King Tut’s tat: Egyptian sand for £10, a £7 mummified rubber duck, £12 death mask shakes… it’s all on offer in the gift shop at the Saatchi’s Tutankhamun exhibition (where a ticket costs £60)
- Visitors can pay for a £15 virtual reality tour of Tutanhkamun’s burial tomb
- A further investment of a fiver secures the services of an audio book
- Fans can pay £10 for a small jar of genuine Egyptian sand or £7 for a rubber duck
- This will be the final time King Tutankhamun’s relics will display in London
When Tutankhamun’s treasures were unearthed in 1922, they were regarded as priceless. But you can put a price on seeing them in 2019 – a pharaoh’s ransom of up to £60.
The queues stretched right around the block in 1972 when the Boy King’s relics first arrived in London.
Now Tut-mania is set to sweep the country again, with his riches going on display at a blockbuster exhibit that will see them grace these shores for the final time.
Staff at the Saatchi Gallery in London are preparing for the largest ever Tuten
However, the biggest Tutankhamun exhibit ever staged, with 150 artefacts, commands a hefty price tag, with tickets to the Saatchi Gallery costing up to £37.50.
On top of that, King Tut fans can pay an extra £15 for a virtual reality tomb tour, and an audio guide will set visitors back a fiver, bringing the total cost close to £60.
A huge gift shop, taking up an entire gallery over two rooms, is also cashing in, with everything from £7 mummified rubber ducks to £2,500 limited edition books up for grabs.
Even the cloakroom will set visitors back, with an umbrella costing £1 to house, coats £2 and bags £3.
This 12cm high Tutankhamun stone bust will be sold at the exhibition for £15
Guests can take home some genuine Egyptian sand – for the bargain price of £10
But despite the heavy cost, it has already attracted huge ticket sales and queues are expected to stretch out of the door for what will be the final time Tutankhamun’s treasures are on display in the UK.
They will be returned to Egypt after a ten-stop tour to be put into the eagerly anticipated Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
Tut-mania gripped the world when the boy king’s glittering tomb was discovered, with the later 1972 exhibition at the British Museum proving its most popular of all time after 1.3million people had visited.
A star of the show then was the teenage king’s golden death mask, but visitors to the new exhibition in London will miss out on that treasure, left behind in Egypt.
These King Tut party glasses can be purchased by the modern trend setter for £12
Golden scarab magnets, pictured, will set you back £16 at the London exhibition
British Egyptologist Howard Carter unearthed Tutankhamun’s resting place in 1922. Dr Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Egyptian ministry of state for antiquities, said to celebrate the near-centenary of the find, Egypt was sending 150 masterpieces to tour the world.
He added: ‘Please see them, visit them, before they return back to Egypt for ever.’ The exhibition opens today and runs until May 3, 2020.
These rubber ‘mummy’ ducks will complement any bathroom suite at a cost of £7
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