Die like an Egyptian
The world's first Pharaonic blockbuster exhibition was of Tutankhamon in 1972, attracting 1.75 million visitors to the British Museum. However, a new tour of Pharaonic treasures in the United States, "The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt", could beat that record. Nevine El-Aref attended the opening in Fort Worth and retraced an ancient journey to the afterlife
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A collection of artefacts from Ancient Egypt depicting the Pharaohs' journey to the afterlife, including (from top) an eight-foot wooden model of a royal boat used on the voyage to the hereafter; various deities of the dead; and a full-scale reconstruction of King Tuthmosis III's tomb with a massive sarcophagus of Nitocris, daughter of Psamtik I of the 26th dynasty
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"The Quest for Immortality", displayed at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas from 4 May to 14 September, illustrates the Pharaohs' dramatic voyage to the afterlife. Items have been culled from the collections of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Luxor Museum as well as archaeological sites in Deir Al-Bahari on the west bank of Luxor and Tanis in the Delta, where the most significant intact royal burial was discovered in the 1940s.
The exhibit's treasures form the largest and most comprehensive selection of artefacts from ancient Egypt depicting the Pharaohs' journey to the afterlife. It is the summer blockbuster event in Texas, not only at the Kimbell Art Museum but all over Fort Worth.
The exhibit first opened on 30 June 2002 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and drew half a million visitors. Its second tour took place in December at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and was visited by 400,0000. Teit Ritzau, president of the United Exhibits Group in Copenhagen, which organised the US exhibition, expects another half million visitors in Fort Worth, the exhibit's third stop.
The city's main roads have been adorned with Pharaonic posters featuring New Kingdom kings and queens and the gods of ancient Egypt. Gift shops are overflowing with replicas of ancient Egyptian artefacts, including canopic jars, statuettes, scarabs, mummy tins and ushabti figurines. You cannot turn on the TV without chancing upon a special show about the mysteries of the Pharaohs.
During the opening ceremony on Friday, 2 May, the Kimbell Art Museum organised a special musical night to mark the official inauguration of the exhibition.
In the museum's Fancy Hall, elegantly clad men and women gathered to hear a Turkish orchestra play songs by the late Egyptian singer and composer Sayed Darwish. Songs by the popular contemporary Egyptian singer Abdel- Motaleb were also played.
Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, well-known Egyptologists such as Betsy Bryan and Peter Dorman and the Kimbell board of trustees attended the museum's ribbon-cutting ceremonies to introduce the exhibition.
Guests were invited to listen to an audio tour narrated by actor Jeremy Irons as they explored the 143 pieces of art from the first and second millennia BC. The tour started with an 8-foot model of a royal boat used on the voyage to the hereafter and ended next to a full-scale reconstruction of King Tuthmosis III's tomb, complete with a massive, 2,500-year-old anthropoid sarcophagus. The exhibit's walls depict an ancient text that provides an hour-by-hour account of the journey.
"It is a journey unlike any other," Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Museum told Al- Ahram Weekly. From the tiny gold figurines of gods no more than an inch in size to the sculptures, jewellery and colossal head of Ramses II, the exhibition offers a unique glimpse of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs.
The ancient Egyptians denied the physical impermanence of life. They formulated a complex set of religious beliefs and funnelled vast material resources into the quest for immortality. "They wanted it and they were willing to pay for it," said Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. "They saved their greatest wealth for death and stocked their burial chambers with magnificent objects, offerings, magical guardians and intermediates to help ease their transition to the afterlife and guarantee a superb eternal world," he told the Weekly.
On the other hand, a wide variety of everyday objects such as beds, head-rests, clothes, fans, cooking utensils, musical instruments and foodstuffs give visitors a view of the comfort and sophistication of Pharaonic life.
Hawass described the collection as displaying "the zenith of the ancient Egyptian art that marked the New Kingdom", an era of great wealth, power and stability.
