Empire: World History - 367. Ancient Egypt: “Tut-mania” And Tutankhamun’s Tomb (Ep 6)

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

**Unlock the entire Ancient Egypt series early and ad-free by joining the Empire Club at ⁠empirepoduk.com⁠** Why did the world go crazy for all things Ancient Egypt after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922? How were his treasures used in Cold War Diplomacy? And why did they invent Ancient Egypt-themed contraceptives? Anita and William are joined once again by Dr Campbell Price, author of Golden Mummies of Egypt, and Curator of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum, to discuss Tutmania. Join the Empire Club: Unlock the full Empire experience – with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at ⁠empirepoduk.com⁠. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠www.goalhanger.com⁠. Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Imogen Marriott Editors: Bruno Di Castri and Lorcan Moullier Social Producer: Charlie Johnson Producer: Anouska Lewis Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in, loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to.

And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Wow, hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arndon. And me, William, Durember. Now, in the last episode, we saw the end of Atlartan's dynasty with the death of the boy king Tutankhamun, who had no airs. Today, we bring you a special episode to wrap up the series we are discussing when everyone went crazy for Tut in the aftermath of the incredible 1920 discovery.

We are joined once again by the brilliant and wonderful by compatriot Dr Campbell Price. Hi, hi, hi, hi, nice to be back. We're so delighted to have you back. We didn't a bonus episode for anybody who wants to go and listen where we talked in depth about the discovery of Tutankarmoons. Toom, for those of you who want to listen to it, join our club, EmpirePod, UK.com, empirepod, UK.com. But, you know, we talked about this man, Howard Carter. Unlikely, because he wasn't from one of, you know, sort of the top notches of British education establishment,

an Egyptologist who discovers the intact tomb of Tutankhamun. It's the best preserved pharonic tomb in existence. And Howard Carter, after this 1922 discovery, Campbell, the world goes nuts for King Tut. They do, Anita, they absolutely do. And it's worth saying, 1922 also represented the centenary of the decipherment of hieroglyphs by Frenchman Jean-Francois Champot.

So it was a double whammy of Egyptomania, and it's difficult to, I think, yeah, over-emphasiseise just what Tutankhamun meant how much he caught the zeitgeist of the moment in the 1920s. And I suppose that's not a coincidence when so many people are thinking about, you know, the senseless loss of young lives, Tutankhamun, the boy king, and, you know, the world has just come out of World War I where so many young men died. Well, going into the excavation, Carter and the team didn't know that Tutankhamun was a boy. That was information that came out from the discovery and aging of his body. But when it became known that he died about the age of 18, of course, yeah, that resonated with that lost generation of young men in Europe.

And the aesthetics of the tomb, the idea of discovery, the idea of finding something that was hidden and was secret. But then you've got to remember, yeah, Roaring 20s, art deco, all that angularity and geometric design that the tomb was filled with really spoke to the moment. And there's also the timing in terms of mass media. After the First World War, you're getting things like photography, illustrated newspapers, radio, all that is beaming this stuff out, isn't it? And it has a kind of global presence in the way that it just wouldn't have done in the early years the century. Yeah, in a way it's the first big global news story that's not about war. In the

aftermath of the First World War, you're right, there's, you know, there's improvement in communications, there's a greater use of colour. So not just in newspapers, but a lot of the Tutankhamen material was visualised in the illustrated London News. That's where you could see a lot of the photographs, often colourised photographs of the fine. So it, spread not only because it was a great story, but because there was a means to communicate, to literally to telegraph this news around the world. And advertisers who are never backwards about coming forwards, they jump all over it very, very quickly, don't they? Because you have pretty much Egyptian motifs on everything. Yeah, there's a great rage for Tutankhamen. I mean,

everything from soap to clothing to contraceptives are Egypt-themed. So yes, yes, it's a big moment. Tell me about the Egyptian theme contraceptives. I'm so glad you asked because there was the question I wanted to know the answer to. Yes, do tell us about the contraceptives. What are we talking about? Hieroglyphs covered? I mean, what's the...

