{"id":421063,"date":"2026-08-01T19:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T19:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421063\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T19:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T19:38:16","slug":"spectacular-exhibit-at-de-young-ushers-egyptian-riches-onto-american-soil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421063\/","title":{"rendered":"Spectacular exhibit at de Young ushers Egyptian riches onto American soil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re here to watch the treasures of the pharaohs, not to hunt them,\u201d joked His Excellency Sherif Fathi Attia at the press preview for the Aug. 1 opening<\/a> of a blockbuster exhibition at the de Young museum. \u201cSo keep in mind that this is not treasure hunting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Historically speaking, at least, the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities for the Arab Republic of Egypt had a right to be apprehensive. He was addressing a crowd assembled for \u201cTreasures of the Pharaohs,\u201d and beneath him were assembled 130 priceless artifacts spanning 3,000 years. After all, ancient Egypt has been infamously pillaged<\/a> for its bounty, and the question of provenance at foreign museums is a common issue<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The treasures on display are not only culturally and financially valuable, they are also visually stunning. Take, for example, the necklace of Ahhotep with golden flies, a gift that would have been awarded for an act of bravery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"GoldNecklace of Ahhotep with Golden Flies, Second Intermediate period \u2013 Eighteenth
Dynasty, Gold. Photo by Massimo Listri<\/p>\n

\u201cThis may be your first and last opportunity to have a look at this jewelry,\u201d said Dr. Tarek el Awady, exhibition curator and former director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Since it is on the Luxor Museum list of masterpieces, Awady explained, future travel is highly unlikely. Arguably its only rival in the show is the collar of Psusennes I, eleven pounds of solid gold, thought to be the heaviest piece of jewelry from the ancient world. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also difficult to imagine the solid black granite statue of the mayor Sennefer, his wife Senetnay and their daughter Mutnefret making another trip, given its extraordinary weight. Hewn from one of the hardest rocks in the world, it was found in 1903 on the east bank of Luxor. Awady interprets the work of art as evidence that women were equal to men in ancient Egyptian society.<\/p>\n

\"AncientFamily statue of the mayor Sennefer, his wife Senetnay, and daughter Mutnefret
Dynasty 18, New Kingdom. Granodiorite, Cache of Karnak Temple, Luxor
Egyptian Museum, Cairo.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly half of the [hieroglyphic] text talks about the man, and the other half is talking about the wife, and we have her titles exactly like him,\u201d he said. It\u2019s also a remarkable demonstration of technical skill by an ancient sculptor who carved soft ripples into such hard stone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Much of the interest in ancient Egypt stems from the culture\u2019s conception of the afterlife and on this subject, the exhibition does not disappoint. There\u2019s the glittering gold mummy cover of Psusennes I \u2014 complete with five toe caps (called stalls) \u2014 smooth alabaster canopic jars with a sledge to carry them for easy transport and vividly painted funerary stela. Every finger and toe of a mummy could be protected with solid gold; servants waited on them in the afterlife, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The embarrassment of riches on display begs the question \u2014 how was it possible to transport it all here, both in terms of the extreme weight and the inestimable value?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an army just to collect these artifacts in Egypt and to prepare them to travel,\u201d Awady said. \u201cThis is the ugly part of the operation. When you deal with such artifacts, you can\u2019t [make] a tiny mistake.\u201d The undertaking is gargantuan, but it\u2019s worth it, since the museum anticipates overwhelming demand.<\/p>\n

This is the third time in 20 years that ancient Egypt has been the subject of an exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, a record even Attia acknowledged was impressive. The Egyptian obsession is not unique to Americans, nor to modern times; the Valley of the Kings was raided even in antiquity, Awady said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The story of the pharaohs, in turn, becomes just as much about the treasure lovers and hunters as it is about the treasures. Theodore Davis, an American lawyer who sponsored excavations, adored talking to the press \u2014 and successfully associated his name with Tutankhaman\u2019s in Egyptian museums, Awady said. <\/p>\n

On the other hand, the French Egyptologist Pierre Montet, who unearthed the city of Tanis\u2019s Amun Temple complex in 1939, revealing more than 2,500 precious objects, feared for his life, possibly because his work coincided with the outbreak of World War II. The exhibition includes a section devoted to some of Montet\u2019s glittering discoveries from royal burials, discoveries comparable to the objects found in Tut\u2019s tomb.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Franciscans are privileged to be able to see such treasures of civilization in our own backyard. Yet the ultimate goal for Egyptian curators is to lure foreign visitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are over 4,000 archaeological sites in Egypt, and we need people to come and visit,\u201d Awady said, \u201cWe need money to preserve the heritage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTreasures of the Pharaohs\u201d will be on display at the de Young from August 1 through January 31, 2027.<\/p>\n

\"AInstallation view of \u201cTreasures of the Pharaohs,\u201d de Young museum, San Francisco, 2026. Photo by Gary Sexton\"AInstallation view of \u201cTreasures of the Pharaohs,\u201d de Young museum, San Francisco, 2026. Photo by Gary Sexton\"AncientPectoral pendant of Amenemope, Dynasty 21, Third Intermediate Period, Gold, lapis lazuli, feldspar, and glass, Tomb of Amenemope, Tanis. Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Photo by Massimo Listri\"FourInstallation view of \u201cTreasures of the Pharaohs,\u201d de Young museum, San Francisco, 2026
\nPhoto by Gary Sexton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re here to watch the treasures of the pharaohs, not to hunt them,\u201d joked His Excellency Sherif Fathi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2311,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-421063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-museums","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}