This photo taken on July 17, 2024 shows the standing statue of King Merneptah outside the Shanghai Museum on the People's Square in east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)
SHANGHAI, May 18 (Xinhua) -- An ancient Egypt-themed exhibition at the Shanghai Museum has become the world's most visited paid special exhibition of cultural relics, museum officials said, marking another milestone in China's cultural tourism boom.
The exhibition, titled "On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt," was the largest of its kind held outside Egypt over the past 20 years.
Since its opening in July 2024, the exhibition has drawn over 2 million visitors and generated 580 million yuan (about 80.6 million U.S. dollars) in tourism revenue, museum officials announced ahead of the International Museum Day, which falls on Sunday.
The museum estimates that visitor numbers will exceed 2.5 million and revenue could exceed 700 million yuan by its closing in mid-August this year.
Co-hosted by the Shanghai Museum and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the exhibition features 788 artifacts from Egypt, including many unearthed at the site of the Bubasteion of Saqqara in Egypt, which was dedicated to the cat goddess Bastet. It also includes dozens of ancient Chinese artifacts to create a dialogue between the two millennia-old civilizations.
Chu Xiaobo, curator of the Shanghai Museum, described the exhibition as an important cultural exchange program between China and Egypt, praising it as one of the world's most remarkable "super exhibitions" in recent years.
The exhibition has previously made headlines with its innovative arrangements, including night events that invited audiences to bring pet cats, as well as a best-selling parallel virtual reality (VR) experience of the Pyramid of Khufu.
The Shanghai Museum said it has released over 1,000 cultural and creative products themed on the exhibition, ranging from apparel to toys, leveraging China's strength as the world's largest toy designer and manufacturer.
The exhibition on ancient Egyptian civilization was a great success and truly fascinating, said Egypt's top archaeologist and Egyptologist Zahi Hawass.
A visitor looks at a face mask for a female mummy during a media preview of the exhibition "On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt" at the Shanghai Museum in east China's Shanghai, July 16, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)
The great success of the exhibition has taken place as China is experiencing a boom in the cultural and tourism sector, with museums drawing unprecedented interest from tourists.
During the just-concluded May Day holiday, museums across China recorded more than 60.49 million visits, setting a new record and marking a 17-percent increase year on year.
In 2024, Chinese museums received over 1.4 billion visits, a new record high after 1.29 billion visits in 2023, according to the National Cultural Heritage Administration.
The Egyptian exhibition in Shanghai has seen nearly 70 percent of its visitors coming from outside the city. Local officials have hailed the exhibition for boosting cultural and tourism consumption in the metropolis.
Egyptian officials have viewed the exhibition as a way to promote Egyptian tourist destinations in the Chinese market, emphasizing the appeal of cultural tourism to Chinese tourists.
The exhibition is believed to have boosted Chinese interest in Egyptian travel. Egyptian authorities said the number of Chinese tourists to Egypt surged by 63 percent year on year in 2024.
With fewer than 100 days remaining for the exhibition, the museum is expanding its outreach in other parts of the country, with Pharaoh-themed events scheduled to be held across Chinese cities, including Chengdu, Xi'an, Kaifeng, Hangzhou and Nanjing.
In the final week, it will be open 24 hours a day, aiming to set another world record of non-stop opening for 168 hours.
"The ancient Egyptian exhibition offers one of the most exciting dialogues of two ancient civilizations, which brings visual enjoyment and a rare cultural experience," said Poo Mu-chou, a retired professor with the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The impact it brings is long-lasting and its significance goes far beyond simple data."
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