Do I don't think there were hieroglyphs on them? Well, so it's sort of obelisk. I mean, oh, no, genuinely, Cample you wanted to know. I think in the first time, Christ is blushing. Yes. Well, I mean, the Ramesses name is kind of ironic because he had 100 children, so do know how effective. Oh, that's funny. A contraception device.

device with the name Ramesses would have been. But I think it's both high culture, you know, really expensive, nice stuff and pretty low culture stuff takes inspiration from Feronic Egypt generally, but Tutankhamen in particular. So, I mean, Carter gets bombarded with silly requests, you know, things like, you know, can you send us the designs of the shoes because we want to make footwear? You've got grosses wanting to sell packets of mummified food, as you say, from everything, you know, soap, gloves, everything else, is sort of just getting stamped with hieroglyphs and these faces that have been exposed.

Why? Now, you tell me why do you think, Campbell, that this Tup mania suddenly takes hold? What was it about this tomb and its contents? There's an element of the timing show, you know, that it's pretty kind of slow news days, perhaps after the First World War. There is the gleam of gold, which always assures interest, fashion, celebrity, glamour, royalty, at a time when European monarchies would maybe not entirely all of them feeling confident about their positions.

But then there's the act of discovery, something which, you know, it's the kind of the challenge of discovery of planning and then search. and then eventually finding this absolutely untold splendor just waiting in the sands of Egypt. There'd always been interest. You know, interest in Egyptology was way back before Napoleon showed up. But then it just reaches this kind of fever pitch. And along with the telecommunications and the visuals, yeah, it just goes wild for several years and then drops off to nothing. Why is it that it has so much more of an effect in popular culture than, I mean, around the same time, you've got, you know, woolly digging the royal tombs of Er. And that's got some pretty good gold and lapis too.

But it doesn't have the same effect on popular culture that Tut does. No, exactly. And I think it's not just about the bullion, you know, it's not that there's just more gold in the tomb of Tutankham. It's about the way it's fashioned, the way it's shaped, especially in the way the face of Tutankham. literally speaks to us. And it's something we talked about in that previous episode about the discovery. Howard Carter's sponsor, Lord Carnarvin, whose name is inextricably linked with Tutankhamun, the curse of Tutankham. The greatest curse on Carnarvin was that he never saw the golden mask. It's extraordinary fact that, because we always associate him, you have the

picture of Howard Carter beside the mask, and it's always assumed that he saw it, but he didn't. He didn't. And the... The aesthetics of that, well, the craftsmanship of the mask. Of course, the king is represented in a number of other objects in a very almost kind of androgynous way, because this is typical, as we said, of the Amarna revolution, the time Tutankhamun lived in. His father is a religious revolutionary, Akhnautin,

and he favours the worship of one god, and in doing so he kind of splices male and female. And so regardless of what the people looked like, we'll never really know for sure. They are depicted with very long skulls and very androgynous faces. That's what Anita calls E.T. Sheik is exactly what I call it. It's exactly what I call it. So rounded bellies and narrow shoulders. And Tune Kamen's mask, which may have actually been reused from a mask made for Nefertiti, some people believe, some Egyptologists believe, has pierced ears. They were covered when Tund Kamen was found by Carter. But the fact that they

have pierced ears in what survives and what's presented adds to this androgynous kind of appeal. Tutankhamen is something for everyone. He speaks to every generation taste background. So this also coincides, not just with the southern efflorescence of mass media, but there's also the very important political moment, isn't there? Because in 19202, Egypt gets its independence. The Brits, who've been sitting there since the time of Lord Cromer dominating Egypt have become very unpopular and they withdraw. Absolutely. This is so important to recognise. Yeah, after the invasion of Egypt in 1882, Cromer's been there for quite a while.

Egypt gets partial in dependence, you could say. The Brits are quite keen to control access to the Suez Canal because of its linkage with South Asia in the broader world. But yes, it's a moment of Egyptian. national identity, asserting political independence. And so Tutankhamen arrives on the world scene at a very interesting and very sensitive time for Egyptian politics. I mean, that must have a molding effect on Egypt's population as well

because there is a religion, it's Islam. And yet you've got now people becoming completely obsessed with something that entirely predates Islam or any Abrahamic religion. Yeah, I think there was always interest. I mean, people often forget that a lot of scholarship before Europeans showed up was written in Arabic. Good point. Egyptian and other Arab-speaking Arab-writing scholars were describing ancient Egypt. But you're right, in 1920, there's the rise of what's called pharonism.

So this is the deliberate explicit pushing back against colonialism, British colonialism, and trying to connect to the pharaonic past. So it influences architecture, it influences discourse at the time in the 1920s into the 1930s. Ultimately, it kind of goes out of fashion after then, but it's quite hot around the time of Tutankham's discovery. How does it manifest? You don't have the speaker in the Egyptian parliament dressing up in ancient Egyptian garb or anything. No, no, no, you don't. So you have the Prime Minister, Sad Zaglul, who is proud of pharaonic history and of Egypt's independence.

