Hussein is twelve years old, his task is to bring water to Howard Carter’s team of archeologists digging in the Valley of the Kings. But don’t spill it - they warn him. So he carefully moves the sand under his feet before putting down the jar and suddenly feels a flat stone. Water spills over as he runs to call the workers. It’s 10 o’ clock in the morning of November 4th, 1922. Buried under the sand there is Tutankhamun’s tomb. Intact.

The discovery captures the headlines and a veritable “Tut-mania” bursts out. Everybody goes wild for the Pharaoh and craves a bit of Tut. Tut in games, Tut in costumes, Tut on posters, cigarette cards and tableware. US president Hoover names his dog King Tut. “They opened up his tomb the other day and jumped with glee” Harry Von Tilzer would sing in 1923 in Old King Tut, drawing crowds to dance halls.

The treasure hunt in sacred places had already started in the early nineteenth century. Collectors, thieves and archeologists would loot tombs and temples to enrich the antiquity collections of European museums, such as the Louvre and the British Museum. And in 1924 the first museum in the world entirely dedicated to Egyptian antiquities was founded in Turin.

But Tutankhamun wasn’t there. Tut didn’t leave Egypt. The Egyptian government confiscated the treasure found by Carter from the British. An extraordinary crowd poured into Luxor when the tomb was officially opened to the Egyptian people with a magnificent  night ceremony. To stop the antiquities drain to Western countries, the government created the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in 1935. With its 130,000 items it is the richest collection of Pharaoh’s relics in the world. The museum was built by the Italian construction company Garozzo and Zaffrani in Cairo.

In the meanwhile Ismail Pascià, Khedive (Governor) of Egypt had pleaded Giuseppe Verdi for an anthem to solemnly celebrate the majestic Suez Canal, opened in 1869. The famous composer hesitated first but finally was convinced also by the astronomical fee of 150,000 thousand franks he was offered. On December 24th, 1871, at the Khedivial Opera House of Cairo Opera Aida premièred amidst thunderous applause.

Daguerre, with the Mediterranean sun in his eyes, would explain: “What needs at least 20 minutes’ exposure in Paris, is accelerated by ten times thanks to the Egyptian sunshine”. And Arago, announcing the invention of photography: “It would take two dozen years and legions of draughtsmen to copy the thousands hieroglyphics covering the great monuments in Thebes, Memphis and Karnak. Thanks to daguerreotype, one man will be enough to carry out this huge work successfully and without error.” Egypt, a sunny vision…

..since 1849 when pioneer photographer Maxime du Camp reached Alexandria with Gustave Flaubert. Many would set out to cross the sand desert with bulky photo equipment following. Antonio Beato, Luigi Fiorillo “The photographer of his Royal Highness Prince Mohammed Toussoun Pasha”, Giovanni Fasani, British photographer Francis Frith and the French Hippolyte Arnoux and Félix Bonfils. Noteworthy photographic documentation was produced by Pascal Sebah, a Turkish photographer and by the Greek brothers Kangaki. Viçen, Hovsep and Kevork Abdullahyan founded the first photo studio in the Ottoman Empire: Studio Abdullah Frères.

Cruising the Nile became a very classy travel. In his catalogue pioneer tour operator Thomas Cook offered travels to the Valley of the Kings and guided tours to the pyramids. Pharaoh inspired entertainment was all over the place. In literature with Some words with a mummy by Edgar Allan Poe or Death on the Nile and The adventure of the Egyptian tomb by Agatha Christie (who, by the way, was the wife of an archeologist). In Hollywood colossals: from The Mummy (the original by Karl Freund in 1932 was followed by several remakes) all the way to the unbeatable Raiders of the Lost Ark. Even Donald Duck ventured to the pyramids, anticipating the videogame Assassin’s Creed: Origins.

The Egyptian sphinx was benevolent and protective. Carved in stone near the pyramid, she wished a peaceful life in the hereafter to the Pharaoh. The monstrous and evil version is the Greek one. We know that Oedipus defeated the terrible man-eater solving the famous riddle: “What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?”. The spell of this bewitching creature, both sagacious and savage, beautiful and monstrous, never ceased to generate fantasies and visions.

Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt, had an aquiline nose and a protruding chin. Liz made her beautiful to the eyes of history. The femme fatale who seduced Julius Caesar and Antonius was clever and educated. A lover of perfumes, she was an expert in poisons, obsessed with jewelry and provided with deep political insight, but also a loving mother. She made the destiny of Rome intertwining love and dynasty bonds. Ballets, operas, theatre dramas, movies and also an asteroid were dedicated to her. A suicide for love, she let an asp bite her so that her death too became sublime. Her burial place is still wrapped in mystery.

The Wulz sisters, seduced by ancient queens’ femininity, portrayed each other in exotic and regal costumes. Adopting the Oriental style in public created quite a sensation at balls and parties. It was made of languid and mellow fantasies, with sphinxes, obelisks, pyramids, snakes and hieroglyphics all over. A kind of East, as Edward Said remarks “created by the West in its own likeness and, even more, to its own convenience” which in fact went hand in hand with the colonial expansion of European powers.

Egypt abounds in sunshine and death. As Hercule Poirot pointed out in Death on the Nile, the Egyptians used to preserve their dead. They did so to guarantee immortality to them.
Well, in a way, they succeeded in it.

P.S.: Tutankhamun’s treasure will be soon moved to the new museum in Giza due to open this year.