king tut exhibit
 

Has any one seen this exhibit yet? We are hoping to go for a weekend in August.My oldest daughter wants to be an Egyptologist and this is the closest we can get to Egypt right now :0)
Thanks
T

We visited the exhibit in Fort Lauderdale in December. If your daughter has interest, then I would recommend it. Overall, it is a good exhibit, but the Tut items evidently fall far short of the 1976 exhibit that toured the U.S. You won't see some of the spectacular items such as the head pieces. There are many other items dated just before and after Tut's reign that are interesting.

The Fort Lauderdale museum, however, over-sold the event. We entered the museum about an hour after our ticketed time. It was also very crowded in the museum. Be sure to arrive well ahead of your ticketed time. We arrived 45 minutes ahead and still had the experience I described.

Overall, I'm glad we made the trip and as long as you have an idea of what you're going to see, you will also be satisfied.

I saw the exhibit in LA and I felt it was a big rip off because it had so very little from the actual Tut tumb. However, my guest, who has never been to Egypt, enjoyed it.

If you like "circus-style" art exhibits and don't know what was taken from the tomb, you will probably enjoy it.

Hooray for you daughter! I always wanted to be an archeologist....settled for a degree in geology! But I took archeology in college and was lucky enough to live in Eyppt for 4 years.

My advice....save your money and go to Egypt! If that doesn't inspire your daughter to pursur her dreams....NOTHING WILL!!!!

I also attended the LA exhibit and felt it was a negative experience. My local Minneapolis Art Institute has an excellent antiquities area that I can visit FREE and w/o crowds. It is not that I mind paying for an exhibit, I just felt this one was more hype than it delivered. It was WAY ovwersold and too crowded in LA. My recommendation would be to find a local museum with Egyptian artifacts and compare what you could see at each and see if it is worth it to you. As the previous poster indicated, very little was from the Tut tomb, most was from his predecessors.

Some friends of mine are going 6/10, I'll post back after hearing from them.

I just had another thought. My friends are going out of their way to see this exhibit because they were told this would be the last time it would tour the US. Does anyone believe that, or do you think it will come back someday?

Considering your daughter's aspirations, definetly take her to this exhibit.

She will also be inspired by the collections at the Met in New York City and the Brooklyn Museum, which has a surprising collection of stuff from Egypt.

There are proably other great collections in the States.

To answer your question: I don't believe in "last" and "final" appearances of anything.

Well, where to begin?

I've seen both the 1976 exhibit and this one in LA. Within the last year, I've also been to a special on Hatshepsut, the only female pharoah, in the San Francisco DeYoung Museum and I've also seen the collection at the Met in New York. At other times, I've also seen other Egyptian collections outside the US, such as the one in the British Museum.

They were ALL wonderful experiences.

The 1976 King Tut Exhibit was very special because it was the first time (for us) that we here on the West Coast could get this close to a wonderful Egyptian exhibit without having to travel too far out of the area.

The King Tut exhibit this year is, as stated, very crowded. If you choose an earlier entry time you will do better than to go, say, in the afternoon, when the crowds and the backlog are at a peak.

The Hatshepsut exhibit at the San Francisco DeYoung was one of the best themed exhibits I've ever seen. It ended with a breathtaking wall-size picture of her tomb at Deir-Al-Bahri. This special exhibit is now at the New York Metropolitan Museum until some time in July.

The New York Met also has a trememdous collection on ancient Egypt. Another breathtaking experience is their reconstruction of the Temple of Dendur.

If your oldest daughter is interested in becoming an Egyptologist, I would suggest taking her both to the current King Tut Exhibit and to the New York Met Museum before July. Both will offer awesome experiences and should not be missed. :)

I agree. I went to the '76 exhibit in L.A. when I was 15. I was very excited to bring my children to the current exhibit (ages 12 and 15). They were extremely fascinated and it was a well spent $80 for a family of four.

I was at the TUT exhibit in Chicago in 76, & that one was fantastic, & saw this one in LA last June, while on vacation there. This one lacked some of the luster of the 76 exhibit, but I enjoyed it almost as much, especially for not just focusing on Tut artifacts. I agree that the LA logistics were not done very well. But remember the prior display in Chicago was done very well. Don't know if it will be the same this time around. & was thinking of going again in Chicago. I read somewhere that there will be a couple of nights where the exhibit entrance fee will be $50, but that will include the audio tour, & there will be a limited amount of people let in, not the big crowds during the other times. In LA, I even tried going around to the back of each display, just to get a different view of the artifacts, It was just that the organizers let in too many people at a time & they got bunched up & it was difficult to move around or view the displays. Hopefully the Chicago exhibit is setup as well as they did the exhibit in 76.

Thanks everyone..

We have been to the MET,The U of Memphis has a private exhibit, a few years ago we visited England.First stop? The British Museum :)and many trips to Chicago.
I have no doubt she will get to Egypt!She has a nice little savings account just for the trip.

safe travels
t

Wanted to mention that the Chicago Tribune recently did an article on the King Tut exhibit. The extremely hefty price which the museums had to pay to even get the exhibit and the museums readied for it created the need to sell a mega-amount of tickets.

Wecamp, take a look at the Oriental Institute's website as well. I think your daughter would enjoy a stop down there as well.

I saw the exhibit at the Field Museum (Chicago) on Friday. Overall I was pleased and thought it was one of the better exhibits in recent memory. I knew ahead of time that many of the more spectacular items from the 77 exhibit would not be there. We went early in the morning, 9 am, and the crowds were not bad. In fact, the crowds were not as bad as the Cleopatra and Popei exhibits.

We went this past March and saw the exhibit in Ft. Lauderdale and really enjoyed it. Yes, there are not as many things from Tuts tomb but it was still interesting and well done. It was not as crowded as we thought it might have been so it was very easy to get up close to the items. We also paid extra for the headset and it was well worth it!

We saw the Chicago exhibit last Saturday - June 3. Our tickets, which we bought back in March, as I recall, were for an 8:30 admission.

I was pleased with the staged releases of people into the exhibit. I was also pleased that we had popped for the audio tour (but then those have never disappointed me and tend to add a lot).

In the early rooms, especially, don't follow the crowd. When you enter, everyone goes to the first case on the right side. Instead move to the middle of the room, etc., and let the crowds disperse a bit. There is no reason to file past the exhibits in a line. The objects in a room are generally grouped around a loose theme, but there is no logical order to them.

Note too that mose cases can be approached from all 4 sides with signage on three sides. When it was busy, I found I could stand back and read the signs at the top, then step to the back of the case for a close-up look.