And I think there's something about Egypt being a self-contained, united country at the time of kingdom. Remember, there's a king of Egypt still in the 1920s. Farooq at this point? Not yet Farooq. He's the 1930s, but King Fuad, the first his father. I mean, Egypt is always the kind of in-between place, as Egyptian friends might say. They're partly foot-to-foot-foots in different camps. But there is a real need to assert ownership of the Tutankham and Find.

Because remember, Howard Carter, his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, does a deal with the Times of London. So the news exclusively of the Find, when it's discovered, is channeled through a British news. newspaper. So if you're an Egyptian journalist or if you're an Egyptian consumer of news, that's quite an insult. Do the Egyptian newspapers do we know that they respond in kind? Are there sort of ceremony to say, you know what, it's ours, not theirs? We did know about this. This is our birthright, not a European one, not Howard Carter's. Yeah, there's anger, of course. There's anger because there's anti-British sentiment anyway in Egypt at the time. And, I mean, everything can be nuanced, of course. I mean, Carter had lived in what

worked in Egypt for a long time, could speak Arabic was good friends with lots of Egyptian people. But his stated interest was in the scientific objectivity of the excavation and he wanted to control access. I mean, that's Carter's claim. So he had his specialists who were mainly but not exclusively Europeans or Americans. And so in doing the deal with the Times, he claims, he wanted to just simplify the news communication, but that, of course, put a lot of understandably, a lot of Egyptian noses out of joint. Campbell, just tell me a little bit more about the politics of this,

because 1920s is almost the high point of pan-Arabism. You've got a lot of talk about Syria, Palestine is under the British mandate, and there's a lot of frustration over the Balfour Declaration and so on, and Al-A-Ram is public. articles from Cairo attacking all this. Do you have the Egyptians very much taking on their Arab identity and opposing it from an Arab point of view? Or are they saying we're the descendants of the Egyptians and our Moolids still contain many of the same, these religious

festivals contain many of the echoes of pharonic festivals? How is this, how does it play out? I think this ebbs and flows really. although in the 1920s and 30s, you have pharonism and this desire to connect with phronic past, to stand against European colonialism is strong, that kind of pan-Arabism, that takes over into independence.

So full independence, of course, with the seizing of the Suez Canal, liberation of the Suez Canal at the 1950s. So there are reasons when that becomes more significant later on, but around the time of Tutankhamen, that's like a touch paper to connect more closely with phoronic heritage. Not to dismiss and ignore Islamic heritage, but to be proud of a phoronic history.

Very interesting. I mean, we sort of talked about this during our Persia series as well, the way sort of young Iranians were hearkening back to... Looking to Persepolis, exactly. Yeah. Exactly that. I mean, putting matters temporal to one side, for a moment. Can we talk about Matters Supernatural as well? Because the curse of...

Oh, we like a good curse on this programme. I can see Campbell coming over all skeptical again, no, no, no. I'm not suggesting there was a curse, but what I'm asking is in 1922, were people obsessed with the idea that, you know, this is cursed? We shouldn't talk about it or, you know, it's killing people. I mean, what was that sort of portrayed as at the time, both in Egypt and in Britain? well, so, I mean, this is probably... We know that tone in Campbell's voice when he says, well. So, this is something which is, yeah, probably the most well-known aspect. You know, the fine points of 18th Dynasty chronology are not so scintillating as, you know,

Lord Carnarvon was bumped off by a Pharaoh's curse. And the dog howled. I think there's something underlying throughout the... excavation. And it's something, you know, in Carter's description. So behind me, I've got a cardboard cutout of one of the so-called guardian statues. Handsome he is too. So one thing which bubbles along under the more kind of headline-worthy news about the curse is a certain anxiety about the status of the tomb. And so Howard Carter describes these two black people. painted, gilded statues of the king, as guardian statues.

I've got a carburet cut out one of them in my office behind me. And these are actually ritual representations of the king that may have been used during the king's lifetime, but which ended up in the tomb antechamber. So among the first things that Carter saw. And he describes them as sentinels because they hold weapons, they seem quite menacing. it almost kind of implies that Carter feels guilty for probing further into the tomb.

