, National Geographic’s executive vice president for mission programs.

“The previous King Tut tour in the 1970s was a major cultural phenomenon and, to some extent, coined the term ‘blockbuster,’” said John Norman, president of Arts and Exhibitions International. “The huge response to Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs has proven that the public still is embracing the legacy of the boy king.”

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION AND NEW OBJECTS On view from June 27, 2009, through March 28, 2010 at the de Young, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs provides insight into the life of Tutankhamun and other royals of the 18th Dynasty (1555-1305 BC). All of the treasures in the exhibition are more than 3,000 years old.

Tutankhamun was one of the last kings of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty and ruled during a crucial, turmoil-filled period of Egyptian history. The boy king died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 18 or 19, in the ninth year of his reign (1322 BC). Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings was filled with magnificent treasures meant to ensure his divine immortality. Many objects belonging to the young king—exquisite personal items used in his daily life—were placed in it.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs offers glimpses of that critical period in Egyptian history. On display will be 50 of Tutankhamun’s burial objects, including one of the gold and precious stone inlaid canopic coffinettes that contained his mummified internal organs. Also included are many of the day-to-day objects enjoyed by the young king including a finely crafted child’s chair and an inlaid game board, one of four in the tomb, clearly representing an activity enjoyed by the king.

New to the encore tour of the exhibition are two nested coffinettes that contained the remains of two fetuses that are now undergoing DNA testing to reveal their relationship to King Tut. Also new to the exhibition from Tutankhamun’s tomb is a beautiful scarab bracelet featuring a central image of a beetle representing the sun god. An elaborate pectoral, a masterpiece of jewelry making, contains a rare, yellow-green glass stone carved in the shape of a scarab beetle that some scientists believe to be a fragment of an ancient meteorite.

More than 70 additional objects from tombs of 18th Dynasty royals, as well the possessions of elite individuals with close connections to the royal family also will be exhibited. These stone, faience and wooden pieces from burial sites before Tut’s reign will give visitors a sense of what the burials of both royalty and the elite may have been like and what the Egyptians of that time considered essential for the afterlife.

SPONSORS Northern Trust, a global financial services firm, is the presenting sponsor of the tour, and American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, is the official airline of the exhibition.

“Northern Trust is proud to share this fascinating cultural and educational experience with the San Francisco community as well as visitors from around the world,” said Frederick H. Waddell, president and chief executive officer, Northern Trust Corporation. “For nearly 120 years, Northern Trust has supported numerous local charities and events that increase social interaction and a sense of community, and integrate the arts into education and other outreach activities. We look forward to the continued success of the tour and anticipate that this exhibition will provide a wonderful opportunity for all viewers to enjoy this truly unique exploration into the history of Tutankhamun.”

American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, is the official airline of the exhibition.

“American Airlines is thrilled to have a role in bringing an exhibition of this magnitude to San Francisco,” said Dan Garton, executive vice president of marketing for American Airlines. “As the official airline of the exhibition, we are pleased that American Airlines is helping to make it possible for these extraordinary objects to be seen by thousands of visitors.”

TICKET INFORMATION Tickets to Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs at the de Young will be available for purchase on a date to be announced later. For additional information about tickets and pricing, please visit deyoungmuseum.org . Consumers can sign up for the de Young’s newsletter to be the first to receive an email alert of when tickets will go on sale.

Discounted tickets will be available for school groups and a limited number of scholarships will be available for low-income students. Beginning Monday, October 5, 2009, Mondays will be reserved for school group visits. Reservations for student visits will be accepted in January 2009.

VISITING \ DE YOUNG The de Young, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and located in Golden Gate Park, showcases American art from the 17th through the 21st centuries, international textile arts and costumes, and art from the Americas, the Pacific, and Africa.

Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118

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News | 100 year anniversary: The discovery of King…

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News | 100 year anniversary: The discovery of King Tut’s tomb

Here's how a boy king reached greatness 3,000 years after his death.

Finding a Pharaoh

Nearly 100 years ago, the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun was discovered. Here’s a look at one of the greatest archaeological finds in history.

Almost lost

Tutankhamun was about age 9 when he became king of Egypt. He died after a 10-year rule (approximately 1332–1323 BC). His story would have been forgotten if it were not for the discovery of his tomb in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings. It is the most intact Pharaoh’s tomb ever found and it held a wealth of objects that give a unique insight into this period of ancient Egyptian history.

