Exhibition extravaganza

Shanghai Museum will hold 14 special exhibitions at its People's Square and eastern venues, and another four in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and Hungary, Italy and Japan this year.

An exhibition at the People's Square venue from July 19 will showcase ancient Egyptian artifacts. Co-organized by Shanghai Museum and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the exhibition will be the largest-ever display of Egyptian artifacts outside the North African country.

It'll showcase 800 objects that document the development of ancient Egyptian civilization and showcase the latest archaeological findings from Egypt's Saqqara archaeological site.

"Over 95 percent of the artifacts will be arriving in Asia for the first time, and almost all of them are being shown in China for the first time," says Chu.

The highest-profile exhibits include the statues of Amenhotep IV and Tutankhamen from Egypt's 18th Dynasty (c. 16th-13th century BC), a mummy portrait from the Ptolemaic period (305-30 BC) and a wooden coffin recently unearthed in Saqqara.