EMORY : in the world

The Story Behind Tutankhamun:
The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs
By Priyanka Sinha

Like so many good stories, the facts that make up the narrative of Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum’s relationship with Egypt form a perfect arc, leading up to the U.S. premier of Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs in Atlanta. Opening on November 15, Tutankhamun is another defining chapter in the strengthening ties among Egypt, Emory University, and the local Atlanta community. The journey began in 1920 when Emory’s School of Theology professor, Dr. William Shelton, travelled to Egypt in his search for antiquities that would inform students about the cultural heritage of the lands of the Bible.

Shelton’s purchases formed the beginning of an ancient Egyptian collection that was to become one of the key collections at the Carlos Museum. In 1988, Emory hired its first Egyptologist, Dr. Gay Robins. A scholar of wide renown, Dr. Robins shaped the Egyptian galleries at the Carlos Museum and mounted numerous international exhibitions. Dr. Peter Lacovara joined the Museum staff in 1998 as its first full-time curator of ancient art and his professional relationships came along with his arrival. Dr. Lacovara knew Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, very well. Having met Dr. Hawass when he first came to the U. S. as a student at Penn, Dr. Lacovara notes, “Even then, just by walking into a room he could command everyone’s attention.” Dr. Lacovara worked under Dr. Hawass and Dr. Mark Lehner, renowned archeologist and Director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, for several seasons in Egypt, excavating at the Great Sphinx and pyramids at Giza. When Dr. Hawass became head of Antiquities in Egypt, Dr. Lacovara continued to work with him and led collaborative projects between the Carlos and Cairo Museums as well as an education course for Egyptian students.

Dr. Lacovara oversaw the growth of the Carlos Museum’s ancient Egyptian holdings and the reach of its relationships and reputation. Fortuitous news from a colleague in Canada reached Dr. Lacovara in 1998 – an extraordinary Egyptian collection, maintained since the nineteenth century by the small, privately owned Niagara Falls Museum, would soon become available on the international market. Upon inspecting the collection, Dr. Lacovara recognized that it would be one of the most important collections for the Carlos Museum. As always, cost and timing were crucial. The Niagara Falls materials were being offered to institutions around the globe and the Carlos Museum’s chances of acquiring the collection were diminishing rapidly. Enter Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s visual arts and architecture critic, Catherine Fox. Once the story of the Carlos Museum’s efforts broke in the AJC as front-page news, the city of Atlanta responded heroically. Contributions poured in from foundations and individuals. Within a week, hundreds of donors responded with gifts ranging from $10 to $1 million. In May 1999, the Niagara Falls collection became the Carlos Museum’s Lichirie Collection, named in honor of Charlotte Lichirie, mother-in-law of James B. Miller, Jr., the then Museum Board’s Chairman and generous contributor.

In any story, this would be a happy enough ending, but the events continued to unfold serendipitously as the Lichirie Collection was found to have a mummy of royal descent, first noticeable to Egyptologists by the placement of the crossed arms over the chest, a funerary custom only reserved for royalty in ancient Egypt. Emory University, with its cadre of experts from Egyptologists to medical scientists and technicians were able to identify the mummy as most probably that of the lost Pharaoh of Egypt – Ramesses I.

Throughout this discovery, Dr. Lacovara kept in touch with Dr. Hawass informing him of the findings. Even before circumstantial, historical and scientific evidence pointed to the royal lineage of the mummy, the Carlos Museum had elected to return the mummy to his rightful homeland and did so in 2003. In another Carlos and Cairo Museum partnership between 2004 and 2006, the first US-Egypt collaboration of its kind, Dr. Lacovara and Carlos Museum exhibition design staff upgraded the displays showcasing 160 objects from the Predynastic period in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. The relationship flourished with a conservator exchange between both Museums and the presence of the American Research Center in Egypt at Emory. Dr. Lacovara is now preparing to excavate the Palace of Amenhotep III at Malkata. Malkata, located on the Nile’s west bank near Thebes, in the desert south of Medinet Habu is famous as the palace in which the young Tutankamun grew up. Commenting on the importance of the Malkata expedition, Dr. Lacovara describes the anthropology of discovery, “Archaeologists are becoming more interested in understanding the workings of Egyptian society. Very few cities have been studied as opposed tombs and temples, so we know much more about how the ancient Egyptians died than how they lived.” A ten-year plus project, the Malkata survey and mapping, led by Dr. Lacovara, will cover a two by five mile area and will include a 3-D virtual fly-through of the royal city developed by Georgia Tech’s Imagine Lab.

