The Hong Kong Palace Museum’s special exhibition on ancient Egyptian civilization closed at 6pm on Monday after drawing more than 670,000 visitors over its nine-and-a-half-month run.
Touted as the largest and highest-level exhibition of ancient Egyptian civilization ever staged in Hong Kong, Ancient Egypt Unveiled: Treasures from Egyptian Museums brought together 250 artifacts from seven major Egyptian museums, alongside recent archaeological discoveries from Saqqara.
The exhibits spanned nearly 5,000 years of ancient Egyptian history and included more than 60 statues of pharaohs and deities, painted stelae with inscriptions, eight animal mummies, seven sets of painted mummy coffins, funerary masks, royal jewelry and everyday objects used by the nobility.
Ahead of the closing, H.E. Hisham El-Leithy, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, visited the exhibition accompanied by Hong Kong Palace Museum director Louis Ng Chi-wa and Egypt’s acting consul general in Hong Kong and Macau, Anas Shadi.
Ng said the exhibition reflected the museum’s aim of connecting civilizations through a Hong Kong perspective and combining scholarship with new approaches to digital technology and exhibition design.
He said the museum hoped to deepen cooperation with Egyptian cultural institutions in areas including exhibitions, research and digital innovation, allowing exchanges between Chinese and Egyptian civilizations to continue beyond the show.
El-Leithy described the exhibition as an important milestone in cultural exchange between Egypt and China and welcomed the strong public interest it had generated.
He also thanked the Hong Kong Palace Museum for donating a digital multimedia work featuring a monumental statue of Tutankhamun to the Egyptian Museum, and expressed hope that more Egyptian cultural treasures could be presented to audiences in China and elsewhere in Asia.
Meanwhile, the museum developed around 170 cultural and creative products around the exhibition, generating more than HK$33 million in revenue.
Among the more popular exhibition-exclusive items were black cat plush ornaments and blind boxes, along with exhibition catalogs and children’s publications.
The museum said the sales reflected the commercial potential of cultural products tied to major exhibitions, while also extending the visitor experience beyond the galleries.
One of the most visible elements was the museum-created “Pharaoh Cat” intellectual property, which appeared in a series of collaborations with transport operators, tourism bodies and lifestyle brands.
These included an MTR-themed roving exhibition, a Kowloon Motor Bus “Pharaoh Cat” themed bus, limited-edition food and beverage collaborations with Starbucks, as well as promotional tie-ups with the Hong Kong Tourism Board and Hong Kong Disneyland Resort.
The museum worked with more than 10 partners across tourism, transport and lifestyle sectors during the exhibition period.
The exhibition coincided with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Egypt in 2026, positioning the show as both a major cultural attraction and a broader platform for exchange between the two countries.
marco.lam@singtaonewscorp.com
