King Tut's 'comeback tour' begins

updated 2:48 p.m. ET June 16, 2005

LOS ANGELES - The 3,300-year-old world of King Tut has returned to the United States in an exhibition that hopes to rival the 1970s tour of ancient Egyptian artifacts that became a cultural phenomenon.

"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" opens to the public Thursday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and advance ticket sales to see the Boy King's exhibit hit 250,000.

"This town loves youth," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president at the National Geographic Society, a co-sponsor of the exhibit. "It also loves a comeback. This is the greatest comeback tour in history."

It will have to be a blockbuster sequel to exceed the last U.S. exhibition of Tut artifacts. A sensational 1976-79 tour drew some 8 million people.

This time around, curators are banking on those who saw or just heard about the last show to bring newcomers to the sprawling exhibit of more than 130 artifacts from the tombs of Tut and his ancestors. Items from the first exhibition are nowhere in sight.

"If you're in Los Angeles, people still remember and talk about their first experience with the King Tut exhibition three decades ago," said Andrea Rich, president of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "We have no doubt the same will be true with this exhibition."

For national curator, David P. Silverman, context was key. The exhibition does not focus solely on King Tut, but provides a wide-angle view of the time preceding the boy's ascension to the throne and the religious realities of the world Tut inherited.

"It's not just important to show the objects in cases, you must put them into context," said Silverman, who also curated the previous Tut exhibit in Chicago.

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