Despite the riches it contained, the tomb of Tutankhamun, No. 62 in the Valley of the Kings, is quite modest compared to the other tombs in the area, both in size and decoration. This is because Tutankhamun came to the throne very young and ruled for about nine years. Scientists believe he died at about the age of 19.

Approximately 5,000 artifacts were discovered inside. These include objects that Tut would have used daily, such as clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, incense, furniture, chairs, toys, vessels made of a variety of materials, chariots and weapons.

Tutankhamun was erased from history because he was the son to the unpopular King Akhenaten, but once his tomb was discovered, his fame surpassed many of Egypt’s greatest rulers.

The tomb became one of Egypt’s top attractions, with about 4,000 tourists a day in the late 1980s.

Beginning in 2009, in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, the Getty Conservation Institute undertook the multiyear conservation effort.

Is there a curse?

Carter’s patron, Lord Carnarvon, died four months after entering the tomb, leading to a “curse of the pharaohs” claim that hieroglyphs on the tomb walls promised swift death to those who disturbed King Tut. More than a dozen deaths have been attributed to the curse, but studies have shown that those who entered the tomb on average lived just as long as their peers who didn’t enter.

Tut on tour

Artifacts from King Tut’s tomb toured the world in museum shows, including the worldwide 1972-79 “Treasures of Tutankhamen” exhibitions.

The most fragile artifacts, including the burial mask, no longer leave Egypt. Tutankhamun’s mummy remains on display within the tomb in the Valley of the Kings . His layered coffin has been replaced with a climate-controlled glass box.

The Tutankhamun collection will eventually move to the Grand Egyptian Museum, located near the Pyramids of Giza.

Coming to Los Angeles

Artifacts not included, but a visual storytelling experience about King Tut will be touring the nation and in Los Angeles soon. National Geographic’s Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience is a cinematic immersive exhibition that takes guests on a journey to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time.

Visitors can travel back in time 3,000 years to the 18th dynasty when King Tut ruled and gods like Ra and Anubis were worshiped by all. Descend into King Tut’s tomb, 100 years since its historic discovery and join him in his quest for immortality. Experience all of this and more in a story 3,000 years in the making.

When: Open November 04, 2022 – December 31, 2022

Location: Magic Box LA – 1933 S. Broadway, Los Angeles

Ticket information is at beyondkingtut.com

Sources: Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, History.com, The Associated Press, Egypt Today, Albertis-window.com , Khan Academy, National Geographic , “The Tomb of Tut.Ankh.Amen” by Howard Carter, The Griffith Institute at the University of Oxford, Theban Mapping Project

Mask, statue and mural photos from Wikimedia Commons

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King Tutankhamen's Farewell Tour

Jesse Baker

Replicated Remains: The actual remains of King Tutankhamen have never left Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Instead, the touring exhibit features a life-size, 3-D replica (above) constructed using CT scans of the real mummy. Jennifer Taylor hide caption

Replicated Remains: The actual remains of King Tutankhamen have never left Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Instead, the touring exhibit features a life-size, 3-D replica (above) constructed using CT scans of the real mummy.

For only few more days, some of Egypt's most prized and promoted possessions can be found in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, tucked between a Broadway musical production of Spider-Man and the Times Square Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

Schoolchildren from Morningside Elementary prepare to see the King Tutankhamen exhibit, which visited the Atlanta Civic Center in November 2008. Erik S. Lesser/AP hide caption

Schoolchildren from Morningside Elementary prepare to see the King Tutankhamen exhibit, which visited the Atlanta Civic Center in November 2008.

The ancient Egyptians believed if your name lived on after you died, then you would enjoy eternal life. If they're right, King Tutankhamen is pretty spry for a guy who is more than 3,000 years old.

It is "King Tut" the phenomenon that has inspired fashion designers and satirists alike for more than a generation. After 5 1/2 years, eight cities and nearly 8 million visitors, Tutankhamen's grand touring exhibit is headed home to a new museum in Giza specially designed to house the gilded treasures of the king.

"I wanted to come see the real thing," said New Yorker Michael Gold, as he wandered around the exhibit. "Thank goodness I came to see it before it disappeared. I couldn't wait another 40 years."

The last time Tutankhamen graced these shores back in the 1970s, he became a phenomenon, triggering so-called Tut-mania -- remember Steve Martin's homage to the boy king?

