All that glitters

The O2's exhibition of artefacts from ancient Egypt has been dismissed as "tacky" and "rapacious". The critics are wrong

Pharaonic Egypt has been blessed, or cursed, with a popular appeal that no other ancient civ ilisation can match. Its jackal-headed gods and glinting treasures have gripped our imagination since 1801, when Napoleon's army returned from Cairo laden with statues, papyri and pilfered grave-goods. From those light-fingered colonialists to B-movie directors and modern tour operators, kitsch, commerce and downright greed have been an inseparable part of Egyptology's history.

So, the camp and glitz of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs", brought to us by Arts and Exhibitions International (the commercial curators also responsible for "Diana: a Celebration", which is currently on show in Australia) in the less-than-scholarly surroundings of the former Millennium Dome, London, should have come as no surprise. Fastidious critics have been horrified by the venue ("utter bleakness"), the galleries, music and lighting ("theme park"), the selection of artefacts ("a meagre handful"), the £15-£20 admission charge ("rapacious") and the now-notorious gift shop ("shamelessly tacky").

There is a whiff of snake oil about the show. It is the first time these treasures have been displayed without the imprimatur of a respected museum - the partner organisations are National Geographic magazine and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Especially compared to the British Museum's serious-minded "Treasures of Tutankhamun" in 1972, this is partly about the money. Kellogg's is the "official cereal partner"; the shop sells King Tut shot glasses (£6.95) and "ancient, mysterious fragrance oils". Yet it is also about the politics and spin of a big-money discipline with colonial roots. Zahi Hawass, the outspoken head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, has masterminded publicity for the exhibition, letting it be known in passing that the British Museum has not yet agreed to lend the Rosetta Stone for the opening of Cairo's new Egyptian Museum in 2012, and stating incorrectly that Egypt "didn't get a penny" from the British Museum show.

So do the 130 objects displayed at the O2 survive the tat, the wrangling and the hype? The critics are wrong - they do. In fact, the spacious, well-lit exhibition shows off the sheer beauty of its contents better than any other display I have seen (and far better than the cramped, dilapidated galleries of the state-run Egyptian Museum in Cairo). At least some of its trappings are surprisingly sober - even improving. Labels, wall panels and maps provide clear and thoughtful information about the life and times of the 18th dynasty and their subjects. Even the audio guide, if you can keep a straight face through Omar Sharif's breathy narration, is perfectly sensible.

This is just as well, because the show navigates some choppy historical waters. Tutankhamun is often described as an "insignificant" pharaoh, no match for the glorious conquerors Ramses II and Tuthmosis III. But the 11-year reign that ended with his premature death in 1323BC coincided with one of the most turbulent times in ancient Egypt's history. After the long and peace-ful reigns of Amenhotep II and Amenhotep III, Tutankhamun's predecessor (and possibly father) Akhenaten abolished the worship of the old gods, established a new capital city, and proclaimed himself the only intermediary between his people and the new single god, the Aten. It was left to the young Tutankhamun, or more likely his powerful regent Ay, to restore the old gods and obliterate the traces of Aten worship.

The first several rooms of the O2 exhibition - and 80 of its objects - trace this upheaval and introduce the extraordinary personalities of Tutankhamun's tangled family tree. From the outset, they establish the strange synthesis of the everyday and the magical that characterises ancient Egyptian art. A three-foot model boat made for the tomb of Amenhotep II is shaped and coloured like boats that still sail the Nile today, but it is decorated with amuletic paintings of the pharaoh as a sphinx trampling Egypt's enemies. And not only was a jar in the shape of the squat dwarf-god Bes practical, but it transferred his protective powers to the ointment inside.

Some of the items show amazing observation from life: a spoon handle takes the form of a swimming woman, her arms and legs elegantly outstretched; the same long, clean lines reappear in a delicately carved panther made of resin-blacked wood. Some are nightmarishly surreal: the serpent-goddess Weret-Hekau raises a giant pair of multicoloured wings, her coils looping behind her. The contrast shows itself best in the royal sculpture portraits - especially a quartzite head of Meritaten, eldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, which is one of the most beautiful and surprising objects in the exhibition. The stone extends back from the princess's delicate features into an impossibly elongated skull, giving her the look of an exquisite alien.

Downstairs, the show finally reaches Tutan khamun's tomb. Despite the absence of the king's famous funerary mask and golden coffins, which have remained at the Cairo museum, there is plenty of treasure, including the minutely detailed dagger and jewellery found wrapped in the mummy's bandages. The objects in the cases reappear in black-and-white photographs of the tomb's discovery: a little cow-spotted stool perches humbly on the floor of an antechamber; a wooden bust of Tutankhamun, flanked by the archaeologist Howard Carter and an armed guard, is carried through the Valley of the Kings. At the centre of the shadowy room is a golden shrine base engraved with scenes showing Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, his wife and half-sister, hunting, drinking and worshipping. In one panel, she sits at his feet and rests her elbow fondly on his knees. On a ritual object, the gesture is all the more intimate. As with everything else in the exhibition, no amount of glitz could dull its strange beauty.

"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" is at the O2, London SE10, until 30 August 2008. www.kingtut.org