King Tut Exhibit NYC-rip off
 

I love history, love museum and was really excited when I learned the Tut exhibit would be in NYC at the Discovery Center while the wife and I were visiting our kids (who live on Long Island and in the city) in July. So, I purchased the tickets for all of us to go, including my two grandkids, who also love history and archeology.

I have visited the Met, the British Museum, the Louvre and the Vatican Museums many times, so I was really pumped for this one. Talk about a complete let down. I felt it was one of the biggest rip-offs I have ever seen. Discovery Channel and NatGeo should be ashamed of themselves for pawning this off in the manner that they did.

There are actually very few artifacts, perhaps 130 or so, but they scattered them across a very large area to make it seem like more. Most were very minor items, such as a necklace or boat. Most came from Thutmose or Akenaten and the only things relating to Tut were at the very end and these too were very minor.

Do yourself a favor, if you are in NYC and interested in Egyptian artifacts, GO TO THE MET!!! Don't waste your money on what the Discovery Hucksters have put together.

As a final note, I used to have a great admiration for the Egyptian director of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, but after seeing the amount of junk that is being sold under his brand as you exit the exhibit, including an Indiana Jones hat (now a Zahi Hawass hat) for $45, I have lost a great deal of respect for him.

dave

Did they at least have his condo made of stone-a? Remember, "he gave his life for tourism."

((H))

So, true. I went to a "King Tut" exhibit in LA a couple years ago and it was an impoverished affair--none of the great treasures for which the his tomb is renowned.

The only people these exhibits will impress are the ones who are clueless about what was discovered in 1923.

Also, an article in today's (7/14/2010) is in agreement with your assessment of Zahi Hawass: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/ar...ef=todayspaper

I've heard similar rants when the exhibit was in San Francisco. I wonder if it's the same one, or different?

Yes on the same exhibit, it is touring the country.

We saw a King Tut exhibit in New Orleans in the late 1970s, and it was magnificent. Our only complaint at the time was that by the time we got to the final rooms, we'd seen so many amazing things, it was looking pretty ho-hum to us. "Oh, another sarcophagus"...

I can't help but wonder whether the NYC and LA exhibits are different than the one we saw, which (as I recall) was met with much praise and awe.

This exhibit is completely different from the original back in the 1970s. That one was magnificient, this one is made up of a bunch of essentially cast-offs and minor artifacts, few having anything to do with Tut.

What ticked me off was the way it was promoted. I knew that the sarcophogus was not in the exhibit, but I expected a bit more than the tops of a few canopus jars.

dave

We were thinking about seeing this next month, but I have to admit I am having second thoughts . . .

<<We saw a King Tut exhibit in New Orleans in the late 1970s, and it was magnificent.>>

That's where I first saw the exhibit and it was fabulous. I still have the silk-screened black/cream bag with Tut's mask on it.

I admit, however, that I am now spoiled - having seen the exhibit in the Cairo Museum several times. ;)

>>> This exhibit is completely different from the original back in the 1970s. That one was magnificient, this one is made up of a bunch of essentially cast-offs and minor artifacts, few having anything to do with Tut.
>>>

I was wondering if it was anything like the original. I saw it at the Met back then. It really WAS magnificent.

I was going to take my nephew to the Tut exhibit just last week, but he decided he preferred Coney Island instead. So I guess we didn't miss anything.

That Met King Tut exhibit was a classic -- and it was such a big deal that I can still remember the tune from the advertising and I was in elementary school then.

The Met's Egyptian exhibit is fairly outstanding for anything outside of . . . Egypt.

I wasn't going to go when Tut was in Philly a few years back, since I'd been to Cairo, plus had seen earlier very good traveling exhibit in Pittsburgh.
But I went as it was a three day trip with lots of interesting things and great meals included.
Enjoyed it all.

Of course I've read three threads started by daveesl today and it appears that dave doesn't like anything!

There was a real tour some years ago - I saw it at the Met and it was incredible.

Unless a exhibit it at a known museum you should investigate carefully to see what they are actually displaying. iMHO this "exhibit" is half a step up from Mme Tussaud.

I don't know how much investigation needs to be done for a $15 discounted admission. Not much more than a movie in Manhattan.

For Steelersfan (by the way, I am one too), if you would have bothered actually reading the threads I have "started", one was done as a joke, one was done as a suggestion on how to make the board perhaps easier on new people.

If you spend time looking over my posts from the last few years I will often go into great detail on how people can get the most for their money and time.

If you read many of the responses to this thread, you'll find that many agree with my negative review, some disagreed, that's called "different strokes".

By the way, the Bodies exhibit was fantastic.

dave

I saw this version of Tut when it was in Atlanta. Dave describes it accurately. It is NOT the Tut exhibit some of us remember from our younger days. As a child in Chicago, I went to the "original" Tut exhibit at the Field Museum. It is a wonderful memory. When my son came home from school and asked if I wanted to chaperone a school field trip to this new version, I jumped at the chance thinking it would be like what I recalled from the Field Museum years ago. Definitely not. Quite disappointing.

When I visited the Egyptian Museum in Cairo this past February, my Egyptologist guide told me that a somewhat-recent Egyptian law prevents the exportation of any of the true Tutankhamun treasures like the famous death mask and the nested anthropoid (human-shaped) sarcophagi. So the traveling exhibits are prevented from borrowing any of the valuable antiquities. That might be why the previous posters who said they saw the Tut exhibit in the 70s were impressed, while people who have seen the more recent ones are disappointed.

Well, if you've seen the museum in Cairo as have we plus Sakkara and such the Tut exhibit likely won't impress. There was a good Egyptian exhibit in Jackson, MS, a few years ago.
Seems to me we saw one in Memphis too.

Bill in Boston

For those interested in Egyptian antiquities, The Motroplitan Museum's collection is considered the most complete and comprehensive in the world - outside of Cairo

Like padams421 I saw it in Atlanta and, like others was very disappointed in the exibit. Not a total waste, but not what I expected based on the promotional material.