Why King Tut’s Gold Mask No Longer Travels

Many individuals have fond memories of King Tut’s Gold Mask (also known as the “Funerary Mask” or “Death Mask”), which traveled in the 1970s, and have looked forward to seeing it again in the current exhibition. There has, therefore, been some confusion around the absence of the Gold Mask in Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.

During the 1980s, the Egyptian government declared that the Gold Mask of Tutankhamun was a national treasure and too fragile to travel. As such, it will never leave Egypt again. Today, the Gold Mask resides at its permanent home, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It and the other 5,000 artifacts from Tut’s tomb, including his solid-gold inner coffin, will soon be housed in a new museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum, being built by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities alongside the pyramids in Giza.

For those with interest in Egyptian funerary artifacts, highlights of Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs include:

• The Coffinette for the Viscera of Tutankhamun, a miniature (15.5" tall) masterwork of 18th-Dynasty goldsmithing.
• The Gilded Funerary Mask of Tjuya (Tut’s great-grandmother)
• The Gilded Coffin of Tjuya
• The Small Gilded Funerary Mask for a Fetus
• Two Nested Fetus Coffins

Our goal with this exhibition is to present the beauty, artistry and rarity of the 130 objects from Tut’s tomb and the tombs of his royal ancestors and to share with visitors a comprehensive and educational look at life during the 18th Dynasty, Egypt’s Golden Age. Since it is likely that these objects will not travel again once the new museum in Giza opens, this exhibition presents a unique opportunity to see these wonderful artifacts in person.

King Tut’s Mummy Has Never Left Egypt

Tutankhamun’s mummy still rests in his tomb, in a climate-controlled case, in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. His mummy, three nested coffins and stone sarcophagus have never traveled outside of Egypt. In fact, the mummy was so badly damaged when archaeologists originally removed the Gold Mask and wrappings, that it has only been allowed to leave the tomb four times since 1924: once for CT-scanning and three times for x-raying.

For those with an interest in mummies, a new exhibition, Very Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine, will open on October 31, 2009 at the Legion of Honor. The exhibition will include an Egyptian mummy and coffin that were found in an important middle Egypt cemetery at Akhmim (at the great bend in the Nile). The scientific examination of this mummy represents the core of the exhibition.