5,398 artefacts were found inside King Tut's tomb - so many that it took Carter over 10 years to research and catalogue them all. But where can you see them now? Well, the vast majority are kept by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, with the best and most famous pieces on permanent display there. A smaller collection is kept by the Luxor Museum, while more still can be found criss-crossing the globe as part of touring exhibitions.
To help you sniff out as many Tut artefacts as possible, we’ve put together this handy guide to finding King Tut around the world – be it sites of relevance, key artefacts on display, or even quality replicas.
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“Carter was actually outraged by the original exhibition of these pieces, claiming breach of copyright, and demanded they be destroyed.”
Two wooden panels, in Cairo, Egyptian Museum, CG 1426-7 showing Hesyre, the Chief dentist and physician for Pharaoh Netjeriket, known as Dsozer, 3rd Dynasty c. 2650 BCE.
Hesyre's tomb was North of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara; Tomb S 2405. The titles he is named with include doctor and dentist “ibeh snwn”. These wooden stelae are part of a collection of eleven found by Mariette and later by Quibell (1911-1912). Six are at the Cairo Museum, the rest was in bad condition and the only readable hieroglyphic were not recorded. The first reference to a dentist title was this, given to Hesyre.
Some authors think that there was no dental profession in Egypt and more swnw or doctors have this title. But taking into account what can be seen in ancient human remains from Egypt regarding their teeth, I am almost sure that a 'doctor for the teeth' was extremely necessary as they suffered more from teeth infections, abrasion and loss than we do today. The diet suffered from the presence of sand grains, that, even microscopic, produced an erosion of enamel, dentine and even the pulp, originating unbelievable pain and premature teeth loss. These are maybe few of the available depictions of doctors of ancient Egypt...
Mid-2012 was confirmed last week as the projected point of opening for the Grand Egyptian Museum, as pen was put to paper on a deal between the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and engineering firms Hill International and EHAF Consulting Engineers to commence work on stage three of Egypt’s new cultural mecca.
Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni looked on as Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, and Raouf Ghali, board chairman of Hill International, signed the deal. Hosni stated that it will take 26 months to complete the massive building project, in the desert west of Cairo at Giza, just two kilometres from the pyramids.
Four Senet boards were found inside the tomb of King Tutankhamun and suggests that the boy king was a keen player of the ancient game. In Ancient Egyptian society, senet was regarded as much more than just a game, however - it was a matter of life or death. The game involves throwing casting sticks or knucklebones, and over time became regarded as talismans for the journey into the afterlife with luck being a key deciding factor in the game.
The Restoration Stela is an important artefact, discovered in the Temple of Karnak, outlining the thoughts and actions of Tutankhamun that caused him to become deified by the people of Egypt in his short lifetime. Engraved into red granite with traces of blue and yellow paste, it describes how Tut thought the policy of Akhenaten (who might have been his father) in banning the worship of all gods and godesses except the sun deity Aten had brought misery upon the land:
"The temples of the gods and goddesses ... were in ruins. Their shrines were deserted and overgrown. Their sanctuaries were as non-existent and their courts were used as roads ... the gods turned their backs upon this land ... If anyone made a prayer to a god for advice he would never respond – and the same applied to a goddess."
He therefore decided to reverse Akhenaten's ruling and lift the ban on the old pantheon of deities and their temples. The stela goes on to describe how this brought prosperity and happiness back to his kingdom:
"Now the gods and goddesses of the land are rejoicing in their hearts...the provinces all rejoice and celebrate throughout this whole land because good has come back into existence."
The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is a long-planned new central museum complex for Cairo and Egypt, intended to replace the Egyptian Museum - founded in 1902 - as the main venue for the country's abundant heritage treasures. It'll be sited on 50 hectares of land in Giza, as a core part of a new master plan for the plateau.
The GEM project began as far back as 1992, but has been slow in coming to fruition - the foundation stone was only laid a decade later, and the museum isn't expected to be opened until as early as mid-2012. It'll be a massive structure once completed - shaped like a chamfered triangle, with a stone roof, the GEM will boast 100,000 square metres of floor space – the size of 11 football pitches – with provision for up to 100,000 artefacts at full capacity. It's expected to cost in the region of $550 million.
Submitted by Sean Williams on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 16:12
Cairo is gearing up to welcome its latest addition, the Grand Egyptian Museum, in 2013. This spectacularly modern complex stands in stark contrast to the millennia of history perched on its back doorstep, in the shape of the Pyramids of Giza. But can its collections and exhibits provide a comprehensive Egyptian experience worthy of the country’s capital?
Finished in 2560 BC, the Great Pyramid of Giza took 20 years to build. 3,000 years on, it doesn’t look like major Egyptian construction projects have hurried up any.
It was recently announced that the opening date for the Grand Egyptian Museum – the massive centerpiece attraction of the epic new vision for the Giza plateau, two and a half kilometres from the pyramids – has been pushed back to 2013, after the latest in a long-running series of delays for the building. The project was officially commenced in 1992, which means that even if the GEM does open on schedule now, it will itself have taken at least a full 20 years to finally come to fruition. History never lacks a sense of irony, does it?
Mid-2012 was confirmed last week as the projected point of opening for the 
Cairo is gearing up to welcome its latest addition, the 
