Like an antique painting in a tech CEO’s sleek penthouse, Ramses and the Pharaohs’ Gold has journeyed to London and opened its chest of age-old treasures in the new contemporary labyrinth of Battersea Power Station. Now, people can head over to NEON to feast their eyes on this priceless collection of over 180 artefacts that have come direct from the Egyptian Museum Cairo, exploring the legacy of Ramses II, the longest reigning and most powerful pharaoh in history. Never one to miss a chance to step into history, we headed over to witness it for ourselves. Read on for our review of London’s Ramses And The Pharaohs’ Gold exhibition…
Who exactly is Ramses the Great?
Not familiar with this pharaoh? Not to worry, to kick things off, you are introduced to Ramses II through a short video which speaks of his prosperous rule, experience on the battlefield, unique love for his queen and, well, commitment to ensuring his bloodline. Let’s just say I think having over 100 children puts the odds in his favour. It quickly becomes clear that Ramses was no wallflower, but pretty much the opposite. He was a man of many titles: king, god, warrior, peacemaker, builder and even basically the world’s first spin-doctor, with a desire for immortality which resulted in creative storytelling and masses of inscriptions and statues which bring his legend to life all these years later. All the better for us curious lot, it turns out.
What will you discover inside Ramses’ And The Pharaoh’s Gold?
It’s not often you are mere inches away from millennia-old objects, golden jewels and ornately-carved coffins which have lived through the rise and fall of empires, world wars, lethal plagues and the digital revolution. Oh, the tales these artefacts could tell. But lucky for us, words aren’t often necessary when you’re gazing at something where history basically oozes from each mark, dent and etching. Of course, the informative placards below each piece help as well.
The exhibition takes its cues from Ramses’ glittering era, with rich, royal-blue walls and clever, atmospheric lighting which somehow bathes even pale limestone statues and painted ostracons in a golden glow. It’s a fitting aesthetic, as gold was thought to be the skin of the gods and have divine properties, so it adds an extra dash of magic to the displays. Honestly, with all the gleaming treasures, I half expected a dragon to burst through the window or a mischief of magpies watching, twinkly-eyed, from the rafters.
As we started to wander through, I got the sense that every artefact was displayed with reverence for its precious history, from the foil fragments of horse and chariot trappings to the coffin of Ramses himself. There’s space for the artefacts themselves to do the talking (and enough room that you don’t all end up clustered around one display).
Highlights
You get to delve into every facet of Ramses as a human, husband and a powerful king, one moment staring into the granodiorite eyes of a ‘Young Ramses’ statue who, even as a boy, clutches a kingly heka sceptre, the next watching a dramatic depiction of the Battle of Kadesh unfold on a striking digital display which uses projection mapping to create immersive visuals of flying arrows and thundering chariots. The brutal scenes are a sobering contrast to the celebrated peace treaty that came as a result of the battle.
One thing in particular that caught my attention was the faience tiles which decorated his palace, not just because of the intriguing images inscribed, but also for the fact that he had tiles depicting his captives lining the floors, which meant he could regularly ‘crush them underfoot’. It seems even Pharaohs were a fan of puns, particularly the malicious kind.
While Ramses obviously takes the spotlight, as he likely would’ve wanted, his queen Nefatari also gets her time to shine, as do more of Ancient Egypt’s kings, queens, princesses, and even animals – to a degree. You get the chance to dig deeper into their traditions and beliefs, exploring the slightly unsettling rituals behind animal mummies, which could range from scarab beetles to lion cubs, as well as learning about the significant features of funerary masks, amulets and jewellery.
At the end, for an additional charge, there’s the opportunity to join the spirit of Queen Nefatari in a virtual reality exploration of the iconic Temple of Abu Simbel and the Queen’s tomb. Clambering into a golden egg-shaped seat, I slipped on the headset and found myself gliding through tunnels under the watchful eyes of giant statues. Just a heads up for the uneasy among you, there is a fair bit of movement and a tiny jump scare, that would have caught me more off guard if I hadn’t already felt like I had stepped into a scene from The Mummy (alas, no Brendan Fraser). However, it’s slightly different when you’re the one being inhaled by the giant sand face of a Pharaoh’s angry spirit.
A once-in-a-lifetime sight?
The, what you might call, star of the show is Ramses II’s intricately carved 3,000-year-old cedar coffin, so it’s no surprise that it gets its own room. While I did get caught up in some coffin-viewing congestion and had to shuffle to the side, it would be easy to spend a good chunk of time examining the hieroglyphs that adorn the lid and the impressive craftsmanship. I found myself repeatedly reminded of its ancient origins. That, thousands of years ago, someone carved every detail, from the sceptres to the crucial cobra on the headdress, with the intention of immortalisation. It’s fascinating to fathom in today’s world, though one man’s intense desire for a lasting legacy feels quite unsettlingly topical at the moment.
Ramses and the Pharaohs’ Gold exhibition wraps things up with a climactic limestone colossus, flanked by cinematic screens. It was one quite similar that inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet, Ozymandias, a contemplation of the ephemeral nature of power when faced with the inevitability of time. A purposeful choice to end on, or a ponderous coincidence, I wonder?…