Tutankhamen's treasures last visited the U.S. in the 1970s -- viewing the exhibit was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Above, people stand in line at Chicago's Field Museum in June 1977. Charles Knoblock/AP hide caption

Tutankhamen's treasures last visited the U.S. in the 1970s -- viewing the exhibit was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Above, people stand in line at Chicago's Field Museum in June 1977.

This time around, Tut remains a cultural touchstone. Stephen Colbert's top story of 2010 on The Colbert Report was the pharaoh's missing metaphorical "royal jewels ." (A CT scan found they had fallen off but were still contained in the royal sarcophagus.)

Organizers say this is likely to be the last time Tutankhamen and his relics tour the U.S. To be precise, Tutankhamen never made the tour: Instead of his actual mummy, the exhibit features a life-size 3-D replica based on CT scans of the real mummy. Tutankhamen's remains have never left Egypt's Valley of the Kings.

Back in the 1970s, viewing Tutankhamen was described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It cost just a few dollars for admission. Three-plus decades later, the exhibit became a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity that cost $29.50 plus taxes for each ticket.

Organizers suspect Tutankhamen's touring days are over; the Grand Egyptian Museum will be the final resting place for the boy king's treasures. Andreas Voegelin, Antikenmuseum Basel, Sammlung Ludwig hide caption

Organizers suspect Tutankhamen's touring days are over; the Grand Egyptian Museum will be the final resting place for the boy king's treasures.

"When the exhibition toured in the '70s, Egypt saw very little money from that very successful exhibition," says Mark Lach, senior vice president for Arts and Exhibitions International, the organization that collaborated with the Egyptian government to bring Tutankhamen back to the U.S.

This time, Egypt gets the majority of the cut.

"I think bringing the exhibit to the United States to raise funds for Egypt was a very important part of the reasoning for bringing the exhibit back to the U.S.," Lach says.

Tutankhamen and his golden entourage will return to Egypt with about $80 million. The money will be spread around -- some will aid the preservation of Egyptian temples and monuments, but the bulk of it will pay for the construction of The Grand Egyptian Museum, the final resting place for the boy king's treasures. Tutankhamen's traveling days are over, or at least David Silverman thinks so. He's curator of the current Tutankhamen exhibit and was the curator of the 1977 tour stop at Chicago's Field Museum.

"I think the whole buildup has been to bring it back to Egypt and I think once that happens there's a very good chance that it's not going to travel again," Silverman says.

There's one more stop on the king's comeback tour, in Melbourne, as the relics await completion of the Museum in Giza.

King Tut Exhibition Comes to Philadelphia: Penn Museum’s David P. Silverman Is National Curator

Exhibit Notes

By: James McClelland

Originally Published in 2006

The international touring exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs will end its tour of the U.S. next year at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, February 3 to September 30, 2007. David P. Silverman, a guiding light during the first King Tut exhibition in the 1970s and the Penn Museum’s Curator-in-Charge of the Egyptian Section, is the National Curator of or this new exhibition. How did this come about? In the beginning the exhibition was only scheduled to visit two places in Europe: Basel, Switzerland, and Bonn, Germany. Then, an American company, Arts and Exhibitions, International,  approached Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, about touring the show in America. When Hawass decided the show should come to the U.S., he wanted Silverman to be the National Curator.

“For several reasons,” says the affable Silverman. “Zahi Hawass was a former student of mine in the 1980s and he was a graduate of our Ph.D. program.” Given a Fulbright scholar­ship to study here, Hawass impressed Silverman with his intel­ligence, perseverance, and dedication. “When it was announced that the show would come to America, it was already in Basel. At Hawass’ suggestion, I was asked to go there, see the exhibition, and make decisions on how we could tell the story from the objects that had already been selected by Hawass.”

One of the sponsors of the traveling show is National Geographic—the last gallery in the exhibition is theirs. Essentially, it illus­trates the importance of science and new scientific techniques used by Egyptologists to learn more about the past. “In this case,” says Silverman, “it has to do directly with the CT scans that were performed on the mummy of Tutankhamun in January 2005. From their results, they found that the mummification process was not as bad as everyone had thought. Another thing we learned—but it also creates more mysteries—has to do with how Tut died. It’s very clear from these scans that he probably died at no more than 20 years of age. There have always been theories of how he died, and whether he was mur­dered. Books have been written on it and TV docu­mentaries produced and most Egyptologists now have dismissed this theory. The CT scans provide clear scientific evidence that the damage to the back of his head seems to be post-mortem and clearly not from a blow on the head, as suggested in 1968.”

