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May 24, 2006 7:02 pm US/Central
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King Tut Exhibit To Open On Friday
Field Museum Expects Large Crowds
by Vince Gerasole
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
An eagerly anticipated exhibit on King Tut opens at the Field Museum on Friday.
CBS 2's Vince Gerasole has an advance look.
For more than 3,000 years, the treasures of King Tut were buried beneath Egyptian sands. Archeologist Howard Carter spent five years searching for the fabled Tomb of the Boy King.
"The most important tomb ever found in Egypt, and it was found completely in tact Nov. 4, 1922," said Dr. Zahi Hawass with the Egyptian Council of Antiquities.
In the 1970s, crowds in record numbers lined up to take in these antiquities. Thirty years later, the exhibit of Tutankhamen's treasures has been expanded to include 130 ancient items, not only from his tomb but also other royal sites in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
"Last time, we dealt with only 20 years of ancient Egypt. This time we're dealing with more than 100 years," said the University of Pennsylvania's Dr. David Silverman.
You can behold Tut's intricately carved golden dagger wrapped with his mummy to protect him in the afterlife, a miniature gold coffin in his image that held his inner organs, and the golden diadem, or crown, he most likely wore in life and death.
But gaze onward at the collar of a pet dog, at statues of a family together, or shields meant to guard the dead in the afterlife. You'll see ancient Egyptians were not unlike us. It's a world revealed to us through the tomb of King Tutankhamen.
On his last visit to Chicago, King Tut attracted more than 1 million visitors. Tutankhamen and The Golden Age of the Pharaohs opens to the general public this Friday and runs through Jan.1.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)