With more than double the 50 artifacts of 1978 and a reservation system that will eliminate long lines, the King Tut comeback tour has returned to Seattle.
“Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs” opened Thursday, May 24, and will run through Jan. 3, 2013, at the Pacific Science Center. After Seattle, the ancient artifacts return to Egypt for good.
The 1978 exhibit drew 1.3 million people in Seattle. Already, the Pacific Science Center has sold more than 90,000 advance tickets — a record.
The synergistic marketing machine is in full swing, from King Street Station being renamed “King Tut Street Station” to hotels running special Tut packages. This is big business, like a Rolling Stones tour on steroids.
Inside the exhibit, away from the hoopla, the experience changes: The darkened galleries strike a respectful contrast.
The layout is spacious, with the display cases arranged so the viewer can spend time with each object without experiencing a viewer logjam. Along the way, videos supply context; mercifully, information overload has been avoided.
Much has been made of Egypt’s first free elections coming a day before the show’s opening, but, like the ancient Greeks, it’s difficult to draw a line between past and present. Some find all things ancient Egypt compelling; others find those distant people of the Nile — with their pyramids, mummies, hieroglyphics and slaves — as cryptic as the cats they worshipped.
Both sensibilities will be affirmed and, in some cases, revised.
There are recognizable, human touches that connect across three millennia: a cat’s sarcophagus etched with figures from a bestiary; a gorgeous necklace with beads of gold and semiprecious stones; a bed woven of wood that looks inviting.
Other artifacts are cosmically inscrutable — one thinks of Yeats’, “Of hammered gold and gold enameling/To keep a drowsy Emperor awake.” The Egyptians loved gold.
One of the exhibit’s most striking figures is a recumbent, gold-painted hawk carried on a standard in processions; it has the mysterious presence of one of Morris Graves’ birds.
Other items include a 10-foot statue of King Tut and a gold death mask that covered the head and chest of the mummified King Psusennes I. Some artifacts belong to other rulers, including Khufu — that’s his face on the Great Sphinx.
Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tut’s tomb, dug around Egypt for 31 years until, on Nov. 5, 1922, he uncovered a dozen downwards steps that would eventually lead to his legendary find.
To study these artifacts, trying to connect with them, is an exercise in the definition and meaning of civilization and humanity, especially while trying to read the ancient faces. Or do they read us?
“Tutankhaman: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs,” at the Pacific Science Center, 200 Second Ave. N., through Jan. 6, 2013. For ticket information, visit www.pacificsciencecenter.org.