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Agree or disagree? Write your own review of Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs by using the space below...

Steph
Having been to the Exhibition today, we were a bit disappointed. Due to all the advertising, we were expecting to see a few more of Tutankhamun's treasures. All the exhibits we saw were wonderful and very well displayed, but the advertising is very misleading as there are very few of Tutankhamun's actual treasures on display. The Exhibition built you up to the end when we were expecting to see "the star attraction", well perhaps one of the inner coffins, actually we didn't mind what it was, but were a bit shocked when the last exhibit room seemed to be the giftshop! The organisers should hold their heads in shame at the price of the souvenirs. If most the of the profits were going to preserving Egyption artifacts then it wouldn't be so bad, but knowing out of the £6.50 I would have spent on a pen, only 10% was being donated....well that says it all. Such as shame. We were lucky enough to go to the Cairo Museum and see Tutankhamun's and other fascinating treasures, and perhaps that is why we don't feel as disgruntled as we might have if we had just visited this Exhibition.

Robert Phillips
What a disappointment!! The displays were admittedly of excellent quality, but the number of exhibits was extraordinarily poor - a handful of minor artifacts cunningly spread out to look like a lot. Only 5 of the 11 galleries had "King Tut" exhibits and hardly any of the really good things were there. Luckily I have been to the Cairo museum and have seen the "real" exhibits - a million times better than the weak London display. After the hype and the high price, the whole thing was a dreadful ripoff. And the shop... perfume bottles that we bought for 50p in an "expensive" shop near the Hilton in Cairo cost £14.95. Plastic ballpoint pens for £6... disgusting! All in all 1 out of 10 for value for money and quality. SHAME!

Marie Stuchfield
Somewhat disappointing after all the 'hype'. Only part of the exhibition had artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun. The famous 'Death Mask' which heads the publicity for the exhibition was absent! I wonder if this is a bit fraudulent?I was pretty disgusted to see all information was given in 'American English'. Although the organisers apparently are American, I think it a great discourtesy to their host country to snub British English in both spelling and pronunciation, preferring to promulgate their own version of the English Language. Also youngsters reading the explanations may go away thinking the spelling is correct English!

Donna
We were going to visit this exhibit as a family from Canada. I was privileged to see the exhibit in the 70's as a teen and it left a huge impression on me, and my further studies. I was elated to hear that the exhibit was back as I was bringing my family to London this summer. I am grateful to your honesty, as my money comes from very hard work and I dislike it when we are presented with advertising possibilities that never materialize. Shame on those that brought such hope through half truths which is sadly the way of our 20th century delivers...

Lindsey
Ok, after reading all the negatve feedback me and my partner now want to cancel our tickets and get a refund, has anyone any idea if this can be done?

mark from yorkshire
I went to the first exhibition in the 70s, and thought if it’s a patch on that my 7 year old son will be impressed as I was.NO what a joke, I even wrote a complaints e-mail to the organizers, who really didn’t understand that their show was much worse than a carnival side show, far better to go to London to the British Museum or to Manchester Museum where both have exhalant displays and the staff are their to help you and the children have a good time. NOT TO RIP you off with a fourth class exhibition and a joke for a gift shop, Note DVD at exhibit £25 same DVD from web site linked to the exhibition £15. I feel this exhibition is doing further harm to the country fast being labeled rip of Britain

mark
working as a London black cab driver,i have been asked many times if i would recommend this exhibition,answer 100% not, a total rip off,the family enjoyed the thames clipper boat ride more!

aisha patel
ive been there it is amazing go there

Debbie
I saw the King Tut exhibit in the first part of June and I have to agree with everyone, it was a disappointment. There were so many kids and adults that it was hard to see the exhibits and I had to skip a few to avoid the crowds. I went into the gift shop and bought a coffee cup and I put in the dishwasher to clean. What I got after the wash was a blue cup, all the pictures of King Tut had come off during the wash. Now I have a plain blue cup. What a ripoff.

Simon
Incredible....RIP OFF.I'm sure all the advestising uses the death mask and even the staff were wearing a imitation mask! so we were all a extremely disappointed to enter the final room to find we were in the shop.Don't give them your money, London has far more interesting stuff to see for free.

