Egypt’s “boy king” Tutankhamun has gripped the imagination since his tomb was discovered in 1922, and a new exhibition tells the enthralling tale of how archaeologists unearthed and recorded the contents of his 3,000-year-old resting place.
“Discovering Tutankhamun,” at Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum until Nov. 2, takes visitors through the drama of how Howard Carter found a step leading down into the sand in the Valley of the Kings to the opening of the tomb and the painstaking unwrapping of the king’s mummified body.
Along the way, the exhibition places the discovery in the political context of Egypt’s struggle for independence, looks at the cultural impact that turned Tutankhamun into something of a Hollywood star and at the origins of the legend of “the pharoah’s curse.”
Unlike some previous Tutankhamun exhibitions, the Ashmolean show does not include masses of gold treasures — many of those items never leave Egypt.
At the core of “Discovering Tutankhamun” are photographs, drawings and other records from the university’s Griffith Institute, marking its 75th anniversary this year, of the thousands of artefacts jumbled in the tomb.
“Our initial thought was to mark the moment just by showing some examples from their most famous archive, the Carter archive,” said Paul Collins, who curated the exhibition with Liam McNamara. “But then we thought there were many other stories we could tell, and the great story is the process of surveying the tomb of Tutankhamun and its impact on the wider world and our understanding of Egypt.”
Tutankhamun died, of causes still disputed, in about 1322 B.C. at around 18, having reigned for nine years. He lived in turbulent times and many of the monuments he left behind were usurped by his successors. So why does he have such a hold on the imagination?
Collins thinks it is partly due to when the tomb was found. World War One was over, economies were picking up and international travel was growing. Mass media fought to cover the story and it was the heyday of Hollywood.
“King Tut” inspired fashion and furnishings, included in the exhibition, based on motifs from the tomb, novels, films and even a song called “Old King Tut was a wise old nut.”
“It’s the first time you get fashion and tourism coming together, and Tutankhamun becomes in a sense a Hollywood star,” Collins said.
For Egyptian nationalists, who won nominal independence from Britain in 1922, Tutankhamun became a symbol of national identity. Political disagreement over access to the tomb meant Carter had to stop work for a year.
The opening of the tomb also gave rise to tales of the “pharaoh’s curse” — a myth fed by the death in 1923 from blood poisoning, after he cut himself shaving, of Lord Carnarvon, who had bankrolled the work.
For all the focus on Tutankhamun, areas of his life and death remain a mystery. Much work remains for scholars. Collins said that only 30 percent of the contents of the tomb had been studied in detail.
Exhibition unwraps drama of Tutankhamun’s discovery
Exhibition unwraps drama of Tutankhamun’s discovery
Fans bid farewell to Japan’s only pandas
TOKYO: Panda lovers in Tokyo said goodbye on Sunday to a hugely popular pair of the bears that are set to return to China, leaving Japan without the beloved animals for the first time in half a century.
Loaned out as part of China’s “panda diplomacy” program, the distinctive black-and-white animals have symbolized friendship between Beijing and Tokyo since the normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972.
Some visitors at Ueno Zoological Gardens were left teary-eyed as they watched Japan’s only two pandas Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao munch on bamboo.
The animals are expected to leave for China on Tuesday following a souring of relations between Asia’s two largest economies.
“I feel like seeing pandas can help create a connection with China too, so in that sense I really would like pandas to come back to Japan again,” said Gen Takahashi, 39, a Tokyo resident who visited the zoo with his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
“Kids love pandas as well, so if we could see them with our own eyes in Japan, I’d definitely want to go.”
The pandas’ abrupt return was announced last month after Japan’s conservative premier Sanae Takaichi hinted Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan.
Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.
The 4,400 lucky winners of an online lottery took turns viewing the four-year-old twins at Ueno zoo while others gathered nearby, many sporting panda-themed shirts, bags and dolls to celebrate the moment.
Mayuko Sumida traveled several hours from the central Aichi region in the hope of seeing them despite not winning the lottery.
“Even though it’s so big, its movements are really funny-sometimes it even acts kind of like a person,” she said, adding that she was “totally hooked.”
“Japan’s going to be left with zero pandas. It feels kind of sad,” she said.
Their departure might not be politically motivated, but if pandas return to Japan in the future it would symbolize warming relations, said Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and expert in East Asian international relations.
“In the future...if there are intentions of improving bilateral ties on both sides, it’s possible that (the return of) pandas will be on the table,” he told AFP.
