Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Exhibition: Franklin Institute marks last Tut stop in states

The Quad (Jeff Simon)
A summary of the exhibition, which adds very little to previous articles, but has a nice remark about the security:

Featured in the showcase at the Institute are items ranging from cosmetics cases to dog collars to knives. Coffins and miniature tombs built especially for Tut and his royal predecessors were among the artifacts protected by armed guards.

The guards, hired by the institute to protect the most sacred and priceless antiques, were armed with pistols and at the ready, in the unlikely event that something were to unfold. "No photography is permitted. If you take a picture, you'll be taken out," an armed guard said when asked if a photograph could be taken of one of Tut's masks, so long as a flash was not used.

When I took out a notebook to take down some information about the mask, the guard approached, "No drawing or sketching it either, you'll be removed."

Over 2.5 million people have seen the current King Tut exhibit, and almost half of them have seen it in Philadelphia. More than 1.2 million tickets have been sold to date to people from all over the world that have come to see the exhibit at the Franklin Institute.

See the above for the full story. If you don't live in the U.K., it may have escaped you that the next port of call for the exhibition is London. If you do live in the U.K. you will probably be thoroughly bored with the whole thing by now,a nd the exhibition isn't even here yet!

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