Peter
For 20 pounds it's a daylight robbery. All you can se on the adverts is the mask and the sarchopagus, yet they are not present on the exhibition. They basically trick you to pay the 20 quid.It was all nicely built up, I couldn't wait to see the mask and the sarchopagus in the last room, I was very surprised to find myself in the shop instead. I even went back to see if I missed a room somewhere. I should have gone to the British museum, lots more to see and its free

Elizabeth Mathers
The exhibition is wonderful but does not cater for children or large educational groups of children. The initial video briefing was accompanied by a guide who was not at all 'child friendly'. 'No flash photography' and 'mobiles must be switched off' are not exactly vital pieces of information to groups of young children. She had no direct interaction with them or engaged them initially or explained the lighting and music which many found scary 'i don't want to go in, there is death all around!'. There needs to be alloted slots for educational groups as we had a group thrown out as they were regarded 'too noisy'and everybody was 'shhing' us. It isn't really fair to treat children like this as this is an exciting exhibition and the children like to get up close and look carefully at the artifacts without other adults frowning or even cleaners cleaning the glass during the exhibition! Shocking. Having a guide to take us round, mock artifacts to handle, puzzles to play with, engage and touch or natural dyes and pigments to play with would all enhance the exhibition. This is a major exhibition but majorally lacking in exciting resources and appropriateness for groups of young children. E. Mathers (Teacher with year 2 class).

ashley morgan
ok, so there's been only two positive comments from all this feed back..er well i am due to be taking my mum there for her birthday on sunday and i am not sure now whether to prewarn her and shatter expectations or just leave her to judge the exhibition for herself...what a quandry!

Anon
The reason why so many prices are so high in the shop is simply because when they were converted from dollars - well they weren't! so $15 dollars from an item became £15. Will leave the rest for you to discover.

Neil Morrris
Like Many others I feel totaly mugged off by this 11 galleries and not even half of them contain stuff to do with the boy king the rest of it may have been his relatives. the gift shop was Outrageous £35 official book £25 for a half hour DVD just walked out feeling ripped off.Go to the British Museum much better and not a rip off.Neil

Louis p-a
went today, was expecting the large death-mask or a sarcophagus. but nothing. and no, a computer generated reconstruction does not suffice. my brother found a bracelet for £10!! RIDICULOUS, and the souvenirs in the newsagents in the 02 were actually much better than the ones in the exhibit! it was laughable- definately hit the british museum instead people!

Liz - Tunbridge Wells
I finally caught up with King Tut in London yesterday (22/03/08) and, as someone with more than a passing interest in Ancient Egpyt, have to admit that if the cunning designers of this exhibition feel the need to accentuate the (few) artifacts on display with new age music, low lighting, and copious video projections, then you know for sure this is a "smoke and mirrors" cover for the lack of anything one might actually first-off associate with King Tut himself & the breathtaking splendour unearthed by Howard Carter. For example don't expect the gold mask with its lapis lazuli eyes(which covered the head of the mummy), which for most people is the first thing they associate with King Tut. I've seen it in Cairo and the whole climax of visiting the Cairo museum is to set eyes on this truly magnificent sculpture. Couldn't they even have spared one of the three magnificent coffins, one of which was solid gold, which were placed within the sarchophagus and, I believe, also now reside in the Cairo museum? Where were these more substantial items at the O2 exhib - nowhere!! We got the things the Egyptian curators at the Cairo museum thought the tourists in Cairo wouldn't notice were gone - the best still being IN CAIRO...sadly. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the "feel" of the exhibition and the few items on display were worth seeing..but if you really want King Tut, my advice...go to Cairo!! Don't pay £20 for a small slice of the magic!

catherine
a big fat con. I couldn't stop myself bursting into tears after the huge disappointment.I feel like Ive been mugged.

Lucy - Sheffield
We visited in mid February. We were unaware that we had to validate our tickets (even though we had purchased timed ones online) and had to queue for another 30 mins (what was the point?). We enjoyed the items that made it (some were stunning) but it felt like they strung it out as much as possible and it all ends very abruptly. I knew the mask wasn't going to be there but thought they may have fake one for effect - not so. More artifacts needed. The layout was strange and the video at the start is just pointless. Far too many people admitted at the same time and moving through together making it difficult to get close up. Not very child friendly or interactive. The gift shop is very tacky and expensive. A bit of a let down really. Think twice before buying tickets and travelling a long way!

km
i have left it feeling like a right idiot for spending my money on it

Ray
This is a con at all levels.Not enough artefacts, some artefacts really scraped the bottom of the barrel. After all who wants to see a damaged lump of crudely carved wood, OK is over 2000 years old but big deal.The tomb room, had only 5 artefacts in it. There is a better exhibit that conjures up the space of the tomb in Dorchester. The artefacts may be replicas, but it is brilliant.The shop is a total ripoff. DO NOT GO

Caro W
Was so cold thought I was in Siberia - luckily a friend had prewarned me so wrapped up well. It would also have been nice if the information text could have been changed for an English reading audience as they still had Americanised spellings.

