This landmark exhibition, featuring 130 artifacts from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Luxor Museum, explores three thousand years of ancient Egyptian history through an array of dazzling royal treasures and objects illuminating daily life, religion, bureaucracy, and burial practices. The exhibition paints an unparalleled picture of the lives of the pharaohs, from the grandeur surrounding their kingship, deity worship, and elaborate preparations for the afterlife to the strict hierarchies and day-to-day routines of the people around them—a highly organized bureaucracy critical to maintaining Egypt’s divine kingship.
Organized into six thematic sections, the exhibition examines the pharaohs’ authority, the people who served them, religious beliefs, everyday life, the recently discovered “Golden City,” and ancient Egyptian funerary traditions. Monumental granite sculptures, elegantly designed gold jewelry, carved and painted stone stele, lavishly decorated sarcophagi, and other exquisite furnishings demonstrate the sophistication of Egyptian craftsmanship and belief systems. The exhibition also introduces newly discovered artifacts from King Amenhotep’s workers’ community in the Valley of the Kings, offering insight into the lives of artisans and laborers often absent from presentations of Egyptian art history.
Highlights span from Dynasty I (c. 3100 BC) to the Ptolemaic period (321 BC) and include the gold Sarcophagus of Queen Ahhotep II, the gold funerary Mask of King Amenemope, gold Collar of King Psusennes I, the gilded wooden Chair of Princess Sitamun, the carved schist Menkaure Triad, and the limestone relief of Akhenaten and His Family. A rare manuscript, the Papyrus of Djedkhonsuiusankh, the Songstress of Amun, is also featured.
