Dr. David Silverman is delighted at the thought that visitors to Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, one of two King Tut exhibitions touring North America right now, would come away as I did – with an itching interest in Akhenaten, who was almost certainly King Tuts father. Hes also enthused at the idea that viewing the vast exhibition at the Discovery Time Square Exposition, with 130 significant objects from King Tuts tomb and the 100 years preceding the boy kings life, will spur people to go take a look at King Tuts funerary urns up at the…
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For me, the press preview of the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition, which opened in New York today, was a momentous event because I’ve never met Dr. Zahi Hawass before, and I got to look him in the eye and shake his hand and even ask him a question. I’ll come to all that in a minute. The exhibition is impressive. I can’t deny that. There was a moment when I actually stopped dead in my tracks, mouth open (soon to be hustled out of the way by a pushy New York journo). This happened when…
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Dr. Zahi Hawass, the charismatic Secretary General of Eygpt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, and chief bodyguard of Egypt’s ancient treasures, likes to make revelations to the media -and he didn’t disappoint atWednesday’s press preview of the final leg of ‘Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs’, set to open at the Discovery Times Square Exposition onApril 23th. He announced, with a typical flourish of portentousness, that King Tut’s chariot will be arriving in about a month to augment the exhibition, which has already toured 7 cities and attracted 7 million visitors. “It is a masterpiece that has never travelled,”…
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It could be the job of your dreams – working among the treasures of the Boy King, and helping the great unwashed explore the mysteries of Ancient Egypt. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is seeking positive and team-oriented individuals for its Audio Tour and Movie team. The exhibition – which promises to be a blockbuster along the lines of King Tut’s last visit to the city, more than 30 years ago – is wrapping up its American tour in New York’s new cultural institution, Discovery Times Square Exposition, for nine months beginning April 23, 2010. The job…
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You live long enough in this city and you’ll see things you couldn’t even imagine – like a 25-foot tall Anubis statue being towed around New York harbour, which is what happened yesterday morning. Anubis’s arrival heralds the one-month countdown for the exhibition, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, which opens April 23 at the Discovery Times Square Exposition in Manhattan, on the final leg of its journey round North America. Tickets for the show went on sale the same day. The exhibition has already wowed Tutaholics in San Francisco, and exhibitors hope that Tut will cause the…
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With all the buzz going on about the Ancient World in London Bloggers’ Challenge 2 competition, Ithought I’d weigh in with my own favourite ancient site in London – the grave of the Female Gladiator in Southwark. Now, admittedly, this is a classic case of the experience of the ancient world involving standing in front of one of those blue ceramic plaques imagining what a wild find was made there, since there’s nothing else to see. However, this is pretty inspirational stuff. The site, at 159 Great Dover Street in Southwark, was excavated in 2000 by the British Museum. The…
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King Tutankhamun would have approved of the exclusivity of it all: members of the Denver Art Museum can now buy advance tickets at a special low price for the upcoming show opening July 1, Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, which runs through Jan. 2, 2011. With Egyptomania still in full swing, it’s pretty clear already that this show, hailed by the Museum’s publicity as a “Rocky Mountain exclusive” will be a blockbuster. Considering it is his Colorado “debut”, I’m sure the Boy King will be glad they’re giving first dibs to his serious fans. “Early-bird” tickets for…
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An article in the most recent issue of Newsweek magazine that basically constitutes an invitation to pause in wonder at the fantastic age of the Gbekli Tepe – or “potbelly hill” – site in southeastern Turkey, believed to be 11,500 years old, is a great reminder that, the further back in time an event occured, the easier it is to talk preposterous rot about it. The Newsweek feature, which is admirable at least in the sense that it dedicates a whole three pages (in full colour, too) in a major mainstream magazine to an archaeological subject, nevertheless talks a lot…
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My recent travels in India took me to Ajanta, about two hours’ drive outside of Aurangabad, in the Indian state of Maharashtra (where they’re making perfectly drinkable wine these days, by the way). The nearby small town of Ajanta gives its name to the collective of 29 caves carved out of a sheer wall of rock in a horseshoe-shaped river canyon, completed in the period 200BC to 500AD in the name of Buddhism. Several are temples, but most are dormitories originally built for temporarily housing Buddhist monks, as well as travellers and itinerant spice traders. The spice route passed through…
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Ancient Egyptians faced tricky compromises over how they would be seen dead, a new exhibition at New York’s Brooklyn Museum reveals. “To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt,” emphasizes the often unpalatably expensive options that lay before Ancient Egyptians when considering burial. They had to think long and hard about what they could afford in the afterlife. As has often been pointed out, the phrase “you can’t take it with you” had absolutely no purchase in Ancient Egypt, and the lengths to which humans were expected to go to demonstrate material wealth in the next life made…