Ann M
I went to the 1972 Exhibition and was looking forward to seeing the treasures again this time with our daughter who wasn't born when the first exhibition was on. Still have the original catalogue from 1972 and comparing the contents found the new exhibition disappointing despite the high tech lighting etc. It was overcrowded and overpriced and as for the gift shop that must be for millionaires!

Russell Cook
This is a con and I think many will be wanting their money back. Five of us travelled by train, £29.00 then had lunch, £50 and then paid for the entrance, £71. And guess what you don't get to see even a life-size replica of the advertised mask, sarcophagus or even an explanation as to why they cannot have it in the exhibition. Don't waste your money its not worth it. Go to the free British Museum.

Charlotte S
All I can say is you get your ticket and a half hour slot and as soon as you get in, it still had all the people in that went in before us. I thought that you had a slot for a reason so that everyone would get the chance to see everything. I thought the death mask would be there but it wasn't but what was there was very interesting. The gift shop was a rip-off, an imitation leather dog collar was £85 and a magnet was £4, just avoid it.

Nick
Felt like a victim of the King Tut curse! Very over priced and I agree Trade Descriptions act surely applies!Your much better off going to the British Museum - it's free!

David Bowman
Went to the Egpytian museum in Cairo in February to see the real thing so I can't really be bothered to go.

Roger Uribe
We took two of our grandchildren there as a day out - what a disappointment . And (to echo other comments) the organisers should be taken for false advertising - I am sure the small print was correct but everyone expected to see the death mask and a few other high profile bits. And as for the shop - what a disgraceful RIP-OFF, even the children recognised the extortionate pricing. And the dome itself - what an embarrassment!

Andrew Blow
The staging was excellent and the artefacts were well lit with rooms with different intensity of lighting. The organisation of the rooms made you feel as if you were being led towards a climax with a view of the mask itself, BUT what an anticlimax, a photograph on the floor and finding yourself in the gift shop following the golden casket of the boy king's mother in law. No mask, no casket......... nothing.This felt like a rip-off as all the advertising material carries pictures of the mask. We spoke with other visitors coming out and they felt the same. This moment spoiled an otherwise very good exhibition.

Caroline
The exhibition is well worth the money. Very well thought out and planned with the time-slots allocated. No jostling to look at exhibits; no hurry and most accesible 360 degrees. The kids loved it. Gripe? - the excessive prices in the gift shop! Outrageous, the mark-up must be enormous!

Dorothy
Found the exhibition disappointing. There were so many people trying to look at the exhibits you had to hang around to wait for a space to see anything. It seemed to me that they had sold far to many tickets for the half hour entry slot that we had. Half the displays had nothing to do with Tutankhamun but people who "may have been his "father" or grandfather". I assumed you would get to see his burial mask or sarcophagus, but no. All the advertising looked as if this would be the case.The gift shop was ridiculous - so overpriced.

Cettina Cross
I was disappointed, he wasn't even there!! i agree, false advertisment!! My 9 year old daugther was looking forward to it, and so was I, but it was boring!! Too much money, and basically not alot about King Tut himself. Don't bother.

Janette
An hour's queueing, even with a timed ticket. Our ticket was for 1pm. We got there at 12.45 and weren't into the exhibition proper until about about 1.45. Once you are in the queue, there is no let up until the end (and no toilets we found either...) Headphones were an additional £4 per set. Considering we had paid £22 each for tickets, this was a rip off. They have obviously taken queue management lessons from Disney - just when you think you've cracked it, there is a hidden "holding area", with another queue. Then, another "holding pen" where we had to stand to watch a 90 second film before finally being allowed into the exhibition. The pieces that were there are spectacular, but not enough actual King Tut stuff seeing as he has his name first on the title. It should be the Golden Age of the Pharohs with a guest appearance of King Tut as opposed to the other way around. As you walked round, you expected it to reach a peak at the end, but the final room is just a bit of display and film of tests done on the mummy, and the excavation. A real anticlimax at the end when you are expecting something spectacular to finish. And as for the gift shop..... £5 for a pen! £3.50 for a cardboard mask with a bit of elastic that would last for about 5 minutes. What a rip off.

