Tutankhamun Exhibition

Yesterday I went to the Tutankhamun exhibition in Cologne with my dear friend Julia.

I had been very excited when I heard about the exhibition cause I've always been interested in Egypt and Egyptian culture (my first obsession as a child, apart from my obsession with the universe and everything) but the ticke

ts were very expensive, but due to lucky circumstances I got 2 free tickets from a university friend.

(I went to my first Tutankhamun exhibition when I was a baby (so technically, I didn't "go") with my parents and at the end of the day I puked on my dad's leather jacket!)

Even though we went on the 3rd last day of the exhibition it was actually not that full and it was easy to see all the exhibits and take pictures.

I realy liked the way the whole thing was set up, first with some general information about Egypt, the flora and fauna, a timeline of kings

and queens, some geographical information about the Valley Of The Kings and then something about the Archaeologists (read = hobby excavators) who found Tutankhamun's tomb.

After the general introduction they showed two films, the first one about King Echnaton and his wife Nefertiti and about their son, Tutankhamun (Though I

think Nofretete wasn't actually his mother...).

The second film was about the excavators Howard Carter and George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon and how they found the king's tomb.

We then proceeded to Tutanchamun's tomb, first the antechamber, the treasure chamber and the tomb chamber.

Everything had been set up exactly the way Howard Carter had first set eyes upon it which was very touching in a way, even though the chambers, filled with all kinds of stuff, looked more like my grandma's attic.

With the exception that here, everything was gold.

The exhibition continued with the three huge golden tombs, each decorated over and over with heiroglyphs and pictures of the afterlife, and the red clay final tomb.

Each smaller tomb fit into the one before perfectly like a babushka doll, but three (technically, four) tombs are of course not enoug

h.

We then also need three sarcophagi, again, like a babushka doll, one placed inside the other.

The rest of the exhibition was full of all the small things they found in the tomb, the two tiny sarcophagi of Tutankhamun's stillborn daughters, jewelery, sculptures of both himself and numerous gods, the king's shoes (apparently he had a slight problem with shoes. He had too many. WAY too many.), furniture and other things, beloved to him during his 19 years of life like his first set of royal insignia (small heqa sceptre and flail) toys/weapons etc.

Overall, the exhibition was quite lovely and its size was "comfortable"

. Not too big, not too small, and there really were a lot of exhibits on display.

The replicas (obviously, non of the exhibits were originals) were very, very convincing and there were basically no boundaries, almost everything could be touched and examined closely and you could take pictures of absolutely everything.

The only problem I had was that, since everything was gold and the lighting wasn't always that good, all of my pictures are different colours.

Sometimes the gold is warm, glowing orange, almost red, other times the gold is cool.

But oh well, can't help that. (Stupid gold!!!)

And the only other down side was the rather disappointing and additionally insanely expensive merchandise, but I didn't really need or want anything, rea

lly.

All my pictures can be seen in my flickr set Tutankhamun.

Afterwards, Julia and I went on a short shopping tour to buy a bikini (for her) and have a general look around and while I was standing there on the high street my eye caught a display in a perfume and makeup store about which I was very, very happy.

SOAP & GLORY HAS MADE IT TO GERMANY!!!

I didn't buy anything, though (yet!).

Once I do, I'll definitely blog about it.