From the Nile to the Rhine

Basel has been seized by Tutmania as the "Tutankhamun: The Golden Beyond" exhibition opens to the public. Nevine El-Aref reports on the influx of visitors a day after its official inauguration

---

Click to view caption

clockwise from left: a wooden guilded statuette of Tutankhamun wearing the crown of Lower Egypt; a painted relief featuring King Akhnaten with his wife Nefertiti; a guilded key of life with precious stones bearing the cartouche of Tutankhamun and a perfume vase made of faience and glaze

From 1961 to 1981 treasured exhibits from the Pharaoh Tutankhamun collection were seen in special exhibitions in Europe and given an enthusiastic reception by millions of visitors. Now the treasures are on show for the first time in more than two decades, this time in Basel, Switzerland.

The exhibition at the Basel Museum of Ancient Art and the Ludwig Collection, opened 6 April by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, has stolen the spotlight from the traditional Easter egg, chick and bunny decorations. Streets, shops, the airport, train stations, buses and hotels are adorned with posters featuring the famous gold and faience head of Tutankhamun. The boyish face of the legendary Pharaoh is on magazine covers, while objects from the collection appear on all the front pages. The city has fallen under the spell of Tutankhamun.

The treasures, last seen at shows in Paris in 1967, London in 1972 and Germany in 1980-1981, are on show along with funerary treasures of other members of the XVIIIth Dynasty, from 6 April to 30 September. One hundred and twenty remarkable pieces from the Egyptian Museum can be viewed. Of these, 50 objects are from the Tutankhamun collection.

Despite the cold, rainy weather, visitors are queuing in front of the Basel Museum's grey, 1960s building, awaiting their turn to discover the golden era of Ancient Egypt, one of the world's greatest cultural legacies. "I am very happy to start my Easter holiday with the serenity and divinity of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs," one schoolgirl says, admiring a wooden bust of Tutankhamun. She is one of hundreds of visitors flooding through the four halls of the exhibition. Notables abound, including the former Egyptian Prince Ahmed Fouad, son of King Farouk, who came from France especially to see the exhibition.

The museum has been anticipating half a million visitors to the exhibition across its duration, but 12,000 people turned up on the first day alone. First they were guided to a multimedia introductory room, its walls painted dark blue, symbolising eternity, where they were given the story of every item on display and its discovery. Here they prepared to accompany the Pharaohs on their journey through the afterlife. To help capture the original scene and atmosphere of an Ancient Egyptian tomb, a golden gate lined with two man-sized statues of Anubis, the god of the dead, stand at the main entrance to the exhibition. After descending a dozen steps, visitors are led to exhibition halls painted beige to mirror the colours of the Valley of the Kings.

Black and white photographic enlargements of Howard Carter at various stages of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, and others showing workmen removing the magnificent belongings of the monotheistic Pharaoh Akhnaten's grandparents Yuya and Tuya from their tomb, decorate the walls of the exhibition hall. Photographs of other funerary collections are also adorned.

The exhibition is divided into different thematic groups: early royal tombs from the XVIIIth Dynasty, the tomb of Yuya and Tuya, the mysterious burial in tomb KV55 and the funerary treasures of Tutankhamun. As visitors leave the exhibition they can walk through an exact replica of Tutankhamun's burial chamber. The 40-centimetre high gold coffin for the viscera of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, the gold diadem for his mummy, a gold fan featuring an ostrich hunt, a small gold canopic coffin ornamented with faience and the silver trumpet used for religious ceremonies, are the most important objects. The gilded wooden sarcophagus of Tuya, the gilded mask of Yuya, a serpent-winged deity, painted wooden throne of Princess Satumun and the long face of the monotheistic Pharaoh Akhnaten are other highlights of the exhibition.

Andre Wiese, curator of the museum's Egyptian art department, says the concept of the exhibition is to focus on the question of the funerary treasure of Egypt's New Kingdom rulers and how it differs from that of members of the royal entourage. The presentation of the exhibition is aesthetically flawless, with the pieces displayed in a darkened room to convey their full splendour.

Before being put on show the priceless exhibits were carefully cleaned and given a minor facelift before being photographed to document their condition. Peter Blome, the museum's director, said the exhibition was the fruit of three years of negotiations to bring the treasures from the Nile to the Rhine. "It is a great feeling," he said. "The long-awaited Swiss dream has finally come true." After the last Tutankhamun exhibition was held in Germany in 1981, Egypt prohibited any further exhibitions abroad. This was a result of damage sustained by the statue of the deity Selket, which fell causing the detachment of its scorpion crown. An American restorer was called in to repair the break.

According to the minister of culture, Farouk Hosni, it was not easy to gain the approval of the Egyptian house of parliament to bring the Tutankhamun collection to Basel. Permission was finally granted as a reflection of Egypt's strong diplomatic and cultural ties with Switzerland, and on the condition that only duplicate objects from the Tutankhamun collection would be on show. The gold funerary mask is regarded as one of Egypt's national monuments, and is no longer lent abroad. "This exhibition is a remarkable event and strengthens Swiss-Egyptian relations," Hosni said. He pointed out that the boy-Pharaoh Tutankhamun had never left Egypt except in exceptional circumstances. "Now it is here in Switzerland, a country that has a long lasting cultural relations with Egypt," Hosni said.

Hosni described the exhibition as a good opportunity to show Egypt's cultural diversity and an opportune moment to express the importance of cultural dialogue. He also acknowledged that the five million Swiss Francs, the expected revenue of the exhibition, would go towards financing restoration projects at various archaeological sites in Egypt as well as helping with the construction of the Great Egyptian Museum overlooking the Giza Pyramids. The exhibition is sponsored by the United Bank of Switzerland. The objects are insured for $650 million.

During the weeklong inaugural celebrations, the splendour of Ancient Egypt captivated the press. Le Temps issued four pages in colour featuring the exhibition, describing it as an "alluring eternal scenario for the return of Tutankhamun". As for the special preparations put in place to host the exhibition, Le Temps said that "Tutmania" had hit the Swiss. It also called the exhibition "a window on the treasure of the Valley of the Kings". Le Tribune de Genève ran a front-page piece entitled: "Tutankhamun installs his throne at the Basel museum", calling the display the Swiss exhibition of the year. Le Matin en Images said the exhibition was a fabulous display of the sympathetic royal art of the XVIIIth Dynasty.

In the Netherlands, BaZinside published a special issue on the Ancient Egyptian civilisation. It reviewed the items on display in Basel and provided a file on the Valley of the Kings and the tombs it includes. Not only did it give a glossary of hieroglyphic words, but also a list of titles and photographs from Hollywood films about the mysteries of the Pharaohs, including The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Supreme Council of Antiquities Secretary- General Zahi Hawass said the exhibition would tour other countries, including Germany, the United States and Japan. As Egypt's ambassador it would present the great cultural Egyptian tradition, and suggest that Egypt itself was well worth exploring. Hawass added that the exhibition would attract more Swiss tourists, who now number 100,000 a year. "The attendance of Mrs Suzanne Mubarak at this exhibition reflects Egypt's insistence on strengthening its relations with Switzerland," Hawass concluded.