“What was interesting was that on one of his legs above the knee there was clearly an injury that did not heal. There is some speculation—though it can’t be proven—that that injury might have become infected and that it might have led to blood poisoning. Considering what happens in a tropical climate, this would not have been an unusual case, and he, in fact, could have died from blood poisoning.”

What were Silverman’s responsibilities? “I was responsible for all the educational materials, the interpretation of the design, and the story line—the way the objects are set up and all the texts and labels that are associated with them. I had to make sure that everything was consistent and correct.” The biggest challenge was completing an exhibition of this magni­tude and scope in roughly a year’s time! One reason Hawass wanted Silverman to do this exhibition was that when the first King Tut show opened in the States in the 1970s, Silverman was the curator of the Chicago portion. Having written all the text panels and labels that traveled then, he was familiar with the nature of such a blockbuster exhibit—in fact, the original ‘blockbuster.’

The biggest problem Silverman faced was keeping track of all the text rewrites.“It went through a lot of phases and it went to the media so it was very difficulty to make sure we were all speaking with one voice and to make sure our aims and our goals were uniform.”

The Museum’s Own New Exhibit

To complement the new traveling Tut show, Penn Museum’s own special exhibit, Amarna, Ancient Egypt’s Place in the Sun, will run concurrently. Jennifer Houser Wegner and Josef W. Wegner will serve as co-curators for this exhibit, along with David Silverman. Opening in November 2006, this new exhibit will complement the traveling Tut show by concentrat­ing on the city of Amarna—where Tutankhamun spent his childhood—and the location where Tut’s father, Akhenaten, centered his revolutionary religion.

“What we’re doing is telling part of the story of Tut that is not actually in the touring exhibition,” says Silverman. “It’s pretty much a complement to what you’ll see at the Franklin Institute.” For example, several objects in the Museum’s exhibit will also directly relate to Tutankhamun. These include the only known black bronze figure of a kneeling Tut with sur­viving gold inlays, a figure of the god Amun represented with King Tut’s features (similar to one found in the traveling exhi­bition), and a figurine depicting the body of one of Tut’s half-sisters (complementing a figurine in the traveling exhibit that shows another half-sister’s head). Furthermore, the Museum’s exhibit will also display some everyday objects excavated from houses of ordinary people at Amarna.

“We’re interested in having many more visitors attend the Museum to learn about ancient Egypt,” says Silverman. “The exhibition at the Franklin Institute is a fantastic exhibition, but it’s only a small portion of ancient Egyptian history, roughly a century.” In contrast, Penn’s collection runs the gamut of almost 5,000 years of Egyptian civilization. With approxi­mately 40,000 catalogued objects from both Upper and Lower Egypt, it is the third-largest collection in the U.S. The Museum’s new exhibit will use about 2,000 sq. ft. of com­pletely redesigned space with about 150 objects on display, many never on exhibition before.”

So when Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs comes to the Franklin Institute, be sure to also visit the Penn Museum and become reacquainted with its Egyptian exhibits, both old and new.

JAMES McCLELLAND is a Philadelphia freelance writer who specializes in the arts and writes for Antiques & Fine Arts Magazine, Ceramics Monthly, Dance International, Magazine Antiques, and Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine, to name a few. He is also the Philadelphia Correspondent for Art & Antiques Magazine. He is the author of Fountains of Philadelphia (Stackpole, 2005).

Cite This Article

This digitized article is presented here as a historical reference and may not reflect the current views of the Penn Museum.

Report problems and issues to [email protected] .

King Tut Comes to America

Zipped into parkas and huddled under blankets, hundreds of people waited in a line that stretched for blocks outside the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Not even the bitter chill that descended on the city in February 1977 and the hours-long wait could deter them from seeing the golden artifacts belonging to Tutankhamun—more popularly known as “King Tut”—the boy-king who ruled Egypt 33 centuries earlier.

From November 1976 to April 1979, “Treasures of Tutankhamun” traveled to 6 American cities with the help of $300,000 from NEH. The exhibition started in Washington before moving on to Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History ( $108,894 ), New Orleans Museum of Art ( $97,492 ), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Seattle Center’s Flag Pavilion, and finishing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which had organized the tour. More than 6 million people would see the show, turning a museum exhibition into the hottest ticket in town.

