16 August, 2009
King Tut Exhibition
More than 3,000 years after his reign, and 30 years after the original exhibition opened in San Francisco, Tutankhamun, ancient Egypt’s celebrated “boy king,” returns to the de Young Museum. In the summer of 2009 the de Young presents Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, a glorious exhibition of over 130 outstanding works from the tomb of Tutankhamun, as well as those of his royal predecessors, his family, and court officials.
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 80 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.
King Tut’s Gold Mask (or "Funerary Mask" or "Death Mask") resides at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Mask is a very popular object that traveled in the 1970s exhibition and many individuals have fond memories of it. However, in the 1980s the Egyptian government declared it a national treasure and too fragile to travel. As such, it will not leave Egypt again and does not appear in Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.
Tutankhamun’s mummy, the outermost of the three coffins in which he was buried, and his quartzite sarcophagus are still located in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. The two additional coffins—the innermost solid-gold coffin and second coffin—are in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. King Tut’s mummy, coffins, and sarcophagus have never traveled outside of Egypt.
