Americans welcomed the distraction of a dazzling, distant culture when the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” arrived in the mid-1970s, in the wake of Watergate and inflation and an energy crisis. The exhibition featured some of the most spectacular objects found in Tut’s tomb, including his funeral mask and a large model boat meant to shuttle him to the afterworld. They were sent from Egypt in a goodwill gesture, arranged by Richard Nixon and Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat to seal a new diplomatic understanding, just months before Nixon resigned.
By the time the show opened, in November 1976, at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Jimmy Carter had just been elected president and the United States was celebrating its bicentennial. More than 835,000 people came to see the show in D.C. — more than the population of the city itself, lining up around the three-block-long building for up to four hours. The museum sold $100,000 worth of souvenirs every week — and that’s in 1976 dollars. Meanwhile, television specials provided close-ups, so that anyone — anywhere — could become an armchair Egyptologist.
A Washington Post photo of crowds waiting on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to see “Treasures of Tutankhamun” at the National Gallery in 1977.
These days, it’s impossible to see or stage a show about ancient Egypt without thinking about colonization or appropriation or both. From Napoleon to Elizabeth Taylor to the Book of the Dead being characterized as the “Bible”of ancient Egypt (not even close), the modern history of the culture is erasure. Even the name of the country is an imposition. Early on, Egyptians referred to their kingdom as Kemet — the Black Land, a reference to the rich soil along the Nile — and later as Hwt-ka-Ptah. Egypt is a Greek term, as the Greeks found the local name hard to pronounce when they invaded Egypt in 332 BCE.
“Sunken Cities” is rooted in this Hellenistic era, when the ruling Greeks took over the religious rituals of Egypt and adopted its pharaonic traditions, down to the headdresses and colossal statues. They, too, were fascinated by ancient Egypt. And when they were replaced by the Romans, the obsession began anew. Obelisks and Egyptian-style architecture sprang up in Rome, even as Egypt itself slowly began to resemble the rest of the Roman Empire. Ancient Egypt would live on in the Western imagination, if nowhere else.