The Egyptian government arranged for “Treasures of Tutankhamun” to tour the United States as a gift for its bicentennial. The exhibition was written into the bilateral agreement between the United States and Egypt, signed by Presidents Richard Nixon and Anwar Sadat in 1974. After a volatile period in Middle East politics, Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, wanted the American people to associate Egypt with something more than oil and war.

Tut’s arrival in November 1976 set off a wave of “Tutmania.” In Seattle, you could drink a Tut-themed cocktail at the top of the Space Needle. In New Orleans, you could eat a bowl of Ramses gumbo or a Queen Nefertiti salad. Shops opened to sell Tut t-shirts and tchotchkes, while department stores offered Egyptian-themed housewares.

People snapped up tickets for a chance to see 55 artifacts from Tut’s tomb, which was discovered by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922. The exhibition featured sculptures of Tut riding a leopard and hunting for hippopotamus. There were boxes inlaid with ivory and chests covered with sheets of gold embossed with hieroglyphics. Jewelry crafted of gold, turquoise, lapis lazuli, and carnelian took the form of vultures, scarabs, falcons, and lotus flowers. And then there was the iconic gold mask—with its soulful eyes, full mouth, and blue detailing—which Carter found covering Tut’s mummified body. 

The massive interest in Tut forced museums hosting the exhibition to develop new ticketing systems, upgrade their security systems, and take on extra staff to deal with the crush of people who wanted to experience this rare chance at seeing ancient Egypt up close. Cultural programming abounded: The University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute received a $108,894 NEH grant to support a series of public programs on Egyptology and to support the exhibition “The Magic of Egyptian Art,” while the New Orleans Museum of Art used $97,492 from NEH to host an Egyptology lecture series as a companion to the Tut exhibition.

Written by Meredith Hindley, senior writer for Humanities.

Image Credit: © Danita Delimont/Alamy

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Tutankhamun Exhibition in Washington D.C

Learn, discover, and travel in time to ancient egypt tickets will be available on: march 26th at 12:00 p.m..

Rated 4.6/5⭐️ on Google Reviews!

A FANTASTIC IMMERSIVE EXHIBITION

Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures is an exhibition that offers guests an unprecedented glance into Ancient Egypt. With hundreds of perfectly reconstructed objects, breathtaking decorations and fascinating explanations, allows visitors to step right into the wonder of the most famous archaeological discovery site of the 20th century. Ready to travel to the era of the pharaohs?

1922 - 2023: 100 YEARS SINCE THE DISCOVERY OF THE TOMB OF THE FAMOUS PHARAOH

November 4th, 1922, Luxor. After five years of unsuccessful excavations in the Valley of the Kings, the British archaeologist Howard Carter made an incredible discovery, which remains to this day, unprecedented! Lit by the light of his candle, he discovered the impressive golden tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died more than 3000 years ago, surrounded by all his treasures.

TUTANKMANUN - PHARAOH OF A DYNASTY

Tutankhamun ascended to the throne in 1332 BC. at the age of 9 as one of the last kings of the 18th Dynasty. His father was the heretical king Akhenaten. The most important achievement of his reign was the rejection of his father's radical religious reforms, which had destabilized the whole country. According to the latest studies, the young king suffered from serious illnesses. He passed away after nine years on the throne and his death remains a mystery to this day.

HIS TOMB AND ITS TREASURES: OVER 1000 OBJECTS TO DISCOVER

The Metropolitan Museum sent Harry Burton to be the excavation photographer - he was 'Carters eye and memory'. With his enormous camera and cumbersome negative plates, he tirelessly surveyed the site of the discovery. He set up his laboratory in the tomb of Sethos II and improvised a darkroom in the neighboring tomb KV 55. Every step of the excavation work was documented in photographs, down to the smallest detail. A total of 2,800 large-format glass negatives were printed, listing all finds and their location in the tomb.

The gigantic Tutankhamun exhibition houses over 1,000 exquisite, painstakingly, and scientifically produced crafted replicas and an impressive abundance of art from ancient Egypt. Discover its treasures, tomb, golden mask, and more before they're gone!

OPINIONS AND COMMENTS ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Very interesting and informative. Liked being able to take it in at my own pace

A group of 4, we really enjoyed and appreciated the reproductions of the famous findings and all the history provided in the story. Just wonderful!

Loved that the audio tour was included…..tour was set up really well! Thoroughly enjoyed it!

