ARCE Members Only: Rethinking Tutankhamun: Icon, Industry, Empire

Lecture Information

When it was discovered in 1922, in an Egypt newly independent of the British Empire, the 3,300-year-old tomb of Tutankhamun sent shockwaves around the world. The boy-king became a household name overnight and kickstarted an international obsession that endures to this day. From pop culture and politics to tourism and the heritage industry, it’s impossible to imagine the twentieth century without the discovery of Tutankhamun- yet so much of the story remains untold. How- and why- did the 20th century turn Tutankhamun into an icon and an industry, and in the 21st century, what does his story have to say about Egyptology and the aftermaths of empire? 

About Christina Riggs

Professor Riggs is professor of the History of Visual Culture at Durham University in the United Kingdom and an expert on the history of the Tutankhamun excavation. She is the author of several books, including Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century (Public Affairs/Atlantic, 2021) and Photographing Tutankhamun: Archaeology, Ancient Egypt, and the Archive (Bloomsbury/AUC Press, 2019).