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BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The largest exhibit of artifacts from King Tutankhamun's tomb to ever leave Egypt is coming to Boston this summer.
Mayor Marty Walsh made the announcement Tuesday morning outside Boston City Hall, where a towering, 25-foot statue of the ancient Egyptian royal heralded the coming of "King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh" to the Saunders Castle at Park Plaza on June 13.
The statue is a replica of the real version of the Tutankhamun Guardian Statue, which stood guard at the burial chamber of Tut's tomb for over 3,000 years.
"This exhibit is one of the most interesting and exciting in the world, and I’m proud that Boston will be the only Northeast city to host this collection,” Walsh said in a statement. "This is a wonderful opportunity for people from all across the region to see history first-hand, and we look forward to welcoming visitors from across the country to experience the King Tut collection."
The travelling exhibition includes more than 150 original artifacts from the tomb—60 of which have never traveled outside Egypt before—and will be five times larger than the last King Tut exhibit to visit the city back in 1963.
It not only tells the story of the artifacts themselves and their meaning, but also of British archaeologist Howard Carter's discovery of Tut's tomb nearly 100 years ago.
The exhibit is produced by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, IMG, and Boston's Museum of Science.
Once the artifact tour is over in 2024, the artifacts will be returned to the permanent collection of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt.
WBZ NewsRadio's Kim Tunnicliffe (@KimWBZ) reports
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