This 39-centimetre canopic coffinette from Tut's tomb is made of gold, carnelian and coloured glass. (Sandro Vannina/Art Gallery of Ontario)King Tutankhamun has returned to Toronto.
A new exhibit of artifacts related to the Egyptian boy king went on display Friday at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The AGO also hosted the 1979 exhibit of King Tut artifacts that had patrons lining up around the block.
The beauty and exquisite workmanship of ancient Egyptian artifacts makes them crowd-pleasers, says Ron Leprohon, a professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto, who was involved with both the 1978 and the 2009 shows.
"I think there's a magic there of seeing something that was made so long ago by a craftsman who did this for the good of his ruler who believed in resurrection and so made all these magnificent things for his king," he told CBC News in an interview Friday.
"And there's the object right there in front of you, still talking to you after 3,000 years."
Among the highlights of the show are the beautifully designed jewelry, a death mask — not of Tut but of a later king — and the child-sized throne of King Tut himself, he said.
Tut, who took the throne at just nine years old, ruled at a time of religious turmoil in Egypt, Leprohon said.
"The story is that he is the son of a king called Akhenaten, who may or may not be the first monotheist in history — we're seeing the worship of only one god.…The religious revolution of Tutankamen's father did not survive him so when Tut comes to the throne, when he's about nine years old, you get the feeling that courtiers sat him down and said 'all right son, this is how it's going to be now,'" he said.
A gold cobra collar from Tut's tomb is one of 100 artifacts in the AGO show. (Matthew Prefontaine/Art Gallery of Ontario)"There's this complete counterreformation where they undo the religious revolution and go back to the old traditional ways. It certainly was a turbulent time in Egypt."
Since 1979, when the last King Tut exhibit was in Toronto, there have been many new archeological findings in Egypt which are reflected in the interpretation and the artifacts on display.
In the early 1990s, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass discovered a full cemetery where the people who built the pyramids lived and worked, which is explained in the show with a scale model.
Funerary sandals from Tut's tomb are made of gold. (Matthew Prefontaine/Art Gallery of Ontario)"This relatively recent discovery of the workers' settlement at Giza [near the pyramids south of Cairo] is important because it lets us understand how the culture worked, how the society worked," Leprohon said.
"The people at Giza were working in the off-season — when their fields were flooded by the Nile. The government steps in and houses them, clothes them, feeds them so it's basically a big [make-work] project. The catch is you have to build a pyramid."
Many of the 100 artifacts on display in the AGO show have never been seen in North America prior to this exhibition tour.
King Tut: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs is organized by the National Geographic Society, Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions, with co-operation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.
It runs Nov. 24, 2009 through April 18, 2010 for the public, but AGO member previews began Friday.
