An immersive “Tutankhamun experience” combining ancient Egyptian artefacts with cutting edge technology is coming to London in the Spring.
The show, titled Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition, opens at Excel London Waterfront in Docklands on 28th March for a 14 week run. It is the latest in a series of hi tech exhibitions at Immerse LDN that have included F1, Disney 100, and Jurassic World: The Exhibition .
The centrepiece of the exhibition is an eight metre high 360 degree “video mapping” projection room with 1,200 sq m of screens showing a 30 minute movie that tells the story of the famous boy pharaoh, whose tomb was discovered by British archeologist Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings in 1922.
Other tech features include a 10 minutes augmented reality walk inside Howard Carter’s tent that relives the extraordinary moment of the 1922 discovery, and a hologram demonstration of the process of mummification that preserved the bodies of the rules of ancient Egypt for thousands of years.
There are also two “treasure rooms” with original artefacts from as far back as 4000 BC as well as statuettes and vases from the reigns of Tutankhamun and Ramses II & III, and replicas and facsimiles from Egypt.
The exhibition, which is endorsed by the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, has already visited 12 cities and attracted 1.8 million visitors. The latest show is expected to lure visitor numbers running to “certainly in the six figures” according to James Cassidy, president of promoters FKPE.
The attraction continues to feed London’s enduring fascination for the ancient ruler whose tomb and its extraordinary bounty was one of the very few not raided and emptied by tomb-robbers.
The original Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum in 1972 was one of the biggest blockbuster shows of its time. Another show Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh was in residence at the Saatchi Gallery in 2019 and 2020.
Visitors arriving at the new Excel exhibition will enter via an infinity room with a walking Anubis before embarking on a tour through six galleries estimated at taking around 95 to 100 minutes.
Adult tickets will be priced from £20, children from £15.50.