The highlight of the exhibition is the stunning gold funerary mask of Wenudjebauendjed and is one of few surviving examples of funerary masks made for kings and nobles. "This mask helped to represent the deceased as a transfigured spirit eligible for eternal life because the gold represents solar power and the flesh of the gods," said Hawass. Also notable are the numerous examples of royal jewellery, intricately worked in gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli, turquoise and other semi-precious stones.
Among the outstanding sculptures is a unique representation of Osiris Resurrecting (26th dynasty) which shows the figure of the god of the dead wrapped as a mummy with a gold headdress on his stomach, his head lifted in the process of resurrection. Also noteworthy is the brilliantly painted wooden model boat of Amenhotep II (18th dynasty), featuring detailed scenes of the god Montu smiting the enemies of Egypt. It is a model of the Pharaoh's river ship that used to sail the Nile.
The last room of the exhibition features a reconstruction of the tomb of Tuthmosis III, ruler of Egypt in the 15th century BC. The walls display the earliest known complete copy of the Amduat, a text describing the sun god's journey through the underworld during the 12 hours of night to defeat his enemies and be reborn at dawn as the sun rises in the eastern sky. The king joins the sun god at his birth in the eastern horizon, and the people of Egypt share in the triumphant cycle of rebirth.
"To instill a dramatic and religious effect, light colours were used as a backdrop for every item on exhibition in order to enable the visitors to focus on the object without distraction," Potts told the Weekly, pointing to the massive, red granite sarcophagus of Nitocris, daughter of Psamtik I (26th dynasty), installed in a recreated tomb. "To let them visualise the sites from which these objects came", Potts added, "a huge watercolour sketch of Karnak Temple, painted by the 19th century Scottish artist David Roberts, is fixed on the exhibition's entrance wall."
After the tour, visitors may visit the museum's gift shop and buy traditional T-shirts with Pharaonic images, ties and statues, scarabs, necklaces and replicas of sarcophagi, oils and perfumes (sweet almond, lotus, cinnamon leaf, cedar), Egyptian soapstone, natural clay bath bars, scarab- shaped note pads and ancient Pharaonic games. Several books are also sold, including The Message of the Sphinx, Secrets of the Sphinx, Silent Images and The Valley of the Golden Mummies.
During the week-long inaugural celebration, the splendour of the ancient Egyptians captivated the press. The Star-Telegram issued a four-page colour special entitled "Ghosts of the Nile" about the Kimbell exhibition. The supplement reviewed the items on display and provided archaeological references and a dictionary of ancient Egyptian deities.
The front-page story of the art section of the Dallas Morning News, entitled "Pharaohs' Death Trip", described the exhibition as "elegantly installed" and pointed out that death came early for ancient Egyptians. "The belief in the afterlife not only formed the basis of their religion but it also drove the economy, providing jobs for thousands of people responsible for equipping tombs with all the comforts enjoyed on earth," the Dallas Morning News said.
In light of this exhibition, it is important to consider that because most of the buildings of ancient Egypt, including the royal palace, were built of wood and brick (stone being reserved for tombs and temples), the majority of the surviving structures are funerary. This gives the erroneous impression that ancient Egyptians were only preoccupied with thoughts of the afterlife. Evidence to the contrary is abundant. The ancient Egyptians thought of the afterlife simply as an inevitable extension of their earthly experience and decorated their tombs with aspects of their lives which they wished to repeat. In fact, they conscientiously channelled their energies to the service of the living and to achieving comfort and pleasure on earth.
Ancient Egyptians took pride in their possessions. The legs of chairs and beds were carved in the form of powerful hind legs of oxen or lions; furniture frequently had decorative copper fittings. The handle of a spoon might be fashioned to resemble a lotus blossom, or a calyx might form the bowl of a wine glass. Chests and boxes were inlaid with ivory and precious stones. Both beds and chairs tended to be low, enabling the occupant to recline or squat. Walls of buildings were heavily decorated, and ceilings were often painted blue. Remember how the Pharaohs lived when "The Quest for Immortality" takes you on a journey to the afterlife.
