The Times Online, October 13, 2007

Return of the King

Tutankhamun is coming back to London for the first time in a generation. Our critic previews an unmissable show

On November 29, 1922, a correspondent for The Times sent an exclusive report “by runner” from Egypt’s Valley of the Kings announcing to the world “what promises to be the most sensational Egyptological discovery of the century”. Arthur Merton described the whole of Luxor as “agog”.

“The sealed outer door was carefully opened; then a way was cleared down some 16 steps along a passage of about 25 feet. The door to the chamber was found to be sealed as the outer door had been, and, as on the outer door, there were traces of reclosing,” Merton wrote. “With difficulty an entrance was effected, and when at last the excavators managed to squeeze their way in an extraordinary sight met their eyes, one that they could scarcely credit.”

Inside lay the glittering tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy-king who ascended to the throne of Ancient Egypt at the age of 8 or 9 around 1332BC and died aged 19. Although the well-hidden tomb had been robbed of some smaller items shortly after Tutankhamun’s death, it had survived largely intact in the Valley of the Kings for more than three mil-lennia, while thieves plundered the burial chambers of other pharaohs.

Merton was proved right. “King Tut” caused a worldwide sensation that inspired artists, fashion designers, and even car-makers, who produced a beetle-like vehicle called the Scarab. The jewellery, furniture, statues and glorious golden mask of Tutankhamun himself became icons of Ancient Egypt. As a child, I remember queueing all day outside the British Museum for a glimpse of the spotlit golden objects at the travelling 1972 exhibition that was the last time artefacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb came to Britain. For the first time in a generation, the British public now will get a chance to view many of these breathtaking pieces when they are exhibited, in partnership with The Times, at The O2 (formerly the Millennium Dome) on November 15.

“When King Tut came to London 35 years ago, he was representing himself – 55 artefacts from the tomb. When I decided to send pieces for this exhibition, I thought I should not send King Tut only. I should send King Tut and his family – 50 artefacts from the tomb and some of his relatives, such as Yuyu and Tjuya andhis father Akhenaten,” says Dr Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The exhibition contains only seven pieces included in the 1972 show. John Taylor, an Egyptologist at the British Museum, says the aim is to place Tutankhamun in the wider context of his times. In the earlier show, the artefacts, stunning as they are, were exhibited almost as pieces of art. “This one gives you the background to his reign – some of his predecessors, the political situation, the religious background, which was not highlighted in the 1972 show,” says Taylor.

The exhibition, titled Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, has been drawing huge crowds in America before its arrival in Britain. The show’s designer, Mark Lach, has given the show an operatic flair quite unlike the sparse presentation of the 1972 exhibition. At its last stop at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, visitors arrived in a darkened antechamber where a black curtain was drawn back to reveal a life-sized grey granite torso of the boy-king, which was found in the Temple of Amun at Karnak. Although no one knows how Ancient Egyptian music sounded, Lach has commissioned a jangling score that echoes through the galleries. An audio tour, narrated by the Egyptian-born actor Omar Sharif, provides grisly details of mummification such as that the brain is “removed through the nose with a hook and then dessicated”. “In the 1970s we had not yet got that far into having music in galleries and having theatrical lighting,” Lach says. “The vast majority of our guests now expect an experience that gives support and backdrop to the objects.”

The show falls into two halves: the first section explains the background to Tutankhamun’s reign, particularly his decision to return to religious orthodoxy and respect the traditional pantheon of gods after the upheaval caused by his predecessor (and putative-father) Akhenaten, who ordered the monotheistic worship of the sun-disk, or Aten. The solar cult is well illustrated by a carved limestone relief depicting Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, along with their eldest daughter Meritaten, making offerings to the Sun-disk. The boy-king even changed his name after returning from the cult of Aten to the traditional god Amun-Re. When he took the throne, he was known as Tutankhaten, or “the living image of the Aten”, but soon adopted the now-famous name of Tutankhamun, or “the living image of Amun”.

