Immortal Pharaoh: The Tomb of Thutmose III
Until January 8; City Art Centre, Edinburgh

In 1817, the showman and engineer Giovanni Battista Belzoni discovered the Egyptian tomb of Pharaoh Seti I in pristine condition. He cast its walls in wax, and took chunks of it with him to London, where he created the world’s first large scale replica of an Egyptian tomb. In doing so, “The Great Belzoni” set off a craze for Egyptology in middle England, while leaving a badly damaged site behind him in the Valley of the Kings.

Belzoni’s replica was not, by any stretch of the imagination, motivated by concerns for conservation. But it did provide an answer to the modern-day question of how to welcome thousands of tourists into the Valley of the Kings without letting their sweat, breath, feet and hands destroy the very tombs they came to see. Today, new technology is capable of recreating the tombs in every detail, without recourse to Belzoni’s wax and pick-axe approach.

The first such reconstruction is currently on show at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, the sole UK venue of a show which originated last year in Madrid. Outside, it might look like a wooden box, but inside, it’s the well-preserved burial chamber of Pharaoh Thutmose III. With its stone walls, hieroglyphs and sand-edged floor, the full-scale model puts you deep in the heart of the Valley of the Kings.

Thutmose III, who ruled from 1479 to 1426 BC, has been described as the “Napoleon of ancient Egypt”: he pushed the boundaries of the Egyptian empire well into Asia, and built lavish monuments to celebrate his victories. He reigned during a period known for its sophisticated sculpture, and the exhibition’s 43 objects, borrowed from Basel and Hanover, stand as testament to that.

The interior of the City Art Centre is totally transformed for this four-floor show; the white open-plan spaces are reinvented in sumptuous, bold colours as a maze of passages, leading you deep into the unknown. Taking their lead from the Egyptians, the show’s curators fill the walls with text, preparing you as thoroughly as possible for the complex iconography of the burial chamber.

There are advantages to visiting a reproduction rather than the real thing. The original burial chamber is hot and sticky, its wall drawings protected behind plate glass. There’s no such inconvenience at the City Art Centre, though the atmosphere is punctured by the distant grinding of the gallery escalators and the distinctly un-Egyptian chatter of the reception desk; perhaps some sort of ambient soundtrack would help.

The walls of the tomb, in pictures and hieroglyphs, tell the story of the Amduat. This ancient religious treatise describes the journey taken every night by the sun god, Re, who travels through the body of the sky goddess Nut, overcoming dangers along the way, to be reborn in the morning.

Each of the 12 hours bears a wonderful title, such as The Smiter Of The Foreheads Of The Enemies of Re. The complex line drawings, made in the days before the Pharaoh’s burial, gave him all the knowledge he needed to become immortal. That’s a lot of information to take in, and written by scholars, the panels are not what you’d call dumbed down. However they are clear and concise, and as long as you’ve had a good dose of coffee beforehand, you will learn a lot.

This strong emphasis on text doesn’t exclude children, for whom a special activity pack has been prepared, inviting them, for instance, to suggest which body parts they might like to preserve in canopic jars. This must go down well, judging by the young girl I see at the door, staging a full-scale tantrum at the idea of having to leave.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 20.11.05