So there is this, in a way, a kind of colonial guilt about the entering and the emptying of a pharaoh's tomb. And that finds real expression in a narrative which is cooked up by people who feel kind of left out in the cold by the Times deal. So the Times of London reporting deal means that in order to generate, you know, copy for newspapers, journalists have to write about something. And so this idea of, especially after Carnarvon's death, the supposition that it's a curse really kind of balloons. And what's interesting is that, you know, Carter's having none of it. He sees it for what it is and describes it as Tommy Rot. Any mention of the curse is Tommy Rot, he said.

But what is also interesting is the human condition because you have talk of the supernatural and talk of a curse, people are even more interested in seeing it with their own eyes and getting their hands on merch if they can. I mean, I think there's always, there had always been an association between phoronic Egypt and magic,

so it appears in scripture, Egyptian magicians, and that persists because, you know, we're talking about phoronic religion appears to an outsider. quite mysterious, quite arcane, quite in some ways, quite threatening. There's lots of things to do with the dead, focused on tombs and graves. So all of this makes a really heady cocktail that speaks to the moment. But it's also significant for the moment that all this stuff stays in

Egypt. For the previous two centuries, most of the good stuff is being shipped out. You go to Italy and there's this enormous Egyptian museum in Turin associated with the early Italian. Italian royal family. The British Museum is obviously notoriously chock a block with Egyptian goodies. Now, Tudan Karmins, which is the best stuff of all, stays in Egypt. Now that would not have happened presumably 20 or 30 years earlier. No. And there's an interesting play on the rule book because it said that if a tomb was found intact, certainly a royal tomb, that it should stay property of the state in its entirety. But if a tomb is robbed in some way not intact or not a coherent group of objects, then it's subject to this system of fines division, this colonial

system cooked up by an Englishman and a Frenchman, Flinders Petrie and Gaston Maspero. So when Carter finds Tutankhamun, they find evidence and play up, deliberately play up the evidence that the tomb had been robbed. So this seems to be done as a way of... They're trying to get it all out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, getting at least some...

Some of it out. What Carter describes as recompense for Lord Carnarvon, because Lord Carnarvon has spent a lot of money on the excavation. And this is also the justification for the Times deal because Carter himself... Sorry, Carnarvin himself has spent a lot of cash in doing the business of archaeology. It's not cheap. Now, Carnarvon does get big.

bits out because when you go to downtown abbey today in the basement there is there is some stuff there's quite a lot of Egyptian bits and bombs but it's not obviously the gold mask or any of the really big knockout objects no and to be clear it's just so not done for liable high clear castle doesn't have any actual Tutankham and stuff I don't believe any of that some Egyptian stuff it has Egyptian stuff because Carter was a buyer for canarvan before the find of Tutankham That's not Tutankham and stuff that you see there in the basement. So this is not necessarily directly connected to the tomb, but for sure Carter does pocket a couple of things,

which may end up outside of Egypt but then subsequently are returned. You wouldn't possibly be able to say. We can comment on the fact that there were massive rouse about this, that Carter was accused of, you know, pocketing an amulet, which then gets given to somebody in 1934, and the allegation is very clear that, you know, while he was taking stuff out, and putting things in crates and counting things up,

there's stuff that went uncounted and slipped into pockets. Yes, that's a nice way to put it. Well, I think we'll leave it. We'll do that. We'll leave it at that. But it's important to say that that was at the time the expectation of any find. That was just how things were done. But back to the political context,

with the Egyptian government keen to assert its own authority, it was no question to Egyptian officials at the time that everything should stay as one finds, you know, the power of the Tutankhaman galleries in the Grand Egyptian Museum now is that they are everything together and you can see everything together from the tomb. So Campbell, I mean, look, this is the first wave,

we should say, of Tartmania. There is a second wave to come. And just as the first wave comes on the heels of a hot war, the second one has a lot more to do, the Cold War. Join us after the break and we'll talk about this some more. This episode is brought to you by The National Archives. It's Tom Holland here from Goldhangers's The Rest is History. Now American Independence is often painted as a quest for freedom, a triumph of democratic ideals. But it was also a period of immense risk and violence which

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Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Welcome back. So just before the break, we were sort of giving you a little tease about the second wave of Tartmania, but we ought to talk about events in Egypt. which we've done a whole series on here at Empire. And that is, you know, NASA's rise to power, the whole Suez Crisis,

and this complete assertion of, you know, Egyptian pride, if you like Campbell. And with that assertion where you've got sort of a living figure like NASA, I guess the Egyptology kind of fades into the background, because here's a living, breathing colossus that people can fixate on. Yes, absolutely. I think most important to mention, of course, is Egypt's complete independence in the 1950s, and so Nasser is the president of Egypt. And that ushers in a period of great ambition.

