Exploring “The Discovery of King Tut”

Disclosure: Many thanks to the Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association for providing us with complimentary tickets to The Discovery of King Tut Exhibit.

(Click here for part one of my Kansas City girls weekend trip with Hannah and Joanna.)

Something to know about me: I’m a huge nerd. Growing up I was a total bookworm and would try and learn everything I could about a subject from the pages of a book. My Dad took my sister and me to a lot of museums on vacations and I remember being in awe at seeing some of the things I read about in books come to life.

Union Station in Kansas City is currently hosting “The Discovery of King Tut” exhibit. Now through September 7th you can purchase tickets to explore the life and death of King Tut for yourself.

If you’re not from Kansas City don’t worry about needing directions. Just look for the giant cat statue (with the Kansas City Chiefs jersey). You can’t miss it. 😉

Union Station is absolutely gorgeous. It reminded me very much of Grand Central Station in NYC.

Union Station is home to a planetarium, movie show, gift shops, and restaurants. They were also hosting bacon fest while we were there. I joked to Hannah that if it were a brussels sprouts fest I would be all over that.

The tour of The Discovery of King Tut is audio-based. You picked up headphones and a remote at the entrance, then walked from station to station and played the corresponding number at each exhibit to learn about it. There was also a movie and interactive walking tour to see the stages of King Tut’s tomb as it was being excavated by Howard Carter in 1922. It was amazing and made it feel like we were really there as discovery after discovery was being made.

Something I did not know was that all of the artifacts in the exhibit are reproductions. These are not just slapstick reproductions, but reproductions made by skilled Egyptian workers. The creation of the reproductions for this exhibit took five years. The reason for this is the originals are no longer permitted to tour outside of Egypt, and many of the things we saw in the exhibit are no longer viewable by the public even if you do go to Egypt.

Kansas City was chosen to be the kickoff city for the North American leg of The Discovery of King Tut tour. That’s a pretty big honor.

Flash photography is not allowed in the museum but I was able to get some great shots without it.

The attention to detail in the pieces is breathtaking.

I can’t imagine this would be a particularly comfy ride for a Pharaoh.

I loved this little detail.

This throne was tiny! I thought it was a child’s throne. It is crazy to me how small humans were 3,000 years ago.

The tomb for King Tut’s organs. I had forgotten about the Egyptian embalming process in the years since I first learned about it in school.

It was such a fun and informative exhibit. If The Discovery of King Tut ends up touring in your area I highly recommend checking it out.

Questions of the Day: Are you a fan of Egyptian history? What is your favorite museum? Did you want to be an archaeologist when you were little? (Or was that just me?)