by Anna Hampton
Daily Lobo
Emily Teeter said Tut-mania didn't begin until after museums started exploiting ancient Egyptian artifacts with traveling shows.
Teeter, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, gave a lecture titled "Tutankhamun: How His Treasures Changed Our World," Thursday in the Hibben Center. She discussed the global impact of the discovery of King Tut's tomb.
She said the tomb's discovery changed people's expectations of the museum experience and the government and businesses' function in the exchange of artifacts.
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In 1976, Cairo allowed 55 of the tomb's pieces to leave Egypt and be revealed in several cities around the United States.
Teeter was an assistant curator of that show.
"This was the museum exhibit that spawned the term 'blockbuster,'" she said.
Teeter said the event changed the way the U.S. government dealt with art.
The government took the initiative to ensure the safety of artifacts and to repair ties with Egypt after the Cold War, Teeter said.
The exhibit's unveiling in the United States brought museum memberships to capacity, and some people were even turned away, she said.
One museum had 15,000 members join because of the Egypt craze, she said.
Museums that didn't charge admission began using merchandise in museum gift shops to take advantage of the increased crowds, she said.
"Museum gift shops were no big deal before King Tut," Teeter said. "Now, people will go to museums and not even go into the gallery."
Teeter said the tackiest King Tut merchandise she has seen was a Tut bobblehead doll.
After the exhibit opened in 1976, increased tourism helped cities profit, and corporations sponsored the exhibits as a form of advertising.
There was little to no corporate sponsorship before the discovery of Tut's tomb, she said.
When the exhibit returned to Cairo two years later, paranoia erupted from Egypt concerning the safety of loaned objects, Teeter said. People wanted the artifacts to be preserved, so the Egyptian government canceled many shows at the last minute, she said.
Reliance on private and corporate-sponsored shows is dangerous because it undermines the academic atmosphere at museums, she said.
There is an increasingly popular trend for museums to book exhibits based on financial gain, she said.
"At this point, we start seeing Egyptian widgets packaged for profit," Teeter said.
Traveling ambassadors don't come cheap - the fee for some Egyptian exhibits is about
$5 million, she said.
The event was sponsored by the New Mexico chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt.
David Corwell, a member of the chapter, said he will use the information in the lecture to help him write a children's book about ancient Egyptians.
"This provides a perfect opportunity to learn more about the topic," Corwell said.
He said it's good New Mexico has a chapter of the Egyptian research center.
"You can participate in lectures that would normally be available only in larger cities," he said.