Through active partnerships over the past ten years there were many occasions for Dr. Hawass and the Michael C. Carlos Museum staff to discuss the world of ancient Egypt and what would be most compelling to audiences in the United States. On one such occasion, Bonnie Speed, Director of the Carlos Museum, asked the respected “gatekeeper” of Egyptian antiquities if he had any projects of interest to the Carlos Museum. His enigmatic response was, “I think I have something very interesting for you.” This event translated into a call several months later from Arts and Exhibitions International’s Andreas Numhauser with a proposition, “Would the Carlos Museum be interested in bringing Tutankhamun to Atlanta?” The rest is history. The Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center was rented in preparation for Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs – with the first objects scheduled for installation at the end of October. Concrete 12-foot walls have replaced temporary scaffolding, demarcating the galleries that reflect the four rooms of Tutankhamun’s tomb – antechamber, burial chamber, treasury, and annex. Vastly different from previous exhibitions and the one currently traveling the United States, Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs contains more than 130 objects, most never before seen outside of Egypt, telling stories from 2000 years of ancient Egypt – from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. Visitors will see the material from Tutankhamun’s tomb and other objects from the 18th Dynasty. Significant dynasties will be represented through works of art owned by many of Egypt’s great pharaohs, from Hatshepsut, the queen who was pharaoh for 30 years and King Shabako, the Nubian Pharaoh who ushered in a brief renaissance in the 25th Dynasty.

The discovery of these treasures could have easily escaped archaeologists. Tutankhamun’s tomb was small and of “non-royal proportions” – it was later covered by debris from the construction of the Tomb of Ramesses VI. On November 5, 1922, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon, discovered the sealed doorway, stamped with the name of Tutankhamun. Howard Carter described that moment when the “details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist…” with Lord Carnarvon inquiring anxiously, “What do you see?” Carter wrote “It was all I could do to get out the words, ‘Yes, I see wonderful things.’” Wonderful Things: The Photography of Harry Burton and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun is the companion exhibition of Tutankhamun and will be on view at the Carlos Museum from November 15, 2008 to May 25, 2009. Every step of the archaeologists’ painstakingly detailed work in and around the tomb was documented through photography, one of the first large-scale excavations to be so thoroughly recorded. Harry Burton took more than 1400 large format black-and-white images to try to capture the experience of the discovery.

The Tutankhamun exhibition is a coup for scholars and teachers, but what of the non-aficionados amongst us? Dr. Lacovara notes, “This exhibition is for everyone and it is an important one. Ancient Egypt is in so many ways the direct ancestor to our own civilization. More than that, I think it shows us what a great multicultural society working together can achieve.” When speaking of the objects themselves, he says, “I think that we live in such a mass-produced, disposable world, that seeing beautifully and painstakingly crafted objects from hundreds or even thousands of years ago touches people. It is re-assuring in a way that humanity is capable of creating such beauty without modern machinery.”

The ancient Egyptians understood the universe through evocative concepts and symbols, many to be revealed at Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs. Apparent behind each object is the tremendous amount of dedicated labor and diversity of partnerships that it took to build one of the world’s greatest civilizations. In a smaller reflection and closer to home, behind some of the best-loved exhibitions are dedicated and well-respected collaborations. Herein is the key strength of the Carlos Museum – a consistent theme in an enduring story.

Priyanka Sinha is the communications manager at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University.