Guardian: By Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent:When Tutankhamun And The Golden Age of the Pharaohs opens at the former Millennium Dome in November, it will be the most popular exhibition Britain has ever seen, its organisers predict. The last time treasures from Tutankhamun's tomb came to the UK in 1972, 1.7 million people queued for hours to see them at the British Museum.

On this occasion, even though the boy king's famous golden mask is too fragile to travel, the organisers promise no queues, even though they expect two million visitors to the dome. That is despite its troubled history and disappointing visitor figures in 2000, and also despite the fact that the exhibition will have the highest entrance charge ever for such an event.

The ticket price for groups is already set at أ‚آ£13.50 per head. Though the commercial organisers (who include AEG Exhibitions, the American entertainment giant which runs the dome, now called the O2) will not confirm the individual ticket price until September, they indicated yesterday that it would be around أ‚آ£15.

According to Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's supreme council of antiquities, the profit from the exhibition is urgently needed by the Egypt to safeguard the future of its antiquities and monuments. Unless drastic steps are taken, he warned, in 50 years its tombs and artefacts could be irreparably damaged by mass tourism.

The Tutankhamun exhibition, and a smaller show next year, will bring a total of $100m (أ‚آ£51m) to conserve Egypt's cultural heritage, said Dr Hawass. The exhibition has been seen in three US venues: Fort Lauderdale, Chicago and Los Angeles. In Chicago alone, it raised $12m for Egypt to pay for conservation of antiquities and museum projects.

Dr Hawass said: "When the show opened in LA, people complained [about the price]. A large part of the ticket price will go back to Egypt. We think this is fair; after all, the monuments belong to everyone. If this ticket is expensive, it doesn't go into the pockets of the organisers, it goes into the monuments."

According to Dr Hawass, Egypt will receive 60-70% of the profit. He said that in the 1970s, a tour of the treasures had failed to make money for Egypt, and this time there would be "no free meals". His radical steps to protect antiquities include building precise replicas of some important tombs for visitors to see, rather than go round the originals. "Tourism is the main destroyer of monuments," he said. "Severe action is needed."

Dr Hawass had to seek special permission from Egypt's parliament for the artefacts to travel. During the tour in the 1970s, a golden statue of the goddess Selket was damaged in Germany. The government then forbade further touring of the Tutankhamun treasures. The organisers say that they are completely confident the objects will be safe this time. In fact, Dr Hawass argues, they have received more care and conservation than many still in the Cairo museum.

However, some, like the golden mask, are deemed too precious. "We cannot let it travel. It doesn't belong to us; it's for everyone. And if anything happened to that mask, the world would never forgive us."

The exhibition was offered to the British Museum; however, the timing clashes with The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army, in September. Dr Hawass said: "I wanted it to come to the museum. But they do not have enough space. If you put it there, people will not see it beautifully." The museum will provide curatorial support and educational materials. A spokeswoman said: "It's not really a clash with the Terracotta Army. It will be a chance to see objects from the two greatest tomb burials in world archaeology."

The exhibition will open with a beautiful painted-wood torso of the young king, moving on to his immediate ancestors, via an impressive life-size double statue of his great-grandfather, Tutmosis IV, and his mother.

There will be exquisite domestic objects, such as an unguent spoon with a nubile swimming woman as its handle. The importance of the Nile will be stressed with objects such as a stunning model of a boat from the tomb of Amenhotep II. The organisers promise - in the words of Howard Carter on first peering into the boy king's tomb - "the glint of gold everywhere".

Tutankhamun was eight or nine when he acceded to the throne in 1332BC. He died 10 or so years later and was buried in the Valley of the Kings, a canyon on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. Recent CT scans have suggested he suffered an extremely severe leg-break a few days before his death. After his demise, the pharaohs erased his name from official records, which ensured his immortality. While other tombs were robbed, his remained undiscovered. Until, that is, archeologist Howard Carter decided in 1922 to focus his excavations on a hitherto unexplored area below the tomb of Ramses VI. The next month he and his men found a staircase to a doorway blocked with stones, the start of a discovery that saw objects of gold, alabaster, semi-precious stones, wood and glass emerge.