An exhibition dedicated to ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II, which concluded on Sunday in Paris, lured over 800,000 visitors since its opening five months ago. The curators of the traveling exhibition announced Tuesday that it’s next stop is Sydney, Australia.
Dubbed “Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs”, the exhibition debuted in San Francisco in 2022, and it is set to land in Australia, this fall. Among several hosting countries, France was the only one to exhibit Ramses II’s sarcophagus “without a mummy”.
Since its launch in Paris in early April, 817,036 people visited the exhibition, mostly French, in addition to Belgians, Swiss, and Germans.
In 2019, the “Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” exhibition in Paris, was successful as well, hosting a record number of visitors, estimated at 1.42 million, according to Agence France Press (AFP).
Usually, the sarcophagus of Ramses II is exhibited at Cairo’s National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC), and it didn’t left Egypt for 45 years.
But Ramses II’s sarcophagus was displayed in Paris alongside an array of 180 ancient artifacts including jewelry and statues, many of which had never before left Egypt.