Ramses II will not have succeeded in dethroning Tutankhamun: the exhibition event dedicated to the king of kings, which ended on Sunday in Paris, brought together more than 800,000 visitors, far behind that dedicated to Tutankhamun in 2019, announced Tuesday the organizers.
This exhibition, which opened at the beginning of April, brought together 817,036 people, they said in a press release. Among them, mainly French but also Belgians, Swiss and Germans. In 2019, the exhibition “Tutankhamun, the Treasure of the Pharaoh” welcomed 1.42 million visitors, a record.
Entitled “Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs”, this exhibition started in San Francisco in 2022 and is due to continue in Sydney in the fall. France was the only country able to exhibit the painted wooden coffin of Ramesses II (without the mummy). Usually on display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, it had not left Egypt for 45 years.
In total, more than 180 original pieces (statues, jewelry, etc.), some of which have never left Egypt, were shown to the public. Nicknamed the “king of kings”, Ramses II is the pharaoh who reigned the longest (66 years) and who had the largest family (at least 50 sons, 60 daughters).