(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, NOVEMBER 27 - An exhibit will be held in
Viterbo from May until November next year on copies of Egyptian
archaeological treasures, the Italian fundraising society
Società Italiana di Beneficienza (SID) has announced. SID is the
sponsor of the initiative presented as an unprecedented event in
Italy.
The exhibit will be held in the Palazzo dei Papi, the
president of SIB, Sicilian philanthropist Eugenio Benedetti
Gaglio, told ANSAmed.
The exhibit will showcase, among others, perfect copies of
the entire treasure of Tutankhamun, with the famous golden death
mask, the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh who died young and became a
symbol of Egyptomania.
Now Benedetti Gaglio has said that the exhibition will
include some 150 pieces such as ''the eight Sphynxes, a perfect
marble copy of those in the triumphal entry to the great temple
of Karnak'' in Luxor. The pieces of the treasure of Tutankhamun
to be exhibited will also include the ''lid with the canopic
jar, the famous little Pharaoh throne, the great 'naos' and the
collection of jewels presents''.
The reproductions, at the end of the show, will be put on
sale and, in particular, there is a ''deluge of requests'' for
the sphynxes, said Gaglio. These are very expensive large pieces
that can only be afforded by companies, institutions and the
wealthy. Visitors will be able to buy ''2-3,000 replicas of
objects of small dimension, which are exactly similar to the
originals extracted from Egyptian tombs, all with a certificate
of authenticity put on sale through us at a special price by the
Egyptian ministry of antiquities'', said the former businessman.
The economic aspect, the foundation stressed, is only
marginal: the spirit of the initiative is to renew relations
between Italy and Egypt that are currently damaged, through an
archaeology that is accessible to almost everybody, without
necessarily needing to go to Cairo to admire it.
The choice of setting it up in Etruscan Lazio, with its
almost unique parallelism to the Egyptian cult of the dead,
gives further meaning to the show that is part of two other
initiatives organized by SIB next year in Italy, aimed at
promoting cultural and religious dialogue between the two shores
of the Mediterranean. They are an exhibition of Coptic art, with
the reproduction of rare icons in a holy Italian site still to
be defined, and a series of four Egyptian folk music concerts.
(ANSAmed).
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