So the plan is pretty soon realized to raise the Aswan high dam to generate energy. And so going hand in hand with that, I think there is a notable slump in interest in Tutankhamun. there's a slump in interest in Egyptian archaeology in general, and certainly non-Egyptian archaeologists working in Egypt don't dry up entirely, but aren't so significant. But in order to raise awareness and raise funds for the Aswan Haidam project and the removal, the movement, if you like, of the temples that are threatened with flooding,

so temples of Abu Symbol most famously, Temple of Philae in the south of Egypt near Aswan. Tutankhamen has to go on tour. So although, as we'll discuss, there are major tours of geopolitical importance in the 1970s. Actually, in the early 60s, some material of Tutankhamans goes around several venues in the United States, seen by Jackie Kennedy.

This is a big thing. It's already a diplomatic move. So it's ancient objects, ancient material, being leveraged for modern fundraising. So sadly from a British point of view, the big moment of wave to Tupmania, if you like, is 1972 when President Sadat, who's the guy who takes over after NASA, the guy who we met most recently

with the 1973 war attacking over the Suez Canal and then Camp David, those are all episodes, which you can listen to on our backlist. He sends Tutankhamun to the British Museum in London. And I remember, as a seven-year-old, some of my earliest memories, the excitement. I was already man keen on Tutankhamun, and I knew already the galleries in Edinburgh backwards.

And I begged, and I begged, and I begged, to go to London to see this thing. And it was my first ever trip to London. And I went down. And I remember being amazed by everything, by the double-decker buses and the Harry Krishna people who were outside the British Museum playing on their drums and then going in and this darkened museum space with this amazing lighting of this completely iconic death mask at the centre of it. And I remember, you know, as a literally seven-year-old, peering up at it because I was physically down below it.

You know, you have certain memories from your childhood which are completely clear. This for me is my first big boat, my first big trip, the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. And everything of that entire trip is absolutely sharp in my memory. So, I mean, you know, that tour had a profound effect on a man who's then going to devote his life to history. Where else did the tour go and do we know what kind of impact it had on the people who saw? Yeah, well, that's a great story, William. Thank you for sharing it. I would love to have been one of those people back in 18.

You're too young, Campbell. You're too young. You're barely out of short trousers. But I know several noted Egyptologists who like you wear children in the queue. And that inspired them to become Egyptologists. It's worth saying about that show, that really iconic 1972 show, there were 50 objects, including the famous gold mask, selected, to mark 50 years since the find. So, 1972, of course, was 50 years since 1922. And then that really ushered in the literal blockbuster, because that and other venues clocked up, well, at the BM, almost a million people in the United States, 8 million people, where people were queuing round the block.

So it busts the block. So there's the origin of the phrase. And one thing, as a curator, I'm often struck by and looking at. at the photos in the press around that time is the dramatic lighting. So it were, yeah, the rooms were dark, the galleries were dark, objects were not given much in the way of contextual information, but they were spotlit. And so they really loomed out of the darkness. They popped, as we say. They popped. They popped. Absolutely popped. Yeah. So in what Britain has taught the Egyptians and Sadat at the helm is that there is a hunger for this. And he's a savvy man,

as we've discussed in our Egypt series before. And he realizes that there is a certain currency. And kudos, that, you know, soft power, if you like, with jumping on the back of this Tuckmania. And what's really interesting, Campbell, is that there is a tour of the Soviet Union between 1973 and 1975. So straight after the British Museum enormous success.

And it's interesting because Sadat himself has kicked out previously all his Soviet advisors. Previously, when he comes to power, sick of them, you know, littering the place and boots them all out. And yet he realizes, if I want to build a bridge, let's make it a pharaonic bridge. Yeah, and emphasis on the soft power, because although, as I said, Tutankham, or items from Tutankham's tomb had been on tour in the United States in the 60s, you know, big stuff like the gold mask really do speak to this diplomacy. The numbers also, I suspect, really shocked people because there are hundreds of thousands

of people queuing up and it gets, yeah, it gets the cultural products of one country in the newspapers of another. So it does help with diplomacy. But then the relationship, I think, with the USSR pools on the international scene generally, but that with the United States warms up and that introduces the possibility of a return visit for Tutankhamun with bigger flasher things, including the mask in the second half of the 1970s. This, as we know from our Camp David episode, is in the aftermath of 1973 war. Sadat is making peace with Israel. Carter is pulling Sadat close to him. Jimmy Carter, not Howard Carter. Jimmy Carter, not Howard Carter. Not to be confused. And Tuton Carmen goes off in the wake of all this around the states.

