The King Tutankhamun exhibition at Paris’s Grande Halle La Villette broke the record as the most visited cultural event this year, with a turnout of more than 1.37 million visitors, according to Egypt’s Ambassador to Paris and its permanent representative to UNESCO, Ehab Badawi.
Badawi said that the temporary exhibition has had the highest number of visitors in history for an event organized in France, even though the main piece, the mask of Tutankhamun, was not on display.
The exhibition was also the most visited in 1967, when it was on display at the Petit Palais, with 1.24 million people attending.
The exhibition is believed to have had a positive impact on French tourist influx into Egypt, which, as records show, has seen a marked increase over the last period.
The Tutankhamun exhibit will be on display from March 23rd until September 22nd, featuring 150 artifacts that belonged to the king, 60 of which had never left Egypt before and will be permanently placed at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) after the tour.
Some of the pieces were items from the king’s everyday life, including gilded shawabti statues, wooden boxes, and canopic jars, and the gilded wooden Ka statue and alabaster pots.
The exhibition, titled Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Pharaoh, was inaugurated by Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities Khaled Anani last March.
However, Paris is only the second stop for the touring exhibition, after Los Angeles. Treasures of the Pharaoh will be displayed in other major cities across the world to promote the cultural ties between Egypt and the countries in which the exhibition takes place. It is then expected to move to London, where it is due to open in November at the Saatchi Gallery.
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