Treasures of the Pharaohs: Exhibiting Ancient Egypt in Rome and Beyond

The Scuderie del Quirinale has opened its monumental doors to one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever mounted in Rome. This renewal of Italian-Egyptian relations is physically represented by the exhibition's visual identity, which utilizes iconic funerary imagery such as the outer anthropoid coffin of Thuya (Fig. 1). Behind the brilliance of the gold and the precision of the hieroglyphs lies a wider political and intellectual project: the renewal of Italian-Egyptian relations under the framework of the Piano Mattei per l'Africa.Launched in 2024, this government initiative—named for Enrico Mattei, the visionary who redefined Italy's global relations through cooperation rather than exploitation—promotes long-term partnerships across the African continent in the fields of energy, culture, education, and sustainable development. Within this plan, Treasures of the Pharaohs is the first cultural flagship: a demonstration that diplomacy can be built not only on economics and technology but on shared knowledge and respect for heritage. The exhibition translates the principles of the Piano Mattei into the language of art, showing that collaboration in conservation and education can be as strategic, and as enduring, as any infrastructural project.Both countries recognized that the time had come for a new kind of exhibition—one that would not merely “borrow” Egyptian treasures but present them through Egyptian scholarship in an Italian public space. The conversation quickly grew into a consortium linking ALES S.p.A., the Supreme Council of Antiquities, MondoMostre, the Museo Egizio in Turin, and the Italian Embassy in Cairo. Together they envisioned an exhibition that would embody three intertwined goals: diplomatic partnership, scientific collaboration, and educational innovation. These objectives have since shaped every decision, from the curatorial layout to the writing of the labels.At the intellectual core of the project stands curator Tarek El Awady's (Fig. 2) selection of 130 works that narrate the Egyptian idea of eternity through material, ritual, and social life.His choices—royal portraits, gold ornaments, funerary objects, domestic tools—trace three thousand years of civilization, yet they form a single argument: that artistic excellence was for the Egyptians a path to transcendence. The accompanying bilingual catalogue, authored by Zahi Hawass, functions as both research publication and narrative script. Every caption and interpretive text in the exhibition derives from these essays, translated into both Italian and English so that Egyptian curatorial language reaches visitors directly, without mediation or paraphrase. The catalogue thus becomes a treaty of intellectual equity—an emblem of the Piano Mattei's commitment to joint authorship.The same philosophy extends to the exhibition's audio guides, produced in Italian, English, French, and Spanish, with a dedicated children's version in Italian. They maintain the curators' voices and integrate excerpts from the bilingual catalogue, turning scholarly interpretation into an accessible narrative experience. Visitors—adults and children alike—encounter a unified story, told with scientific precision but emotional immediacy. In this way, communication becomes another form of diplomacy: language as a bridge between cultures rather than a filter.The educational component developed around this foundation is unprecedented in scale for an archaeology exhibition in Italy. The Museo Egizio in Turin, Europe's oldest and most important museum devoted entirely to Egyptian civilization, has played a pivotal role as both scientific partner and pedagogical laboratory.Its education department, working closely with the Scuderie del Quirinale (Fig. 3), has designed a system of workshops, school programs, and teacher trainings that transform the exhibition into a platform for lifelong learning. The museum's expertise in classroom engagement has guided the creation of the Scuderie's laboratori didattici, which will introduce thousands of Italian students to the crafts, technologies, and philosophies of the ancient Nile.Each workshop corresponds to one of the exhibition's main themes: the sacred power of writing, the process of mummification as science, the symbolism of color, and the geometry of pyramid construction. Students will grind ochre into pigment, model canopic jars from clay, and inscribe their names in hieroglyphs on handmade papyrus. Every activity has been vetted by Egyptian archaeologists for accuracy, and all materials—teacher guides, worksheets, and digital supplements—are available in both Italian and English. The Museo Egizio has contributed not only expertise but also teaching replicas from its own educational collections, lending the Scuderie the tangible tools of its practice. This network of shared resources forms what the curators describe as “a trans-Mediterranean classroom,” a living embodiment of the Piano Mattei's goal to invest in people as the real infrastructure of cooperation.The educational reach extends well beyond school visits. A series of public lectures and family days connect archaeology to civic values, explaining how ancient Egyptian notions of order, sustainability, and respect for the natural world still resonate today. The Scuderie hosted discussions with archaeologists on themes such as the preservation of monuments, digital mapping of heritage sites, and museum accessibility. These events, many streamed online in Italian and English, form part of the exhibition's lasting intellectual footprint. Treasures of the Pharaohs is thus conceived not as a temporary spectacle but as an ongoing learning environment.Diplomatically, the project signals a profound shift. In the past, exhibitions of antiquities often relied on unilateral loans governed by standard contracts. Here, however, the process has been transformed into a model of shared curatorship and coresponsibility.The Supreme Council of Antiquities directed the conservation and packing in Cairo, documented through joint condition reporting (Fig. 4). This collaborative effort ensured the safety of delicate items, such as the mummy case of Psusennes I (Fig. 5).The resulting bilingual conservation dossier—produced in Italian and English—will remain a reference document in both countries, ensuring transparency and long-term scientific value. This methodological parity embodies the spirit of the Piano Mattei: partnership grounded in mutual trust and professional respect.The exhibition's creation also consolidates Italy's role as a European leader in museum diplomacy. Within the Piano Mattei, cultural heritage occupies the same strategic rank as