HIS TOMB HIS TREASURES THE BREATHTAKING RECREATION ADA AUDIO GUIDE COMPANION SCRIPT ADULT EXHIBITION COPY PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE DISCOVERY OF KING TUT: HIS TOMB, HIS TREASURES, THE BREATHTAKING RECREATION ENGLISH 1 ADA Audio Guide Companion Script ADULT - ENGLISH VERSION SAINT LOUIS SCIENCE CENTER CONTENTS No. 0 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................3 No. 1 Rosetta Stone .......................................................................................................................................3 No. 2 Carter/Carnarvon - Valley Of The Kings - Tomb Model ...........................................................5 No. 3 Statue of Tutankhamun ...................................................................................................................6 No. 4 Video: Tutankhamun -18Th Dynasty ....................................................................7 No 101 The Discovery Of King Tut – Preshow ....................................................................9 The Antechamber ............................................................................................................................ 13 The Burial Chamber - Recovery Of The Shrines, Projection ............................................... 14 The Treasury ........................................................................................................................................ 16 Burial Chamber, Wall Decoration ................................................................................................ 17 No. 5 Video: Shrines ........................................................................................................19 No 6 The Three Gold Coffins ................................................................................................................... 20 No 7 The Mummy ....................................................................................................................................... 21 No 30 Looking Back ....................................................................................................................... 22 No 8 The Gold Mask .................................................................................................................................. 23 No 9 Video: Jewelry........................................................................................................24 No 10 Amulet Showcase ............................................................................................................................ 24 No 11 Children’s Coffins, Family Mementos ......................................................................................... 25 No. 12 Video: The Canopic Jars ........................................................................................26 No 13 Boats and Baroque Models ........................................................................................................... 27 No. 14 Video: Figures of the Gods ....................................................................................28 No 15 Shabtis – Servants in the Afterlife .............................................................................................. 29 No 16 Chariots and Shields on Table with Sand ................................................................................. 29 No 17 Weapons & Hunting ......................................................................................................................... 31 No 18 Cosmetics Showcase ....................................................................................................................... 31 No 19 Musical Instruments, Games, Writing Equipment ................................................................. 32 No. 20 Video: Furniture .....................................................................................................33 No 21 Gold Throne ........................................................................................................................................ 34 No 22 Insignia of Power: Scepters and Staffs ....................................................................................... 35 4 THE DISCOVERY OF KING TUT: HIS TOMB, HIS TREASURES, THE BREATHTAKING RECREATION THE DISCOVERY OF KING TUT: HIS TOMB, HIS TREASURES, THE BREATHTAKING RECREATION 1 No. 0 INTRODUCTION NARRATOR: Dear visitor, a very warm welcome to this exciting exhibition. I’m going to be your virtual host for today. I’ll be guiding you through the exhibition step by step. We also have an expert with us here, an Egyptologist. EGYPTOLOGIST: That’s right, and I can promise you a fascinating encounter: a meeting with Tutankhamun, the young pharaoh who died more than 3,300 years ago. You’ll also gain many interesting insights into the everyday life and the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. NARRATOR: First of all, there’s one important point I’d like to make: all the objects you’ll be seeing here are exact copies of the objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun, in other words, replicas. How were they actually made? EGYPTOLOGIST: We employed a team of extremely talented Egyptian craftspeople to make them – using exactly the same ancient techniques under the strictest scientific supervision. As you’ll see, the replicas are enormously valuable in themselves. NARRATOR: And now a word on how to use your audio guide. If you key in the number that’s shown at each of the exhibits, you’ll then hear the relevant description. EGYPTOLOGIST: By the way, on your tour of the exhibition you will get to know a fascinating person, the British archaeologist Howard Carter, the man who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. We hope you enjoy the experience. No. 1 ROSETTA STONE NARRATOR: The text you can see on this stone isn’t actually very exciting: it’s a decree by Egyptian priests from the year 196 B.C., engraved on a stela of hard stone. EGYPTOLOGIST: Nevertheless, the “Rosetta Stone” is literally a milestone in our understanding of ancient Egypt. For one and a half thousand years, nobody had been able to read the ancient Egyptian script. But this stone, which was found in 1799 at the town of Rosetta in the Nile delta, suddenly opened the door to understanding hieroglyphs. 2 THE DISCOVERY OF KING TUT: HIS TOMB, HIS TREASURES, THE BREATHTAKING RECREATION THE DISCOVERY OF KING TUT: HIS TOMB, HIS TREASURES, THE BREATHTAKING RECREATION 3 NARRATOR: No. 2 CARTER/CARNARVON - VALLEY OF THE KINGS - TOMB MODEL ... this strange writing, which is made up of hundreds of pictorial and phonetic symbols - the texts NARRATOR: are mysterious records from a long-lost world. One day in 1914, the American millionaire and amateur archaeologist Theodore Davis, who held the EGYPTOLOGIST: excavation permit for the Valley of the Kings, announced that his work in the area was now completed. On the inscribed side of the stone, with its flat, polished surface, there are three inscriptions to be EGYPTOLOGIST: seen. The first is written in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic script. The second inscription is also He didn’t believe that anything of importance could be found there anymore, and so he gave his made up of characters that at the time, two hundred years ago, nobody was able to read. Today we permit back. know this as “demotic” script, the writing used by Egyptian officials in their everyday work. But the third inscription – and this was a huge sensation at the time – is written in Classical Greek... NARRATOR: NARRATOR: But there was someone else who saw things differently, someone who was obviously very headstrong. Howard Carter had first come to Egypt as a seventeen-year-old, initially as a draftsman, and then as ...in other words in a language that was still very well known. excavation site director. And in contrast to other archaeologists, he was firmly convinced that the EGYPTOLOGIST: hidden tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun was somewhere in the valley, buried deep under the rocky That’s right. And it was immediately clear that all three texts had the same content. So the Greek text debris. offered the possibility of deciphering the meaning of hieroglyphs for the first time. The key had been EGYPTOLOGIST: found. But firm conviction on its own wasn’t much use; Carter needed support, he needed money to get the NARRATOR: permit and to excavate – perhaps for years. Luckily for him, he knew a rich English gentleman, Lord It wasn’t scholars, though, who found the famous stone on a blistering hot summer’s day in 1799; it Carnarvon. was soldiers, French soldiers. The year before, Napoleon had set off for Egypt with an enormous army. NARRATOR: His aim, in his own words, was to “bring civilisation to the Orient and free this beautiful part of the It says a lot for Carter’s powers of persuasion that he was able to convince Carnarvon to take over world from the English yoke.” The war ended in a terrible defeat for France. But one of its effects was Davis’s excavation permit. But the difficulties were enormous, because by now the floor of the valley to awaken in Europe a keen interest in the ancient Egyptian culture, a sort of Egyptomania. was covered with thousands of tons of debris and rubble from previous excavations. But perhaps we EGYPTOLOGIST: should explain first what the “Valley of the Kings” actually is? And it was at that time, around 1800, that a young Frenchman read all these sensational reports about EGYPTOLOGIST: Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition, about pyramids and obelisks, and