Steve Hornshaw
What a con. Trades Descriptions act surely applies. little of direct relevance to Kig Tut. Disgraceful

Arricka B
I was totally disappointed. They should not have even had "King Tut" in the name of the title of the exhibition. I think the company that coordinated this event is guilty of false advertising. If you have to magnify a picture of a tiny figurine 1000 times to create the primary poster image for your exhibition, you better rethink the focus of the exhibition.A day at the British Museum wins over this exhibition without effort.

Debbie S
Having looked forward to the exhibition for months I was excited when the day finally came for me to see artefacts of the boy king .. well, what a disappointment. Every corner I turned I expected to find the sarcophagus or his death mask. The history of Egypt and its rulers was interesting but I feel the exhibition was inaccurately promoted. Sadly easily forgettable.

Keith
A bit of a let down. The exhibition is mis-named as the entire top floor has almost nothing from King Tut. The items on display are stunning - but this exhibit is more "The Golden Age of the Pharoahs" than it is Tutankhamun. Still a worthwhile visit - just skip the gift shop at the end.

Susan Rowley
I felt the earlier exhibit was much more impressive in chicago than this one seen in lax...I was so grateful that my mother had splurged to take me to the show in chicago...My daughter enjoyed this one and even dressed with the pharoah's hat sold in the gift shop for Halloween.....thanx srf

Paul
I would forget this exhibition all together. Total rip off, misguided and a clear misrepresentation of what is on show. If you really want to see a more superior collection of Egyptian objects, visit the British Museum, far better and free! Don't waste your time and money on this money-grabbing enterprise of Toot - or should that be Tut!!

Suk
The exhibition was quite good, exciting at the beginning but was ultimately disappointed as we were expecting to at least see Tutankhamun's sarcophagus, but you don't, you just see an outline of it at the end.With the way it's advertised saying that King Tut's coming back ... he hasn't, it was more life an exhibition about his family.

Doug
Rubbish, boring and so much more to be seen at any museum - had bugger-all to do with King Tut.

Roy and friends
Tempted to say, don't believe the hype. But this show is worth seeing if you have children who have little idea of this period of history. Some of the artefacts are truly amazing, shame about the padding and pseudo science that goes with it. And I agree about that gift shop, its best avoided!

Antonia
At first, it was very exciting but at the end, very disappointing. Nothing really outstanding. The British museum has probably more to offer. I was expecting more of the Kings treasures. Artefacts from his tomb, his chariot, at least one of his outer sarcophagus cases, generally more artefacts that bring us closer to knowing the young King. Instead more than half of the exhibition was a long family-tree lesson! The dramatic lighting and back-ground music and the multi-media headset (if you happened to have one) with Omar Serif narrating was an additional touch, however, there was nothing familiar on exhibition that we could actually say; I am in the presence of a king.The gift shop was outrageous. I have never been in such an expensive gift shop ever. Dog collars at £80? The cheapest key-ring (turquoise Basset) at £3.50 was marked British museum (nothing to do with the exhibition); the trebly made material crowns were £29. And forget about the gold or silver in the display cases. Basically the trinkets, the mummy beads, the pens, the playing cards, the books and even the t-shirts were expensive!!! I left empty handed. Even the fridge magnets did not do Tutankhamun any justice. Please, don’t be put off by this. If you have to go, just bear in mind that what you see is only a pinch of what you really expect to see. And take out a loan if you fancy anything in the gift shop. It’s a rip off.

Nadia
Tutankhamun exhibition was terrible. There was hardly anything from his tomb, almost none of his possessions were there, nothing that you usually associate with his name. It was understandable that his death mask was not present, but what about his coffins, his chariot, his throne, and the other various beautiful statues.This exhibition should not have been called by his name, or called the treasures of Tutankhamun, there was little of his treasures really.Similar items could be seen at any other museums, where you can get into for free.I was very upset because it was not what they have advertised or what the promoters made it out to be.

Victor
A really disappointing show, visited with family and friends. Its an exhibition made for todays multi media generation, a few artefacts, lots of big screens, fake pillars and large type. Don't expect the mask, the tomb, any parts of the coffins. Chinas last Emperor is much better.

Ravi Ankhar
If you have to choose between this and China's Last Emperor, do this. It's unlike any exhibition we have been to for a very long time. Superb.

Janina
Breathtaking..!