The second half of the show will begin in London with a descent from the upper to the lower floor of the exhibition space, mimicking the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. At the foot of the staircase will be an added gallery recounting the discovery by Howard Carter and his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, in photographs and news-reel. According to The Times’s official history, the newspaper paid £5,000 followed by a second payment of £2,500 for world exclusive access to the Tutankhamun excavation. The arrangement provoked protests from the competition, which responded by declaring “The Curse of Tutankhamun” when Lord Carnarvon died of pneumonia in 1923.

Tutankhamun’s sarcophogus was finally opened on February 12, 1924, as The Timescorrespondent watched.

“It was the head that drew everyone’s attention and admiration,” Merton reported. “The face was one solid piece of gold, with eyes of crystal, and on the forehead an ‘uraeus’ (sacred serpent) and a vulture of gold faience, encircling the latter being a ‘Crown of Justification’ made of olive leaves. The face is indeed a very remarkably real portrait, and as one looked on at it one forgot for a moment that the human-shaped figure before one was merely a coffin, and one seemed to be in the presence of the body of some great person lying in state.”

Inside that outermost coffin lay Tutankhamun’s dazzling golden death mask. More than any other artefact, this image defines Tutankhamun. It was the centrepiece of the 1972 exhibition but, before the travelling show returned to Egypt, a piece was damaged in an accident in Germany. The result was that the Egyptian parliament banned artefacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb from travelling for another generation.

The golden mask is not included in the new show because it is still not allowed out of Egypt, but Dr Hawass fought hard to convince the parliament to allow other objects from King Tut’s tomb to go on tour. In the end, he convinced them that the touring exhibition would raise money – up to $120 million – for other archaeological work. To safeguard the objects, Egypt now sends a team of more than 50 experts to transport the show between venues. An Egyptian official lives in every city where the exhibition is on view.

The exhibition solves the problem of the missing mask by projecting one of Carter’s photographs of the pharaoh’s coffin on a plinth. One by one, the image highlights the objects from the boy-king’s actual body that are on display: A golden collar in the shape of a falcon taken from around the boy-king’s neck; a gold carnelian and glass collar also decorated with falcon heads that was found draped across his thighs; a decorated serpent that was sewn to his headdress; and the Royal Diadem decorated with the figures of a serpent and a vulture that was taken from his head, which he likely wore as king.

Even more remarkable is an ornate coffinette of beaten gold with cloisonne inlays that contained the viscera removed from the mummy. Though smaller in scale at only 39.5cm tall, the coffinette shows Tutankhamun in the same glory as the famous funerary mask. The boy-king’s eyes are inlaid with obsidian and rock crystal and he wears the striped gold-and-blue headdress protected by a vulture and a cobra. He wears the long, divine beard, curled at the end. The coffinette provides the most breathtaking image of King Tut.

The most controversial object in the new show is a latex reconstruction of Tutankhamun’s head based on a CT scan of his mummy in 2005. The bust shows the boy-king to be an almond-eyed figure with a broad forehead and elongated skull. But some in America have taken exception to the light skin tone of the model, suggesting that he should have been blacker – something the CT scan cannot tell. The scan confirmed that Carter’s examination left the mummy in pieces. It contradicted the earlier theory that Tutankhamun died from a blow to the head, suggesting instead that he may have broken his lower left leg in the days before his death. One bonus of the new technology is that the scan located what is believed to be the mummy’s missing penis in the sand around the body.

Even 85 years after its discovery, Tutankhamun’s tomb continues to yield up new secrets. Dr Hawass recently visited the tomb for a Japanese TV show and stumbled on eight baskets full of seals bearing Tutankhamun’s name that Carter and his team apparently forgot in the tomb’s Treasury. The find prompted him to check the storage area of the Cairo Museum where he discovered 20 sealed pottery jars from the tomb. “I feel they should contain food and grain and wine and beer for the king in the afterlife,” he said. He plans to open them in November, transmitting the event live to London.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, The O2, London SE10, from Nov 15.

See more at: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/specials/tutankhamun/article2624036.ece

James Bone
October 13, 2007