Virtual Nile planned for Turin Egyptian Museum
A virtual recreation of the river Nile will soon greet visitors arriving at Turin’s world-renowned Egyptian Museum as part of a sweeping makeover. The virtual waters will flow alongside the escalator leading up to the museum, thanks to the technical wizardry of Oscar-winning set designer Dante Ferretti.
The idea is for visitors to get the feeling of actually traveling the Nile as they get to witness one of the most astounding collections of ancient Egyptian antiquities anywhere in the world. The entire layout of the museum’s exhibition space will be restructured and reorganized, increasing the available space from 6,000 to 10,000m2, allowing for a more fitting display of the Turin museum’s most valuable possessions, such as the Tomb of Kha and the full figure statue of the young Ramses II enthroned.
The Egyptian Museum in Turin houses more ancient Egyptian objects than any other in the world save the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It currently draws around 600,000 visitors each year. Of the museum’s 26,000 pieces, just 6,500 are actually on public display. Its collection includes priceless papyri, among them one of the best specimens of the “Book of Coming Forth by Day” (The Book of the Dead), the oldest ever written evidence of a workers strike, the Erotic Papyrus and history’s first map.
The first phase of the project will get under way in September 2009 and conclude in January 2011 as Italy begins its celebrations of 150 years of unity, with Turin as the country’s first capital. This will be followed by a second phase due for completion in 2013.
