See The Immersive King Tut Exhibit Now Open At Baird Center
Following successful Monet and Van Gogh runs, traveling exhibit pivots to historic ruler.
“Beyond King Tut” exhibit. Photo by Sophie Bolich.
You may have read books, watched movies or even viewed artifacts from the famed King Tutankhamun‘s tomb. But have you stood over the boy king’s golden coffin, or played the board games meant to keep him entertained in the afterlife?
You can do all that and more at National Geographic’s Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience, which opens to the public on Friday, Oct. 13 at the Baird Center, 400 W. Wisconsin Ave.
The ticketed experience features photos, visuals and little-known details about the life and death of Tutankhamun, who ruled over ancient Europe from age 9 until his death approximately 10 years later.
Howard Carter‘s 1922 discovery of King Tut’s tomb is one of the greatest archeological revelations of all time — and largely the reason that the young ruler is so well-known, said Mark Lock, creative director for Beyond King Tut.
Until then, most tombs had previously been plundered by graverobbers. Tutankhamun’s, however, was largely intact. If not for that, “he would have probably been a footnote in history because he wasn’t considered a significant king,” Lock said.
Unlike previous immersive exhibits at the Baird Center — including Beyond Monet and Beyond Van Gogh — Beyond King Tut offers visitors a more cohesive storyline, also incorporating displays that would be at home in a traditional museum setting. One key difference however: Beyond King Tut contains no actual artifacts. Rather, the exhibit is built from images and projections.
But there’s also truly immersive elements — such as colorized photos of the pharaoh’s coffin that peek out from behind stone walls and a larger-than-life headdress that glimmers like real gold thanks to a subtle, overhead projection.
After winding through several dimly-lit galleries containing photos of the excavation site, a life-sized recreation of the burial chamber, details on mummification and more, guests will step into the main immersive room, where a 25-minute, looped video displays an animated version of the journey into the afterlife and arrival in eternal paradise, as well as King Tut’s extravagant treasures and scenes of modern-day Egypt and its vast monuments.
The entire experience takes between 45 minutes and one hour. Guests are free to move at their own pace, and can freely walk throughout the immersive room to take in the video from all angles.
Free audio tours, voiced by National Geographic experts, are available throughout the exhibit via QR code. If you wish to access the audio tour, headphones are recommended.
For an added fee, guests can access a post-exhibit VR experience, which takes users on a first-person journey over the pyramids and into King Tut’s tomb.
The exhibit is scheduled to run Oct. 13 through Jan. 6. Sunday through Thursday hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The last daily admission window is one hour before the exhibit closes.
More information on tickets is available on the Baird Center exhibit website.
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