You would think it would be pretty hard to overlook a 17-foot high, 3,300-year-old statue of King Tut, the tragic teenager who ruled Egypt as pharaoh until his mysterious death in 1325 B.C.
Yet Chicago has done a pretty fair job of ignoring the remarkable, monumental piece of ancient artistry.
More Top Picks Common Visual Symptoms Of Tbi Parents Should Watch For
The background is that in 1931 University of Chicago Oriental Institute archeologists found broken pieces of two identical statues of Tut, the largest likeness of him ever made, in the rubble of a mortuary temple in Luxor, Egypt.
Egypt kept the best-preserved statue and gave the other to the Institute. Artists at the Institute’s museum in 1934 ingeniously restored it to look as it did when it was originally sculpted.
Unfortunately, the seven-ton statue was anchored with its back to a wall at the museum, a position that made it difficult for viewers to fully appreciate its beauty and detailing. It remained along the wall for more than 60 years, a delight and favorite object for loyal patrons of the small museum at 1155 E. 58th St., a world renowned research center that attracts fewer than 70,000 public visitors a year.
But now, the statue will be fully visible in all its glory Monday night at the museum’s annual members dinner. The Institute is using the occasion to preview for its members the first of its newly renovated halls since the museum closed in 1996 to allow workmen to build a $10 million addition and climate control system.
The museum won’t fully reopen to the public until 2001, but the Egyptian Hall, site of Monday’s dinner, will be reopened in December. Last week, workmen moved the Tut statue to its new position in the hall, into the open, away from the wall. It will be the dramatic centerpiece eventually of the museum’s priceless, world-class collection of Egyptian artifacts.
“We are so lucky to have this sculpture,” said Emily Teeter, associate curator at the museum. “There is just no way you could put any sort of value on something of this magnitude.”
Part of the museum’s luck is that it was discovered by Institute archeologists at a time when Egypt shared artifacts with foreign scientists who helped dig through its past. Since World War II, it has forbidden any objects connected to its magnificent history of Pharaonic empires to leave the country.
Uvo Holscher, a German archeologist working for the Institute, found the two Tut statues in the mortuary temple.
The temple was a huge, elaborate structure in the Valley of the Kings, the burial grounds of pharaohs who ruled during Egypt’s Middle and New Kingdom dynasties. Pharaohs built mortuary temples while alive, then left endowments to pay for priests to come to the temple and pray for them three times a day after they died.
Started at the time of Tut’s death, the temple was completed by Tut’s successor, Aye, and enlarged by Aye’s successor, Horemheb. It was obliterated 150 years later by a flash flood.
After Holscher discovered the temple, the Egyptian government agencies selected and kept the best-preserved artifacts. As was the custom in the 1930s, the Institute was allowed to choose a few pieces of what remained for its museum.
What came to Chicago were four large fragments of Tut’s head and torso. Taking casts from the more complete twin statue that remained in Egypt, the Institute’s legendary restorer, Donato Bastiani, made the statue whole, again.
That was in an era when the world was still awash with the King Tut craze that had begun a few years earlier when British archeologist Howard Carter found Tutankhamen’s tomb not far from the mortuary temple.
While all other known Pharaonic tombs had been looted of their contents in ancient times, Tut’s was intact, filled with sumptuous objects made of gold and gems. Made king when he was just nine years old, Tut, as depicted on objects in the tomb, matures into manhood, deeply in love with his wife, Ankhesenamen, a beguilingly beautiful child/queen.
Fascination over Tut has never flagged much since his tomb’s discovery. One of the publishing industry’s most hyped books for this year’s summer vacation season, for example, is “The Murder of Tutankhamen: A True Story,” a non-fiction work claiming Tut was murdered by Aye, an aged grand vizier under Tut who then forced Tut’s young widow to marry him.
“I think most Egyptologists would be skeptical of that scenario,” Teeter said of the idea of both Aye as murderer and of Ankhesenamen’s marriage to Aye.
“There’s very little evidence to support that.”
The Institute’s statue of Tut, however, does reveal some ancient lying and cheating surrounding his death.
The most obvious lie is an inscription carved on the statue’s back, identifying the figure as being Horemheb, a general who served both Tut and Aye, then became pharaoh when Aye died in 1321 B.C.
“If you look closely at it” said Teeter, “you can see that Horemheb had had an earlier inscription chopped out to put his own name on it. The earlier inscription identified the sculpture as being a likeness of Aye.
“We know it’s actually a depiction of Tut by its very distinctive facial features,” said Teeter.
“It’s also done in the style of sculpture that existed during his life, but doesn’t appear after his death, particularly his slightly bulging stomach.
“It was not uncommon for one king to usurp the statue of another. For a long time Egyptologists thought such usurpation was a malevolent act to erase the dead king’s memory from his subjects. Now, we think it may have been more theological than malevolent, a way of trying to express a continuity of kingship.”
More Top Picks How To Improve Eye Teaming And Focus Naturally
The Institute’s statue and its twin in Egypt were carved from quartzite.
It is so big, its head reaches the museum ceiling, which necessitated cutting the statue in two to move it into its new position. The cut was made through the restored concrete legs carved by Bastiani, well below what remains of the actual statue.
The statue is so heavy, moreover, that the museum floor cannot sustain its weight. Steel beams running through the legs and base are connected to support beams that run through the floor to a supporting concrete slab in the basement.
Museum conservator Laura D’Alessandro is working to put back the portions of Tut’s legs cut from the statue for the move.
“People’s feelings have radically changed about restorations since Bastiani did this one,” said D’Alessandro. “Now you pretty much leave the damaged original alone as much as you can.
“But Bastiani did an inspired job. Most people don’t realize . . . that it is a restored version with only portions of the original statue within it.”