Great learning experience. I am "into" history, my wife not so much. I was impressed and the wife liked it very much, also. We both enjoyed that we could take our time and actually see the exhibit

The exhibit was breathtaking! Excellent value for the money

We love it!! It is a really good experience to learn about history

We learned so much from this experience. It is so well put together and well organized. This is definitely must do in Atlanta

Fantastic!! So much better than I'd expected. Terrific display and the staff were so polite and helpful

Amazing replicas and information!

Paul Milliken

Cathy Cobbs

Adventures in Georgia

PRACTICAL INFO

• Monday to Thursdays opens from 10am to 6h30pm
• Fridays open from 10am to 7h30pm
• Saturdays open from 9am to 8pm
• Sundays open from 9am to 6h30pm
• Duration: 1 hr and a half approx
• LOCATION: Rhode Island Center: 524 Rhode Island Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, United States
• PRICE: Starting at $33.90 for adults and $25.90 for children.
• AGE REQUIREMENT: All ages are welcome

Tutankhamun in Washington D.C

Rhode island center.

The Rhode Island Convention Center (RICC) is located in the heart of Providence’s downtown. It features 100,000 square feet of flexible exhibit space and an additional 67,000 square feet of ballroom, breakout and meeting spaces to host from trade shows, consumer shows, exhibits, receptions, banquets, meetings to tournaments, competitions, and more.

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We offer private bookings perfectly suited to various kinds of groups and events:

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Regarding the experience

• On the Fever App, available on Google Play and Apple Store.
• On the Fever website.
• On the Fever app, in the Tickets section. If you haven´t already, you can download the app from Google Play and Apple Store.
• In the purchase confirmation email Fever sent you.
• Standard Access - includes entry to the exhibition
• Adult (ages 13+)
• Child (4 to 12)
• Senior (65+), Student (13 to 26), or Military
• Group Bundle (min. 8 people) - enjoy a 10% discount on the ticket price
• VIP Access - includes skip-the-line entry to the experience at any time on your selected date, an exclusive poster
• VIP Child (4 to 12)

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King Tut treasures to tour the U.S.

The treasures of King Tut will go on display in this country for the first time in a quarter century in an exhibit featuring the ancient ruler’s gold crown, carved dagger and a massive gold and cloisonne necklace.

“Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaoh” will include about 130 of the 5,000 Egyptian artifacts found in King Tut’s tomb. The last time a similar exhibit toured the country, in 1976-1979, 55 items were displayed.

“Now Tutankhamun is back, giving a new generation the chance to learn firsthand about the life and magic of this ancient monarch,” Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said.

King Tut ascended to the throne at about age 8 and died around 1323 B.C. at 17. Some archaeologists have speculated that he was murdered because a 1968 X-ray found bone fragments in his skull.

Hawass worked with National Geographic to obtain permission from the Egyptian parliament to display the artifacts. Money raised will help pay for the country’s massive new archaeology museum, a children’s museum and for preservation of the Pyramids, Sphinx and other national treasures.

The decision to allow the exhibit to travel marked the reversal of a policy set in the 1980s that confined most of the objects to Egypt, after several pieces were damaged during an international tour.

Hawass said he hoped the show would provide understanding of ancient Egypt while improving ties between that country and the United States.

The exhibit, which has already been staged in Germany and Switzerland, will make its U.S. debut at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on June 16 and run through Nov. 15. It will feature displays of gold objects along with exhibits on death and the beyond and an interactive room on the discovery of King Tut’s tomb.

The exhibition will travel to the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in December 2005, Chicago’s Field Museum in May 2006 and a fourth museum yet to be identified. It will then head to London’s Dome of the Millennium. Hawass said negotiations are underway with Japan to show the exhibit.

Tickets for the Los Angeles exhibit will range from $6 for school groups to $30 for adult weekend tickets. The prices are being set by exhibition backers Anschutz Entertainment Group, which developed the downtown Staples Center, and Arts and Exhibitions International.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which helped organize the first tour of King Tut’s treasures, decided against hosting the exhibit because it said it did not want to charge visitors a separate admission fee.

The Met’s “17-year-old policy of not charging visitors to see special exhibitions should be maintained,” museum spokesman Harold Holzer said Wednesday.

Exhibit organizers defended the price of tickets, noting that most of the money will go toward preservation of artifacts in Egypt. Tickets averaged about $12 for the 1970s exhibit in Los Angeles, which was significantly smaller than the current show, said Tim Leiweke, president and chief executive of AEG.

