Ramses the Great checks in, and turns on, at SF’s de Young Museum

It’s as if the Discovery Channel set up shop in Golden Gate Park to celebrate the pharaoh Ramses II and ancient Egyptian culture.

It’s a show complete with large-scale videos, drone photography, deep-voiced narration and soundtrack music throughout galleries at the de Young Museum.

Behold “Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs.” It’s not just an exhibit but a multimedia production created by World Heritage Exhibitions, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Cityneon, which has also toured shows about Cleopatra and Machu Picchu.

There are plenty of authentic Egyptian artifacts as well, even if they are sometimes overshadowed by the video presentations and backlit pictorials.

Ramses II reigned for an astonishing 67 years beginning in 1292 B.C., so there’s a vast amount of material to source from Egyptian museums. It means a somewhat cramped route through the exhibit, and a $40 top ticket price. “Ramses” is all on view at the de Young through Feb. 12.

The production certainly brings ancient Egypt to life, beginning with an entry-lobby film that condenses Ramses’ achievements (at the peak of Egypt’s power) into a four-minute Hollywood-style mini-epic. Then the dimly-lit pathway leads visitors into another world.

“Immersive” is the current catchword for museum exhibits. This show has a separate, 10-minute virtual reality experience for the adventurous. But more modest production techniques, at their best, explore and explain ancient Egyptian history and culture, better than mere labels.

A video identifies the goddess Isis and the underworld god Osiris, seen on a painted and gilded limestone relief. Another video begins with a temple in ruins, and then re-creates it in its original form, with brightly painted ornaments. A three-screen installation replays Ramses’ decisive battle against the Hittites on the Orontes River.

Stone fragments, models and large-scale photographs depict the majestic temples constructed by Ramses — some usurped from past rulers. Ramses built seven temples in Nubia, along a stretch of the Nile, including two carved into the red sandstone cliffs at Abu Simbel.

The centerpiece of one dazzling display is the outer coffin of the artist Sennedjem, who prepared coffins for Ramses and the pharaoh’s father Seti. Elaborate paintings follow his journey through the underworld, with magic spells from Egyptian texts. But no need to squint. The gallery’s walls and ceiling carry bright, enlarged close-ups of the details.

Objects that would be at home in more traditional exhibits gain from visual insights. Among them is a limestone block carved and painted showing Ramses, axe in hand, about to smite three of Egypt’s traditional enemies: Syrian, Nubian and Libyan.

And then there are the mummies.

“Exhibited for the first time,” touts the label, are mummified cats (three), a lion cub, a mongoose, a crocodile and scarab beetles, along with a video explaining the Egyptians’ veneration of these animals. These are recent finds from a burial ground near the ancient city of Memphis. Archaeologists speculate that further excavations may uncover 15 million animal mummies.

Ramses’ own mummy was saved — though it’s not on tour — but his tomb was plundered and damaged by flooding. To provide the atmosphere of a pharaoh’s burial place, the tomb walls of Ramses’ father were reproduced, and a gold death mask of the earlier Middle Kingdom ruler Senwosrat I is displayed.

Smaller artifacts might get overlooked in this production’s hoopla, but they are worth seeking out. There are faience tiles, the colors still bright, depicting war captives. There is an elaborate necklace, as well as rings and earrings, made of gold and carnelian, with beads shaped like poppy heads.

Ramses’ power is suggested by sculptures and the fragments of the tops of obelisks, with the monuments’ history also detailed. The first on view is a red granite head of Ramses, eight feet tall, from a colossal statue. A label notes it was “reworked” from the statue of an earlier king. Same for the upper part of an obelisk “usurped by Ramses.”

One impressive sculpture honoring Ramses is a half-human, half-lion sphinx that once stood in the temple of Amun Re, king of the gods, at the famed Karnak temple complex. Another, installed as an “epilogue” to the exhibit, is a 6-foot-tall fragment from the upper part of a colossal statue.

The de Young installation, although produced by World Heritage Exhibitions, was curated by Zahi Hawass, former Egyptian minister of antiquities, and locally by Renee Dreyfus, the Fine Arts Museums’ curator in charge of ancient art.

Dreyfus worked on the de Young’s two popular King Tut exhibits, but she said Ramses has a special role.

“The temples he erected, statues he commissioned, monuments he inscribed throughout Egypt and Nubia, and funerary temple and royal tomb he built were reminders of his earthly powers and closeness to the gods,” she said. “The proliferation of his name led to it becoming almost a synonym for kingship.”

‘RAMSES THE GREAT AND THE GOLD OF THE PHARAOHS’

Through: Feb. 12

Where: de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday

Admission: $25-$40; 10-minute virtual reality experience, $18.

Health & safety: Proof of vaccination not required for general access but is required for certain onsite events, masks recommended but not required

Contact: 415-750-3600, deyoung.famsf.org.