The artifacts in the new exhibit at the Museum of Idaho are so old, valuable and fragile that making cases good enough to protect them was so expensive, the exhibit almost was canceled.
That didn't happen - acceptable cases were purchased from a university and modified - and the ancient artifacts comprising the "World of the Pharaohs" exhibit attracted more than 10,000 visitors in its first two weeks.
The Idaho Falls museum is the exhibit's only venue in the Western United States. It will be there through November before continuing on to Ottawa, Canada, and two more U.S. stops during its four years on tour from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
"It's the most expensive exhibit we've ever had," Museum of Idaho Program Director Nick Gailey said. "It's also one of the most impressive."
That's high praise at a museum where past attractions have ranged from prehistoric animals to the Dead Sea Scrolls to space flight. "World of the Pharaohs" includes more than 200 items spanning more than 3,000 years of Egyptian history.
Most were found during a Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts expedition in the first half of the 20th century. In about four decades, archaeologists working in the tombs and temples of the Nile Valley uncovered secrets of the pharaohs that had been kept for thousands of years.
Pharaohs spent much of their lives preparing for their deaths and the afterlife they believed would follow. They were buried with necessities such as food and clothing as well as luxuries indicating their status.
"If you liked duck, a cook would cook you up a duck and put it in a duck-shaped mold," Gailey said. "The mold would be put in your tomb right next to you.
"You'd need your fingernails and toenails to be in good shape in the afterlife, so they put gold inlays over them. And you'd need your internal organs, so they put them in canonic jars for you. We have 5,000-year-old jars without organs and some that are only 3,000 years old with the organs still in them."
Visitors also will see:
The head and shoulders from a colossus (giant sculpture) of Ramses II.
"It's a 4,000-year-old, 4,500-pound, red granite carving of one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs," Gailey said. "You walk in through the threshold and see this guy staring at you from 9 feet above the ground."
A 7-foot sarcophagus lid, weighing in at a mere 1,000 pounds.
Gold nail protectors.
"You can actually see the outlines of the pharaohs' fingernails and toenails," Gailey said.
Pharaohs weren't the only ones who were prepped for an afterlife. The exhibit includes a cat mummy. Whether it was meant to honor a goddess or beloved pet or to protect its owner from afterlife mice isn't known.
Royal decrees written in hieroglyphics.
Golden statuettes, "magical" amulets, false doors and more.
Historian David Peck of BYU-Idaho will speak April 1 on the curse of King Tut's tomb. Peck's lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in the Trinity United Methodist Church adjacent to the museum. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for youth and university students with ID cards.
Tim Woodward: 377-6409