More than 8 million people across the country visited the first exhibit. Leiweke said he expects that number to increase for the return of the artifacts.

Among the artifacts that will not be on display is the famed gold mask placed on the King Tut’s mummy.

“It took an act of parliament to get these artifacts out of the country,” said Terry Garcia, an executive vice president for National Geographic. “It’s such a priceless national treasure that the possibility that something could happen to it was just too great.”

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Press Releases

Union Station Selected to Host North American Premiere Of The Discovery of King Tut

By ll_unionstation

April 4 – September 7, 2014

Over 1,000 Objects to Provide an Unprecedented Opportunity to Experience the Most Remarkable Discovery of the 20th Century

KANSAS CITY, MO – – Today officials with Kansas City’s Union Station and Premier Exhibitions, Inc., a leading provider of museum- quality exhibitions throughout the world, made the highly anticipated announcement that the blockbuster exhibition, The Discovery of King Tut, will make it’s North American premiere at Union Station on April 4th of this year.

The largest exhibit in Union Station history, covering a total of 20,000 square feet, will feature a total of 1,000 breathtaking reproductions that were scientifically and expertly hand-crafted over five years by leading Egyptian artisans. Approximately five million people have experienced The Discovery of King Tut in 20 host cities since its opening in 2008. Through a partnership with Semmel Concerts GmbH (“Semmel”), Premier is now bringing the exhibition to North America.

“We wanted to bring the moment of the tomb’s discovery back to life and allow our visitors to relive it vividly,” Christoph Scholz, executive producer, The Discovery of King Tut, SC Exhibitions, said. “A show without barriers or behind glass, in which not just a few objects can be shown, but the whole treasure and even the reconstructed burial chambers. An exhibition that leads you right to the heart of Tutankhamun’s tomb, presents his treasures and explains them in context. An exhibition in which people can relive what the archaeologist Howard Carter went through in November 1922.”

The exhibition, which will take five weeks to install, will open to the public on Friday, April 4th and run through September 7, 2014. Union Station members may purchase pre-sale tickets for $12.50 now through February 17th at the Union Station box office or on-line at www.unionstation.org Tickets for the general public are $19.95 and go on sale Tuesday, February 18. Admission price includes a special audio tour (one for adults and one version paced for children) which enhances the exhibition experience. It not only captivates, but educates, making it appropriate for all ages. Get updates on Facebook and Twitter @UnionStationKC, #TUTKC.

“Because Egyptian antiquities from King Tut’s tomb can no longer travel outside Egypt, this is an experience like no other,” George Guastello, President and CEO of Union Station Kansas City, Inc. said. “The selection of Union Station to host the North American premier of this breathtaking exhibition is a coup not only for us, but for Kansas City and the entire mid-west region. The Discovery of King Tut has visited the cultural capitals of Europe, including Munich, Dublin, Seoul, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Geneva and now, Kansas City. We are in prestigious and world-class company.”

“We are delighted to bring this remarkable exhibition to North America for the first time, and in choosing a host city for the premiere, Union Station and Kansas City was the perfect fit,” said Mark Lach, vice president of design and new content for Premier Exhibitions, Inc. “We value our longstanding relationship with Union Station and have seen great success with previous exhibitions including: Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, Real Pirates and America I Am. The story of King Tut has fascinated the world since the remarkable discovery of his tomb, and this exhibition presents this fascinating subject in a thrillingly unique experience, and I’m confident visitors will leave The Discovery of King Tut exhilarated by having seen something very special.”

The Discovery of King Tut at Union Station in Kansas City is made by possible through the generous support of presenting sponsor, Bank of America.

“Bank of America is a leading supporter of the arts around the world and right here in Kansas City, “ said Jack Ovel, Kansas City president of Bank of America. “Our support in the market goes back more than a century and continues today as we invest in institutions and programs that are important culturally to Kansas City as well as have a positive impact on our local economy.”

About Union Station Kansas City, Inc. Union Station Kansas City is a historical landmark and civic asset renovated and reopened to the public in 1999. The organization, driven by its mission of science and history education and entertainment, features a science center, the popular Model Railroad Experience open year round, new planetarium, one of the region’s largest screen movie theaters, live theater, shops, restaurants and home to prominent area civic organizations and businesses. Visit unionstation.org for details. Union Station was named the Kansas City’s favorite landmark and as one of the top five museums and attractions in Kansas City by the KCCVA Visitors’ Choice Awards. Science City was named the favorite museum by KC Parent magazine.

