EGYPTIAN ARTIFACTS ON WAY TO U.S.

An exhibit of 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts now in Montreal will visit four more cities in the United States and Canada, it was announced.

The artifacts are insured for $35 million. “We know they are worth much more than that,” said Dr. Jeffrey R. Holland, president of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. “They are priceless.”

Brigham Young will be the site of the first exhibition in the United States. The artifacts will be on view there from Oct. 25 to April 5, 1986.

From Provo, they will go to Vancouver, B.C., from May 3-Oct. 15, 1986; then to Jacksonville, Fla., from Nov. 15, 1986, to March 5, 1987, and to Memphis, Tenn., from April 15-Aug. 31, 1987.

The antiquities include four of the huge colossus statues for which the ancient Egyptians were known, a famous papyrus, the world’s first known water clock and several items of gold and jewelry from the era of Pharaoh Ramses II. He died in 1225 BC after a 67-year reign regarded as culturally one of the richest of ancient Egypt.

Dr. Ahmed Kadry, director of the Egyptian Antiquities Department, said proceeds from the U.S. and Canadian showings will help finance two proposed museums in Egypt. He said the sponsors of each exhibition had guaranteed $350,000 to the Egyptian government, “but they may yield more.”

“The funds will go toward financing projects for the National Museum for Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, which will cost about $65 million, and the Nubian Monuments Museum in Aswan, which will cost about $18 million,” Kadry said.

Aswan is 615 miles south of Cairo and was the eastern limit of the Egyptian empire under Ramses II.