By: Yohana de la Torre

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The story of King Tut has fascinated the masses since the first glimpse of his tomb in 1922. Egypt’s boy pharaoh was born during the Amarna Age, a time when the Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced true monotheism.

As pharaoh, Akhenaten moved the administrative center and the religious capital to Akhetaten in Middle Egypt— a region no other god had been associated with. And here is where the unraveling story of Tutankhamun comes to fruition.

 
 

As a young prince, King Tut honored Aten, the deity of the new religion he was born into and spent his early childhood in. But with time, the young man did not maintain the religious movement of his father. When he ascended the throne in 1334 B.C., he restored the traditional gods and re-established Thebes as the religious capital and Memphis as the administrative center.

Reigning for only about nine years, Tut died as a teenager. He was laid to rest in 1325 B.C. laden with gold, and an allure and mystery has surrounded his death for thousands of years.

“We find out who we are by looking at where we came from,” says Marty Martin with The Origins Museum Institute. “King Tut is the most glorious archeological find ever. The intrigue really comes from the fact that King Tut’s tomb, aside from a great treasure, is the best kept time capsule found buried in the ground ever. His tomb completely brings to life, in all aspects, a civilization that has been extinct for thousands of years.”

Martin is the curator of King Tut: Wonderful Things from the Pharaoh’s Tomb from The Origins Museum Institute. For the past two decades, the Institute has been providing museums throughout the world exhibits of traveling reproductions of King Tut’s legendary artifacts.

Royal Coronation Throne

The Anubis Shrine

Martin explained the original traveling King Tut exhibit had pieces that began suffering the effects of traveling. Since the items are priceless and irreplaceable, the Egyptian government passed a law forbidding them to leave the country.

“During Tut’s time, the children would wear replicas of artifacts that their ancestors were buried with,” Martin explains. “And with very few exceptions, everything in Tut’s tomb was a replica made from ancient designs. So, we had Egyptian artisans from the Pharaonic Village execute these ancient designs for our exhibit.”

Most of the relics and all of the grand showpieces are custom made by artisans of this Pharaonic Village. The artisans make them in the Village of Giza at the foot of the pyramids. This has been the chief industry of that settlement since the dawn of time. And the hands that made the exhibits replicas are the descendants of the hands that used to make them for the pharaohs.

Coming to our very own Southwest Florida Museum of History from January 16 – June 19, thousands will marvel over the reproductions of the dazzling and extraordinary artifacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Evoking wonder, the exhibit will unveil several of the 128-treasures of stunning and exact replicas, some original items from the 26th dynasty, and artifacts from Tut’s time period. Unbelievably reproduced, the collection faithfully preserves the grandeur and the thrill of a treasure in history.

- Marvel over one of the world’s biggest mysteries, King Tut: Wonderful Things from the Pharaoh’s Tomb, exhibiting from January 16 – June 19 at the Southwest Florida Museum of History, located at 2031 Jackson Street in Fort Myers, FL. For more information, please contact (239) 321-7430.