In considerable secrecy, some time during the first two months of the new year, 50 of the finest pieces of Tutankhamen’s treasure are to be flown to London by the RAF and BOAC for exhibition at the British Museum.

Because of the astronomical value the young pharaoh’s treasures will not be insured: they will be covered by an indemnity for “many millions of pounds” by the ‘British Government. The precise amount has yet to be approved by Parliament, Sir John Wolfenden, director of the museum, said in London yesterday. The exhibition will open on March 29, for six months.

Sir John said it would be the most splendid the museum had ever staged.

The treasure has been lent by the Egyptian Government to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of its discovery by two Englishmen at Luxor in 1922.

Both men, Howard Carter and his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, are now dead. It was Lord Carnarvon’s death, shortly after the discovery, that gave rise to the legend of the tomb’s deadly curse.

Dr I. E. S. Edwards, keeper of Egyptian antiquities at the museum, when asked what truth there was in the legend, said it had been invented as a joke by an Egyptologist. “It caught on much better than he expected.”

Research in America had shown that those associated with the opening of the tomb in fact enjoyed longer lives, if anything, than other people, Dr Edwards said.

The exhibition is sponsored jointly by the British Museum, The Times and The Sunday Times.

Sir John Wolfenden described the loan of the treasure as “a stupendous act of generosity” by the Egyptian Government. It was hoped that between 1,250,000 and 1,500,000 people would see it

That would mean an average of 1,000 people an hour passing through the series of darkened exhibition rooms designed by Miss Margaret Hall, the museum’s exhibition officer, to recreate the atmosphere of an Egyptian tomb.

The exhibition proceeds will go towards the Unesco administered fund to save the temples of the island of Philae, on the Nile.

Sir John said that if more people still wanted o see the treasure by the time the exhibition was due to close, it might be extended.

The exhibition is a tribute to the determination of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. After six full seasons of fruitless excavation in the Valley of the Kings, most men would probably have given up, especially as it was generally thought that they would find nothing. But they decided to devote one more season to their search.

The decision was almost immediately rewarded. On the fourth morning of the dig, Car tar’s workmen came on an ancient flight of rock-hewn steps leading down into the valley bottom. At the sixteenth and bottom stop their path was blocked by a sealed doorway bearing the unmistakable seals of Tutankhamen.

Beyond it, on November 26, 1922, they came upon the golden treasures of the dead king, probably the most spectacular archaeological discovery of all time. Overnight Tutankhamen became a household name.

Sir John said the museum was not willing to list all the objects to be exhibited lest, as had happened elsewhere, “pirate” publishers produced their own cut- price catalogues.

As the proceeds from the sale of catalogues, which would cost 75p each, would go towards the saving of the Philae temples, they hoped to prevent such enterprises by not disclosing the full list of exhibits at this stage.

All except three of the 32 treasures included in the Paris exhibition would be shown in London, Dr Edwanis said. In addition there would be nine pieces of jewelry, three items of furniture, four stattuettes and five other items.

The most important and most famous piece of treasure, Tutankhamen’s golden funeral mask, will form the showpiece.

Two other major items which were named yesterday as coming to London arc the small golden shrine, which has never left Egypt and was recently restored: and a gilt wooden statuette of Tutankhamen, standing on a raft holding a harpoon.

Sir John would not say precisely how or when the treasures would be travelling. They would be coming in three consignments, arriving between the middle of January and the middle of February. Transport would be shared by the RAF and BOAC.

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