He goes to Washington, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Seattle. For three years between 1976 and 1979, Tute is on the move. And we even get a law case, don't we, when there's a policeman who has a stroke while guarding the treasure. And his legal claim on the city is that the injuries resulted for the curse of the fairers. I've not heard that one but I would fully believe it very happy to tell you it's police lieutenant

George E. LaBrasch who had the stroke and tried that on history doesn't relate whether he got his injury claim with the curse of the Pharaoh but what does happen is that as a tool of diplomacy during the Cold War suddenly you know the

the pharaohs are front and centre yeah and I think that's probably also more generally in museums, the idea of the, you know, temporary touring exhibition as a diplomatic tool

comes to the fore. It's not just for ancient Egyptian material. So, yeah, I mean, Tutankhamen can go places that maybe politicians can't or you can smooth the way. And that has, yeah, reverberations in pop culture, particularly in America.

Yeah, for Egyptology. And what's really interesting is that that American exhibition happened because the canniest operator of them all, Henry Kissinger, personally gets involved. So the Metropolitan Museum, Campbell, I'm right, and saying, you know, not sure, don't know. And he picks up a phone and says, are you mad? Just say yes. You're going to take it. Because we're going to take this. So as Campbell said, nearly eight million visitors will go and have a look at the Tut exhibition. You'll have things like, oh, Steve Martin, comedian Steve Martin,

performing that King Tut on SNL Saturday Night Live and that, which is just a jokey song, go look it up, but it's still on YouTube, very funny, breaks into the Billboard Top 100, sells a million copies, and then it's merch, so much merch. And I think this is the, I mean, I suppose the 1920s was merch-tastic.

I don't know whether you've ever even done a survey in this, who produced the most Toot-Tut. tut tut tat however you want to put it tut tat yes which was the era with the most tut tat I suspect it probably was the the 70s

and subsequent exhibitions haven't been able to replicate that sense of real excitement because we're quite used to it now we're used to the blockbuster we're used to the idea of a big show rolling into town and photography and documentaries and films and books

make this stuff quite accessible but in the 1970s you know the first big, glossy colour books about Tutankhamun War coming out. So even if you didn't go to the exhibition, you might see a documentary film on television or you might buy a book. And back in Egypt, of course, this is also being registered and this whole business of Pharaoh being associated with Sadat. Because in 1981, Sadat is assassinated by Khalid al-I-Stamboli, and he says, I have killed Pharaoh. Yes. So all this is playing out at multiple levels. Yeah, exactly. It's worth saying, you know, in the Quran, in the Muslim holy book, you know, the Pharaoh is not depicted well. He's not depicted well in the Bible, I guess, of the Torah, but to call someone a Pharaoh is an insult. It's, you know, the mark of a tyrant.

And then you get Solomon is the symbol in the Quran of justice and Pharaoh is the symbol of injustice, ironically. Very interesting. Anyway, then it goes off around Germany. It's not the end of the tour. Yeah, yeah, it goes to other venues. And again, I know plenty of people who are practicing Egyptologists now, who were inspired by those shows of the later 70s into the 1980s. When did you first see it? I first saw the mask of Tutankhamun in Cairo in 2001,

my first visit to Egypt with my parents. But subsequently, as a student, working in the Cairo. museum on a data-based project for a few weeks, I remember when the cleaners were in, going in before the public entered and having a few minutes alone with the mask. And that is easily one of the best moments of my entire life. Can I just say, I completely concur. So I was absolutely blessed to have this. I'm friends with an Egyptian novelist. The great Adaf Suef, who we love. Yeah. Yes, he took, you know, me and a bunch of really excellent women who got in before.

So they did this enormous reconstruction in recent years of the Cairo Museum. So what had been sort of fairly dark and dingy, maybe when you were doing your research, it was suddenly illuminated, huge cavernous rooms created to show this stuff off. I mean, it was, I mean, beautifully, beautifully done. And they were working on the Tutankhamun housing, you know, the special place that opened last year. And we got to have a look and wander around like we were the only people in the world, Campbell. I'm very ambitious. Both of you.

