After Tutankhamun, Ramses.
In 2019, the year before the Covid, the exhibition dedicated to the mythical young pharaoh had welcomed 1.4 million visitors in six months at the Grande Halle de la Villette, a historic record in France.
In the spring of 2023, the same American organizers are doing it again, and reservations open today.
With the pandemic, if not behind us, at least having no impact on the crowds returning to major museums, La Villette can hope for a good figure for this event, which will last from April 7 to September 6, 2023.
Ramses the Great gave his name to the legendary Ramses-Sesostris.
It was his name that served as the key to Champollion to discover how hieroglyphs worked 200 years ago.
Unlike the famous but short-lived Tutankhamun, Ramses was the master of the reconquest of the lost lands of the Egyptian empire, the negotiator of the great peace treaty of antiquity, the builder of pharaonic Egypt.
In 1976, the “Ramses II the Great” exhibition at the Grand Palais welcomed several hundred thousand visitors.
An impressive collection
Scheduled in 10 cities, the international tour of "Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs" began on November 20, 2021 at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Houston (United States).
This spectacular exhibition will feature 181 rare Egyptian artifacts, the most impressive collection illustrating pharaonic grandeur.
Virtual reality will also allow you to immerse yourself in the Empire.
We will relive the rediscovery in 1881 of a hiding place in the Theban necropolis, in which Ramses was found in the company of other royal mummies.
Among the masterpieces presented to the public in the exhibition: animal mummies, statues, sarcophagi, royal masks, sumptuous jewelry and amulets.
A limestone colossus shows Ramses II standing and holding in his hands the mekes, a cylinder serving as a box for the papyri.
Wearing the nemes (a striped headdress worn only by the king), sporting a false beard, he carries a dagger slipped into the belt of his pleated loincloth.
A necklace of gold and encrusted gems also, - in the name of Psusennes 1st - weighs more than 8 kg.
A masterful piece of goldsmithery, it is made up of nearly 5,000 washers in 5 rows as well as chains adorned with small bells.
One example among… 180 gold coins.
Tickets on sale (from €20 to €34) from November 24, 2022 on
www.expo-ramses.com