King Tut exhibit recreates golden life, after life

DAVENPORT — The Putnam Museum has morphed into the Tutnam Museum, complete with a tutnam link on its website.

A glorious globe-trotting exhibition occupying three floors in Davenport's museum and science center complex through Sept. 5 is opening the door to a subterranean world sealed from human eyes for 3,000 years. A world dripping in gold, history and mysteries that remain unsolved, swirling around 'the forgotten pharaoh,' King Tutankhamun.

Accounts of his age vary, but it's thought he ascended the throne of Egypt's 18th Dynasty at age 8 or 9, ruled from 1333 to 1323 BC and died at age 18 or 19 from unknown causes. Early X-rays and recent DNA tests have revealed traces of malaria, an infection from a broken leg, splinters in the skull, a knee injury, foot deformities and broken ribs. He could have fallen, been run over by a chariot or been hit in battle. Or, he could have died from a mosquito bite, like George Carnarvon, the wealthy British lord who helped finance the tomb's excavation, and whose untimely death fortified legends of a curse upon those who disturb a mummy's tomb.

Exhibit visitors won't see King Tut's actual coffins, mummy and treasures. They're too fragile and priceless to leave Egypt, and can only be seen through glass at the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo.

What visitors will see are more than 1,000 painstakingly detailed recreations of the artifacts unearthed when British archaeologist Howard Carter chipped through a stone wall in 1922 and by inserting a candle, illuminated a hidden treasure trove in the boy-king's burial chamber.

The discovery sparked a new era in Egyptology, and set off a worldwide 'Tutmania' craze that continues today. Absent is any mention of Steve Martin's parody song, 'King Tut.' A huge hit in the late 1970s, it was the comedian's response to the 'Tutankhamun Treasures' antiquities exhibit that toured the world from 1972 to 1981 and rekindled our fascination with the boy king and his 'condo made of stone-a.'

Today's gilded exhibition, however, will capture your imagination, and enchant all ages. A steady stream of visitors moved through the maze of rooms March 13, punctuating the air with youthful shrieks of surprise and adult murmurs of awe.

Museum officials recommend allowing at least 90 minutes to revel in the collection. I was there from 12:30 to 4 p.m., and felt like I rushed through the bonus collection in the Putnam's own 'Unearthing Ancient Egypt' exhibit. This fascinating coda features two actual mummies and period artifacts, offering a glimpse into life, death and afterlife in the exotic land along the Nile. The kids exploring the display didn't seem tired in the least and were bouncing from case to case, transfixed by the treasures.

The journey begins on the museum's second floor, as visitors file past murals filled with historical context, photographs and maps of the Valley of the Kings, where Tut's tomb was buried beneath the ruins of stone workers' huts.

Carter spent five years searching for the tomb, which is detailed in a short movie just inside the exhibit entrance. Be forewarned, however, that while the movie seems silent, with subtitles, sound is just a click away on the handheld audio devices issued free of charge to each visitor.

The movie is a teaser for the rooms that follow — life-size recreations of tombs and treasures laid out as Carter found them. Visitors exit the small theater into the antechamber filled with furniture and objects piled atop one another. Two statues guarded a wall that masked the entrance to a series of four spectacular golden shrines, one inside another. The innermost shrine held the king's three nesting coffins.

Intricate murals recreate the burial procession from life to afterlife, when Tut ascended to Sun God status.

The coffin room is the exhibit's centerpiece, containing not only recreations of the magnificent nesting coffins, but also the iconic golden mask, jewelry and golden sandals placed on the mummy, other keepsakes found inside the burial chamber, as well as glass case with a recreation of Tut's mummified remains.

The exhibit continues downstairs, with pop culture displays, model ships needed for transport in the afterlife, and a huge room filled with furniture, statues and items typical of everyday life that were found in the tomb's anteroom and treasury.

Another large room near the end showcases Tut's golden chariot and throne. It's believed that because foot deformities prevented him from walking without assistance, he was ferried on litters or via chariot so his subjects wouldn't see any physical weakness in their king. Parents be warned: The chariot is displayed in a raised circle of sand that is just too tempting for little hands to leave alone.

At the end of the official exhibit, visitors can enter one final room displaying the Putnam's own Egyptian mummies and antiquities.

The hardest part is finding your way back upstairs and into the lobby, but museum staff members are happy to point the way through the various twists and turns.

SURPRISES

• Tut's children: The married Tutankhamun had no surviving heirs, so the 18th Dynasty ended with his death. His tomb, however, contained two tiny, double coffins holding the remains of his two unnamed daughters — one who died in the womb and one who died during or shortly after birth. The premature stillborn child was not mummified, but a gold mask several sizes too big was found on her wrapped body. The other daughter's remains were mummified, with the umbilical cord still attached. Their coffins and stories are depicted in one corner of the stunning coffin room.

• Toe and finger coverings: Tut's fingers and toes were individually wrapped in linen strips, then capped with custom-fitted gold sheaths detailed with nails, cuticles and wrinkles over the knuckles. They not only protected his extremities, they also denoted his new status among the deities, since gold was 'the flesh of the gods.'

• Mummification details: Everything you ever (or never) wanted to know about the burial preparations is written out on panels, which also explain the significance of the various internal organs encased in special separate small gold coffins placed inside an alabaster shrine.

• Board games: Even the afterlife needs a little livening. Four intact board games and the ruins of at least two more were found inside Tut's tomb. Such items were a standard part of Egyptian burial practices, serving a dual purpose for entertainment and for playing to gain entry to the afterlife. Musical instruments, painting bowls and ink, papyrus and writing tools indicating Tut's literacy also were tucked into the tomb.

IF YOU GO

• What: 'The Discovery of King Tut' exhibition

• Where: Putnam Museum & Science Center, 1717 W. 12th St., Davenport

• When: Through Sept. 5; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday; closed Easter

• Admission: $15 ages 3 to 18; $17 ages 60 and over, college students or military with ID; $19 adults; door or Putnam.org

• Extras: Putnam's 'Unearthing Ancient Egypt' gallery, open free to King Tut ticket holders; 'Mummies! Secrets of the Pharaohs' 3-D film, $5 add-on with King Tut ticket

• Information: Tutnam.org