It was emotional. I mean, genuinely, genuinely to see something like that in that space and being all alone. And it's the stuff of my childhood too, you know, completely fascinated and obsessed with it. Kaira's not a good job, hasn't it? I mean, the museum, can we? Yeah, no, it's absolutely beautiful. I think it's, I think they've done a really, I mean, as a man who does this, tell us what they've done that people should go and see if they can. And we should all go and see it, exactly.

So the old museum in which I had that encounter is still very close to my heart and is still packed full of jaw-dropping treasures from Feroonic and later Egypt. But the new museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum, is out at Giza by the pyramid. And so it was initially conceptualised to house the Tutankhamen treasures. But there are plenty more galleries, including a huge museum dedicated to bolts of King Kuf. But you can now go and. If you go early and you run up to the gallery, you can pretty much get the mask to yourself. Everything is there.

And it's beautifully lit, beautifully explained, beautifully displayed with lots of space. Because in the old museum, you had to jostle. You still have to jostle on a busy day. But that's why having those experiences where you're relatively alone and unaccompanied is really special. The thing I love most are the Alphium portraits. Are they still in the old museum? But where are they got? Yes, we've got several of them here, William, actually.

She should come and see you. Magistar come to a trip, don't it? These are these perfect, late Egyptian. Roman period, yeah, paintings. Portraits probably done during life? I'm sceptical about that as well. I think they're stock images. We're seduced by them because these look so lifelike.

But I'm writing a book on that subject. Are you? The way we have faced the ancient Egyptians. Well, and we'll get you on again for that. Campbell, can I ask. about, you know, when you handle artefacts from ancient Egypt, and people are still

very much keen to know or to associate that period and the artefacts moment with magic with the supernatural. You've got one at your elbow, in fact. Tell us the story of a little spinny statue because I love it and you should share it.

Thanks for asking you, Anita. So next to me here on my desk is a replica of a very striking piece, arguably the most famous out of the four and a half million specimens we have here at Manchester University Museum. And this is a chap called Neb Ewe, who lived about 4,000 years ago, and who could never have imagined his fame in 2013. I was going into the gallery which was new in Manchester, newly opened, and I noticed he was in a different position every morning. He was rotating in his case.

But the case was locked and alarmed and I had the only key, so I thought, someone's playing a trick on me. So we set up a stop motion camera, which took a photo every minute for a week, and it showed that he was spinning at night. And so we put the 53 second clip online, and this went viral, was seen by 100 million people. Did you begin for the first time in your life to assume that there was a supernatural thing going on? Or were you a Sherlock Holmesian rationalist? No, it was sadly because of vibration from traffic outside and footfall in the gallery during the day the movement was greater. When you did first tell the story before we, when we were setting up, I did say,

oh, that'd be the, that'd be the trains or the traffic. I'm dead inside. I do believe. This is, you know, my co-host weeps with the emotion and I'm like, yeah. Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the news campbell at the time when you released that footage must have gone berserk. Did you see a real spike in visiting? Yes. Yeah, we did for about a week

because news gets old fast. People brought in lottery tickets thinking the statue was going to magically give them the numbers. Stop it. Yeah. Yeah. What?

So the clip is on YouTube. You can see it still. And it did influence the depiction of a museum in an episode of The Simpsons. So there's a mark. of pop notoriety in the 21st century. We were on the Simpsons. But it connects to the same thing

that people find fascinating about Tutankham. There's something mysterious. There's something vaguely threatening. If it had been a, I don't know, a Meso-American artifact or a classical Greek artifact, it wouldn't have had the same effect.

So you don't need take your lottery tickets to Campbell. Campbell can come to you if you join the club, Because we have for our club members a very, very wonderful episode, which Anita and I think is one of the most wonderful we've ever done with Campbell talking about the discovery of the tomb. And he discusses at length the question of the curse of the mummy.

So that is all available for club members. Anita, do you want to finish this episode off? Sure. Well, it's EmpirePortUK.com. In your characteristic fashion. EmpowerportuK.com. It's only because you can't remember this. email. Let's face it. If you want to join our club. And it really, it is a very good episode. But

all that's left for us is to say Dr Campbell Price so great having you on again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both. Brief histories, ancient Egypt, published by Well Back. It's available wherever you find your finest books. And thank you very much. Until the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnhem. And goodbye from me, William Durember. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

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