energy or infrastructure, recognized as a field in which Italy's expertise can serve as a tool for soft power and mutual growth. Treasures of the Pharaohs demonstrates how such diplomacy can operate through content, not ceremony: Egyptian scholarship interpreted through Italian museology, reaching a global audience through education. For Egypt, the project affirms cultural sovereignty and the ability to present its patrimony abroad under its own curators. For Italy, it renews the legacy of Renaissance humanism—the idea that art and knowledge are instruments of international understanding.The Museo Egizio in Turin again plays a central role in this broader diplomatic framework. As the primary scientific partner, it ensures consistency between research and display, but its significance is also symbolic. Founded in 1824 on collections gathered during the age of exploration of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the museum has in recent decades redefined itself as a space of restitution through collaboration. Its partnership in Treasures of the Pharaohs demonstrates this transformation: from a repository of artifacts to an active participant in Egypt's living heritage. Turin's involvement also strengthens the exhibition's Italian dimension, connecting the northern capital of Egyptian studies with the political heart of the nation in Rome.The synergy among Turin, Cairo, and Rome forms what organizers describe as a triangle of knowledge. Scholars, educators, and diplomats converge across these three cities, each contributing to a project that transcends national boundaries. Under the auspices of the Piano Mattei, this triangular cooperation is set to continue beyond the life of the exhibition, evolving into a permanent network for cultural exchange, joint research, and professional training in museum education and conservation.In this sense, Treasures of the Pharaohs is not an endpoint but a beginning—the prototype of a new generation of international exhibitions based on equality of knowledge and shared educational goals. The next stage of this partnership is already in preparation: an exhibition titled Il Potere del Ritratto. Da Roma al Fayum (The Power of the Portrait: From Rome to the Fayum), which will open at the Ara Pacis Museum in November 2026 to celebrate the reopening of the Mausoleum of Augustus. This project will reunite Roman and Egyptian funerary portraits for the first time, borrowed from Egypt for the first time, but also from major museums such as the Louvre, British Museum, Stuttgart, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, exploring how identity was represented across two great civilizations. It will serve as the natural successor to Treasures of the Pharaohs, reaffirming the continuity of the Mattei vision through art.Beyond Italy, discussions are already underway with major international museums to extend Treasures of the Pharaohs to other capitals under the same curatorial and museological framework. The exhibition's mobility ensures that its message of partnership, education, and cultural respect will reach audiences across Europe and beyond, amplifying its diplomatic significance. Its future itinerary, now being negotiated, will make it the first Piano Mattei cultural project to circulate globally.In sum, Treasures of the Pharaohs exemplifies how cultural diplomacy can unite nations through shared education and scholarship. Conceived within the Piano Mattei, realized with the expertise of the Museo Egizio in Turin, and presented in the civic heart of Rome, the exhibition transforms gold and stone into instruments of dialogue. It redefines what it means for a museum to serve diplomacy: not through rhetoric, but through the patient, luminous work of learning together.Rather than following chronology, the narrative of Treasures of the Pharaohs is structured around ideas— gold, death, renewal, and divine rule—each represented by a gallery that acts as a meditation on how Egyptians conceived permanence. This thematic rhythm allows visitors to read the exhibition as both historical sequence and philosophical argument.The journey begins with Egypt, the Land of Gold, a luminous prelude to the civilization's symbolic core. The gallery opens not with spectacle for its own sake, but with a thesis: that gold, to the Egyptians, was the visible form of the sun's creative power, the physical proof of eternity. The radiant sarcophagus of Queen Ahhotep II (Fig. 6), discovered by Mariette in 1859, dominates the room. Her almond-shaped eyes of obsidian and calcite shimmer beneath the feathered wings of Nut; the vulture and cobra of Isis and Nephthys cross her chest like cosmic seals. Each detail is both ornament and prayer.Nearby hangs the Necklace of the Golden Flies—three pendants once awarded as a military decoration, their fragility belying their moral weight. The fly, indomitable and tireless, became the emblem of perseverance. Beside it glows the collar of Psusennes I (Fig. 7), where six thousand beads form a sheet of light, and the five bracelets of King Sekhemkhet, among the earliest examples of Egyptian goldsmithing. The ensemble is not merely an anthology of treasures but a meditation on incorruptibility and transformation.From brilliance the visitor moves into silence. Life after Death presents the world of Yuya and Thuya, the parents of Queen Tiye and grandparents of Akhenaten. Their tomb, almost intact in the Valley of the Kings, offers a complete manual for immortality. A small wooden shabti, inscribed with the sixth chapter of the Book of the Dead, stands ready to answer on their behalf—“Here I am.”Nearby, Thuya's gilded coffin (Fig. 8) glows with prayers to Sokar, illustrating the language of salvation., while one of her alabaster canopic jars, each guarded by a son of Horus, embody the anatomy of resurrection. The section invites viewers to see how writing, color, and material together formed a language of salvation.Educational materials created with the Museo Egizio and the Scuderie's teaching team accompany these works. School groups are guided to trace the hieroglyph for “life,” to fold paper amulets, to discuss how remembrance functions across cultures. The display thus merges curatorship and pedagogy: every object becomes an instrument of empathy between present and past.In The Eternal Sleep, the mood grows domestic. A wooden bed from the same burial (Fig. 9), painted black with white inlay, shows how the Egyptians sacralized rest and regeneration. Its slight curve recalls the human body at rest and the curve of the horizon at dawn. As the catalogue observes, black symbolized not death but regeneration—the fertile soil of the Nile and the skin of Osiris. 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