About Premier Exhibitions, Inc. — Premier Exhibitions, Inc. (Nasdaq:PRXI), located in Atlanta, Georgia, is a foremost presenter of museum quality exhibitions throughout the world. Premier is a recognized leader in developing and displaying unique exhibitions for education and entertainment including Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, BODIES…The Exhibition, Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, Real Pirates in partnership with National Geographic and Pompeii: The Exhibition. The success of Premier Exhibitions, Inc. lies in its ability to produce, manage, and market exhibitions. Additional information about Premier Exhibitions, Inc. is available at the Company’s web site www.PremierExhibitions.com

About Semmel Concerts GmbH — Semmel Concerts GmbH, founded in 1991 by Dieter Semmelmann, is now one of the biggest promoters in Germany, presenting more than 1,000 events a year. Whether pop, folk or rock music, or a musical or a show, or else an international exhibition or a cabaret or comedy show, everything that is good and brings people pleasure has a place under the Semmel Concerts logo. A highly-qualified team of more than 100 employees look after the needs of artists and partners alike. In addition to its headquarters in Bayreuth, Semmel Concerts also has several branch offices, including one in Berlin. Since 2000, Semmel Concerts has been part of the listed ticketing service provider, CTS Eventim AG.

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The Haunted California Toys "R" Us That Hosted a Séance

By michele debczak | oct 22, 2021.

The haunted houses depicted in horror movies tend to fit a certain mold. They're often old mansions sitting on top of secluded hills, with walls covered in cobwebs and winding staircases that creak on their own. But believers in the paranormal will tell you that ghosts aren't picky about the locations they frequent. The story of a now-defunct Toy "R" Us in Sunnyvale, California, is the perfect example of a haunting where you'd least expect one.

Reports of ghostly activity began shortly after the Bay Area store was constructed in 1970. Employees claimed to see dolls flying off the shelves and balls bouncing down the aisles. When they were alone, they would feel a cold breeze on their back or hear a disembodied voice call their name. Some witnesses reported being touched by an invisible hand.

The phenomena became common enough to warrant a visit from a medium. Sylvia Browne brought her supposed psychic abilities to a variety of cases throughout her lifetime, but the séance she held in the Toys "R" Us in the late 1970s was likely a career-first. During the ritual, she claimed to sense the spirit of a Swedish preacher named Johnny Johnson who had worked on the land that became the city of Sunnyvale. While helping out on the Murphy farm in the 1880s, he fell in love with the family's daughter, Elizabeth. She didn't return his affections, however, and ran off with a lawyer from the East Coast. Johnson's sad story met a tragic end when he injured his leg chopping trees. He was unable to get help and slowly bled out alone.

Browne repeatedly went back to the Toys "R" Us to communicate with Johnson, whom she called "the most stubborn, ornery, argumentative ghost I've met" in her book The Other Side and Back: A Psychic's Guide to Our World and Beyond . "I've tried many times to explain to him that his lifetime as Johnny Johnson has ended," she wrote. "He finally got so tired of my nagging him about it that he gave me an ultimatum: 'If you tell me I'm dead one more time, I'm not going to talk to you anymore." Browne let the matter drop; she and the ghost supposedly had a "quasi-friendship" in which they found "other things to chat about," including the annoying and noisy kids who frequented the store.

But while the Murphys and their farm were real, other details of Browne's account don't add up. SFGate reports that Elizabeth didn't elope with a lawyer: She married the son of a wealthy businessman in an elaborate ceremony in 1863. She died in 1875, several years before Johnson is said to have worked on her family's farm. And Johnny Johnson may have never existed in the first place—there's no record of him in California's census data.

Regardless of their validity, ghost stories surrounding the Sunnyvale Toys "R" Us have persisted. The business was thrust into the national spotlight when it was featured on the reality show That's Incredible! in the 1980s. The episode included a séance with Browne and the most compelling piece of evidence in the case yet: A shadowy figure looming in an infrared photograph. When investigators looked at the high-speed film captured at the same time and place, the figure was missing. You can watch a clip from the episode above.

Despite its reputation, the Sunnyvale Toys "R" Us continued operating for decades before closing permanently in 2018. The next year, the building  hosted a business that better fits its dark history: Spirit Halloween . (It's now an REI .) Believers think the site could still be haunted after the change in scenery—though perhaps it was just the board games and Barbie dolls the ghosts were interested in.