A blockbuster show on King Ramses II, the legendary pharaoh who reigned over Egypt between 1279 and 1213 BCE, has launched in London on the latest leg of a lucrative tour. Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs (opens Feb 28 and booking to May 31), located near Battersea Power Station, boasts over 180 ancient Egyptian treasures and is organised in collaboration with the Egyptian government.
According to the exhibition website, the show is produced by Victory Hill Exhibitions Ltd—whose parent company is Singapore-based Neon Global, which specialises in producing immersive or interactive entertainment experiences—in partnership with the Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which is loaning most of the works. The headline-hitting Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass has also been “instrumental” in shaping the show, say the organisers.
“We have a contract with the company [Neon] to bring the artefacts here. The exhibition is an ambassador [for Egypt],” Hisham Elleihy, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, tells The Art Newspaper.
He did not respond to a request for comment about the amount of revenue the Egyptian government has raised so far from the show but proceeds from the exhibition tour will fund current research, excavations and conservation efforts at archaeological sites in Egypt.
Ticket prices vary for the UK leg, ranging from £24.90 to £32 for standard admission, according to the time slot. Neon meanwhile will provide 5,000 complimentary tickets to local schools in London and 10,000 “off-peak” tickets, priced at £15.
The exhibition, which has already been seen in Houston in Texas, San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo and Paris, includes the coffin of Ramses II which shows the king depicted as an Osiris (the Egyptian god of the afterlife), animal mummies and sacred charms such as the amulet of the goddess Bastet, dating from the Third Intermediate Period (around 1070BC).
Other key objects include a statue of Ramses II kneeling (around 1292 BC), on loan from the Alexandria National Museum, and a gilded wooden mask from the coffin of the pharaoh Amenemope who ruled from 1001 to 992BC. An accompanying VR film, Ramses & Nefertari: Journey to Osiris, sweeps viewers through the desert and monuments of ancient Egypt, forming part of the visitor experience.
Mohamed Ismail, Minister of Antiquities of Egypt, adds in a statement that the “exhibition provides a rare opportunity for people to come face to face with the world of Ramses in all its glory before they are returned to Egypt and placed at the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum.”
The long awaited new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), situated among the Giza complex of pyramids, around 45 minutes from central Cairo, opened last year.It was first proposed in 1992 by the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, as the century-old Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square was unable to cope with the number of tourists. ”The GEM museum is drawing around 19,000 visitors daily,” said Elleihy.
