HIDDEN under the sand for centuries, this little statue will come face-to-face with thousands of visitors in Oxford.

The limestone model of boy pharoah Tutankhamun’s head is just one of 145 exhibits which will go on display at the Ashmolean Museum from Thursday.

Archaeologist Howard Carter’s handwritten diaries, and sketches of the tomb made in 1922, will be displayed alongside material from the Tutankhamun archive in Oxford University’s Griffith Institute, much of which has never been displayed before.

Some of the finest artwork from Egypt’s Amarna period – 1350 to 1330BC – is on loan from major international museums and taken from the Ashmolean’s own collection.

Liam McNamara, curator of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the museum in Beaumont Street, said: “This exhibition tells the thrilling story of one of the most famous archaeological discoveries ever made – the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in 1922.

“It was this story that inspired me as a child to become an Egyptologist, and we hope the exhibition will inspire more people – from scholars to the general public – and possibly the next generation of young archaeologists.”

 

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