King Tut’s gold crown and other treasures from perhaps the most spectacular Egyptian discovery ever are likely to come to Denver in 2009 or 2010 and could be shown at the Denver Art Museum, museum director Lewis Sharp said Thursday.
“We’re always looking at quality exhibitions,” he said. “Have we made a commitment to King Tut? No, we haven’t. Are we considering it? Yes, we are. It’s a complicated issue, but the bottom line is the objects are fantastic.”
Regardless of whether the museum ultimately agrees to show what Sharp calls the highest-quality group of ancient Egyptian artifacts ever to tour the United States, he is confident the exhibition will be displayed somewhere in Denver.
“There’ll be a venue here,” he said, “and I certainly think the Denver Art Museum should look carefully at it and thoughtfully at it.”
Tut was one of the last kings during Egypt’s tumultuous 18th Dynasty. He died under mysterious circumstances around the age of 18 or 19 in the ninth year of his reign – 1323 B.C.
When the exhibition, titled “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” debuted in Los Angeles in 2005, it was the first time in more than 25 years that objects from King Tut’s tomb had been shown in the United States.
The show drew nearly 4 million visitors during its four- city tour in 2005-07, breaking records at each of the museums where it was offered.
“There’s something magical about King Tut and the whole discovery of the tomb,” Sharp said.
On Monday, the Dallas Museum of Art announced its 2008-09 presentation of the show as part of an encore American tour, noting that subsequent venues in two other cities have yet to be named. The show opens in October 2008 and will run through May 2009 in Dallas.
The show includes more than 130 artifacts between 3,300 and 3,500 years old. The exhibit contains 50 objects from King Tutankhamun’s burial tomb, one of the most recognizable of which is a gold-and- precious-stone inlaid canopic coffinette that held his mummified organs. When the tomb was uncovered in 1922-23, it created an international sensation.
The return of the exhibition to the United States will include artifacts not shown during the previous tour and never displayed here before.
The earlier tour and this encore presentation have been organized by National Geographic, Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions in cooperation with the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.
“I don’t think there has ever been a richer selection of Egyptian material that has toured in this country than what is represented in this King Tut exhibition,” Sharp said.
The museum’s Hamilton Building, which opened in October 2006, was built in large part to be able to handle traveling exhibitions of this scale.
“We have the space,” Sharp said. “They have the quality of material, and we just have to see if the schedule is right for us and contractually makes sense for us. We’re exploring that.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
