AFP The blockbuster King Tut exhibit  opened in Chicago with eerily displayed artifacts offering a window into the world of the Pharaohs.

Glittering gold statues stand guard in rooms designed to look like tombs and the voice of film star Omar Sharif narrates an audio guide that gruesomely describes the mummification process.

The 3,000- to 3,500-year-old artifacts on show come from the tombs of 18th-dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamen and other royals buried in Egypt's famed Valley of the Kings.

The exhibit is more than twice the size of Tut's first world tour in 1977 when 50 objects - including his mummy's gold mask - drew millions of visitors and gave birth to the idea of a blockbuster museum show after fans camped out to get tickets.

Chicago's Field Museum has already sold nearly 200,000 advance tickets and expects the exhibit to draw a million visitors before it closes on January 1, 2007.

It is also expected to generate millions of dollars for the preservation and conservation of Egyptian monuments and the development of new museums there.

"Everyone should save his ticket because this ticket is proof that [part of] what you pay for the ticket goes to the preservation of Egypt," Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said at a media preview on Wednesday. "These monuments don't belong to us, they belong to the world."

Hawass said that the Egyptian government is building 13 new museums with an enhanced focus on education and said that the country has already seen an increase in tourism as a result of the publicity brought by the Tut exhibit, which drew millions in Los Angeles and Florida.

The boy king's intact tomb caused an international sensation when it was discovered by Briton Howard Carter in 1922. More than 5,000 beautifully preserved objects - including a chair with an intact wicker seat and a cosmetic jar that still contained animal fats and resins - were found.

"It was a spectacular discovery - a tomb untouched since antiquity, its inner sanctum never looted by tomb robbers," said James Phillips, Acting Curator of the Near East and North Africa at The Field Museum.

It was the only tomb of its era found intact and was the first major discovery in the age of easy worldwide communication.

While archaeologists say that King Tut was one of Egypt's least significant kings in terms of historical influence, he has always basked in a special spotlight, partly because of the legend of the famed curse of Tutankhamen that was credited with killing Carter and other members of his team.

There is also a great mystery surrounding Tutankhamen's death at the age of 19. Some theorized that he had been murdered, but CT scans have recently showed that it is more likely that he died of gangrene after breaking his leg.

Images of those scans, along with earlier x-rays and forensic reconstructions of the boy king, are also on display.

While the famed gold mask did not join this current exhibit - it was damaged in the last world tour and has been deemed too delicate to travel - the 130 objects included represent a treasure trove that is bound to thrill.

Clear blue glaze shines off ceramic symbols and statues. The gold diadem that circled Tutankhamen's head in life and in death glistens beneath its glass.

There is also his child-sized chair and footrest, a miniature coffin that held his mummified liver, model boats meant to ferry the king in the afterlife and the massive gold sarcophagus of Tjuya, who may have been King Tut's great-grandmother.

The Chicago exhibit is the third US stop in the tour. It will travel to Philadelphia from February 3, 2007 until September 30, 2007 and opens in London in November 2007.