Egypt

Tutankhamun in Luxor and Cairo

The Telegraph (Nigel Tisdall)

This has been slotted into the Travel section, but it is a very good commentary about the way in which the Tutankhamun collection is displayed - both in the king's tomb itself and in the Cairo Museum. Tidsall highlights that funds from the touring exhibition, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs, are much needed for the benefit of the Cairo collections:

The pressing need for something to be done, and fast, is glaringly obvious to anyone visiting the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo. Opened in 1902, this is where most of Howard Carter's finds are still exhibited in grand halls crammed high with the glories of Ancient Egypt.
Dusty sunbeams, peeling ceilings, venerable glass cases and faded labels punched out on antique typewriters create a superbly romantic atmosphere. With its enormous mummified crocodiles, wizened corpses of long dead kings and mighty statues of bygone gods, this is the sort of museum that ought to be put in a museum.
There is no air-conditioning, lighting is far from perfect, information is sparse - yet somehow there is a mood of enchantment you just don't get in the earnest, hands-on, hyper-interactive exhibition spaces of today. . . .
Should the Egyptian Museum possess anything so fancy as a mission statement, it would surely be "display and decay". In one case, an ivory-handled royal fan with ostrich feathers lies ringed with its own dust, poignantly disintegrating.
There are more than 150,000 exhibits here, plus another 30,000 languishing in storage, so it is welcome news that plans for a new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids are making progress.

I've taken an extract that looks at the Cairo Museum, but the article also picks out one or two special details of some of the items, considers the impact of the new display of Tutankhamun himself in his tomb, and links to a slideshow which shows various Tutankhamun-related photographs and artefacts. The final page offers travel advice.

- Tutankhamun Arrives At Melbourne, Australia
Herald Sun (Simon Plant) Right now, it's as barren as an Egyptian desert. But as Mark Lach traverses the wide open spaces of Melbourne Museum's touring exhibition hall, another world looms before him like a mirage. A world of giant chambers where...

- More Re Tutankhamun In Australia
drhawass.com Press Release. Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny, announced today that the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition will travel to Melbourne, Australia at the beginning of April 2011. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of...

- The Face Of Tutankhamun Revealed In His Tomb
Times Online More than 3,000 years after his death, King Tutankhamun went on display to the public yesterday in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, a slightly bucktoothed boy who died aged 19. King Tut’s mummified face – which has been seen only...

- At The Intersection Of Modernity And Antiquity
http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/1/ (The story on this URL will expire shortly) Article by Hassan Saadallah on the Egyptian Gazette website about the new Egyptian Grand Museum. I've reproduced the article in full because it will not be archived...

- Celebrating The Birthday Of Tutankhamun
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/772/he1.htm"As 2005 drew towards a close, the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square celebrated the 83rd anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb with a gala party. This featured the opening of a landmark exhibition...

Egypt