It was good to be pharaoh.

Nebkheprure Tutankhamun, better known among Westerners as King Tut, slept in golden beds, rode in golden chariots and was entombed in a golden coffin.

Worshipped as a god more than 3,000 years ago, the boy king represents the height of power during Egypt's 18th Dynasty. He lived more than 1,000 years before Jesus Christ was born, and some 2,900 years before Montana received statehood.

More than 100 relics of adoration entombed with the Egyptian pharaoh have finally arrived in Montana - minus his mummy's curse. Most of the objects at the Museum of the Rockies' tantalizing new exhibit, "Tutankhamun: 'Wonderful Things' from the Pharaoh's Tomb," are reproductions of the originals, which no longer travel.

The reproductions were crafted by artisans at the Pharaonic Village in Egypt, as well as the Field Museum in Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As a collection, they offer visitors a rare chance to peer into an ancient world of life and death.

Marty Martin, the exhibit's co-creator, spent one day last week guiding docents through the display. Under the melancholy glow of the museum lights, Martin paused by golden statues and alabaster vessels, offering insight to the pharaoh's life and times.

"We know from the flowers he was buried with that he died in the month of March," Martin said. "He was also buried without any ribs. Something disfigured his ribs enough that it would have been considered profane to bury him that way. It leads one to wonder if there was a chariot accident."

Some speculate that Tut was murdered. Even Martin believes that if a chariot accident caused the pharaoh's untimely death, it may still have been an "accident of convenience."

A ritual couch is just one of the relics adorning the exhibit. Three golden couches were found in Tut's tomb and were, Martin said, the first thing archaeologist Howard Carter saw when he peered into the antechamber back in 1922 and uttered the words, "Many wonderful things!"

Carter, 48 at the time, had spent years searching the Valley of the Kings for Tutankhamun's tomb. The dig's financier, Lord Carnarvon, was growing dissatisfied with the lack of return on his investment and, in 1922, he gave Carter one last season to locate the tomb.

By early November, Carter had unearthed the top of the staircase descending into the tomb. Several weeks later, he reached a plaster wall. In late November, he punched through the barrier to make one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history.

It took a decade to remove and catalogue the items found in the tomb: the golden shrine, the winged Isis and a painted linen chest. During the process, Carnarvon died of pneumonia. Reporters ran with the story and whispers soon spread of a mummy's curse. A new legend was born and an old pharaoh was resurrected 3,000 years after his death.

"An archeologist in Egypt in the 1920s was more of an adventurer, a kind of plunderer, than he was a scientist," Martin said. "It really shocked them when they pulled the sarcophagus out of the coffin because it was so heavy. They soon found out why - the inner-most coffin was made of solid gold."

Carter reached the burial chamber in the early months of 1923. Two golden statues sat inside the door. They're here on display, representing the pharaoh's "ka" and "ba."

Martin explained how ancient Egyptians believed a person's life force - the "ka" - and their soul - the "ba" - would reunite with the body after death, allowing the person to live forever. The belief made it essential to preserve one's body for perpetuity. It was a skill the Egyptians nearly perfected though the process of mummification.

"It takes 70 days to build a mummy," Martin said. "They did their best to preserve every organ, including the heart. It must not weigh more than the feather on the counter-balance, or your life will retroactively dissolve."

Tutankhamun's body was wrapped in many layers of linen and resin. Within the layers, archaeologists found protective amulets. Carter did his best to catalog the artifacts found on the mummy, but the body, Martin said, was nearly destroyed in the process.

The mummy on exhibit at the Museum of the Rockies is a replica of the pharaoh's own body. So is the pharaoh's coffin, which is covered in gold leaf for the sake of display. To an untrained eye, however, the difference is minimal. The artifacts are near-perfect reproductions that represent painstaking work by skilled craftsmen.

During the 1970s, the actual artifacts found in Tutankhamun's tomb traveled as a museum exhibit. Now, Martin said, moving and displaying the pharaoh's original treasure is rare due to its age and value.

The golden bed (one of six found at the site) shows signs of actual use. It was discovered in the pharaoh's annex, located just off the antechamber, and lights up the display room with its golden sheen. The golden ankh, found in the treasury, is shaped to symbolize life.

Also found in the treasury was Tut's crook and flail. Nearby, a statue of the pharaoh making his pilgrimage through the netherworld speaks to his culture's old beliefs, and gives Martin a moment of pause.

"When a pharaoh is resurrected, he must start all over again in life," Martin said. "Naturally, they have a teeny-tiny goddess to carry him around. This is the beginning of his rebirth and resurrection."

A detailed wishing cup was found just inside the entrance to the tomb. Carved from a single block of alabaster, the engraved chalice reads, "May your spirit live and may you spend millions of years, you who cherish Thebes, sitting with your face to the north wind, your eyes gazing upon joy."

Martin, who tells haunting and vivid stories about the items and their meaning - their everlasting significance - said Egyptian culture pervades American society, though most are unaware of how much that is so.

"We're driving cars with their wheels, and we're wearing their linens," he said. "In a sense, we're still an extension of their original civilization five millennia later. In some way or another, ancient Egypt was modern, especially for those of us who can appreciate their aesthetics."

Reporter Martin Kidston

can be reached at 447-4086,

or at mkidston@helenair.com