Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh Exhibition

* Disclosure - I was invited to attend the family press day and was therefore provided with exhibition tickets in exchange for an honest unpaid review. All other costs were covered by myself.


The kids and I love history, in fact, most weekends are spent exploring one of the many amazing castle ruins we have in Wales or on rainy days we head to museums, so when we were invited to visit the Tutankhamun exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery which on until the 3rd May 2020 and we were really excited to see it.

Having done a little research pre-trip I decided to leave my youngest (who is 4), at home, while I know he would of loved it, the exhibition takes around an hour to get through and there is quite a lot of literature alongside all the priceless artefacts and I knew that both my eldest (who is 9) and I would want to take the time to read about everything and not rush through and it also meant some much-needed one on one time with my eldest.

As we had to be their pretty early, we were up at 4:30am to catch the early train so I was apprehensive about how that would go but it was fine, we headed to bed really early so felt ready for the adventure ahead. Despite visiting London a couple of times a year this was our first visit to the Saatchi Gallery, which is located in the pretty borough of Chelsea, which is a lovely part to explore in itself.

I'd like to point out that your ticket works on a timed entry system and you need to arrive within those times and it can take up to 30mins to pass through security, although we found it less than that, but do keep things simple and don't bring to much along with you. Once we passed through security you have the option to take an audio guide which we did along with a family trail which proved to be a fun and engaging way to explore the exhibition.

For those who don't know much about what the exhibition entails, it's more than 150 original objects from the tomb which 60 pieces travelling out of Egypt for the first and last time, making this exhibition really special. The artefact highlights include the life-sized guardian statue of the king, funeral bed, gold inlaid hands holding the crook and flail and the famous gold coffinette.

The exhibition takes you through the timeline of how Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in The Valley of Kings and getting to know the life of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon and it was really fascinating and digestible for all ages.

We spent a good hour taking in everything before heading to the cafe for some coffee and pastries and a moment to sit down and recoup. We wanted to make the most of our time in London as possible and I had seen that the National Army Museum was only a 10-minute walk from the Saatchi Gallery and while the military is not something I am overly interested in, my son is and again it's apart of our history.

On the way to the museum, we stumble upon the house of where the author of Mary Poppins use to live, that's what I love about London is you never know what you're going to find. The National Army Museum is a free museum with some great facilities for kids and has lots of interactive displays including being taking over a tank, army style training from a virtual commander, crawling under a scout car and trying on a variety of outfits and army costumes.

There is also a small shop, cafe and a play base soft play area, you need to book into this and there is a nominal charge and is suitable for children up to 8yrs old.

Overall we had an amazing time at the Saatchi Gallery and with many of these artefacts never going on tour again once they return to Egypt I would highly recommend you visit it now, it's well worth the money. The National army museum is also a great place to explore with kids if you wanting to explore more of the area.