Chicago and King Tut
We went to the sold-out King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago this morning. It was the first time the Tutankhamun antiquities have toured the U.S. since 1977 (a show I also saw at the Field). While I found the new exhibit to be nice, I feel compelled to warn anyone who saw the 1977 show that this is a very different sort of show. For one thing, many of the objects on display are from the time of Tut, not from the tomb. Perhaps most disappointing, the magnificent golden death mask is not in the exhibit, even though its image is used to the max in marketing materials and literature for the show. Whether Egypt wouldn't let it out of the country again or what, I don't know. But it isn't in the exhibit, and neither is the boy Pharaoh's sarcophagus. The 1977 show consisted almost entirely of objects recovered from the tomb, which was discovered by British Egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922.
Exelon, which owns Commonwealth Edison in Illinois and PECO Energy in Pennsylvania, was the major corporate underwriter for the show. Chairman John Rowe is an Egypt buff and has purchased Egyptian antiquities for his personal collection. That nearly scuttled Exelon's sponsorship at the last minute after Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, pitched a fit when he found out Rowe had a 2,600-year-old Egyptian sarcophagus on display in his corporate office. Hawass believes private ownership of antiquities is wrong, and shortly thereafter Rowe announced he would loan the sarcophagus to the Field Museum.
And can you imagine? They didn't have Steve Martin's "King Tut" playing in the background! :-)
