Thousands Visit Pharaoh Exhibition
Around 30,000 people have visited an exhibition of Ancient Egyptian art in Cankarjev dom, making it the best visited exhibition of all times at Slovenia's premiere arts centre.
The "Pharaonic Renaissance" exhibition, which ran from 4 March until Sunday, featured around 140 artifacts kept in museums and private collections across Europe. It was the first major exhibition of Egyptian history in Slovenia and was staged as part of the "Egypt in Ljubljana" festival.
According to the co-ordinator of the exhibition, Agni Prijatelj, the exhibition's biggest draw was the Palermo Stone, which is considered the earliest Egyptian historical text.
Visitors also showed a lot of interest in the sarcophagus of the gatekeeper to the Temple of Amon and a statue of Ramesses, said Prijatelj.
The exhibition was set up by the Italian expert Francesco Tiradritti, who focused on the Pharaonic Renaissance of the 25th and 26th dynasties, which ruled between early 7th century and mid 6th century B.C., and the earlier eras of the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms.
The artifacts come from a number of significant museum collections, including those of the British Museum, the Louvre, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Egyptian museums of Berlin, Munich and Florence and others from Italy and Hungary.
This was the first time the Palermo Stone left its Sicily-based Antonio Salinas archaeological museum since 1877, when a Sicilian family gave it to the museum. It remains a mystery how the artifact got to Sicily.
The Palermo Stone is one of the most important artifacts for understanding the early Egyptian history. It is engraved with the names of Pharaos belonging to the first five Egyptian dynasties and the most important events of that period.
The exhibition will now travel to the Hungarian capital, Budapest.
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