TREASURES FROM THE PAST A.V. MUSEUM SHOWCASES EGYPTIAN DISPLAY.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Haven't got down to Los Angeles to see King Tut's treasures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art? Didn't want to spend $25 to $75?

Lancaster Museum Art Gallery opens Saturday an Egyptian display of its own with more than a millennium's worth of sculpture, jewelry, cosmetic objects and funerary equipment - and admission is free.

A Middle Kingdom coffin from about 1800 B.C. and wooden sarcophagus masks from 1500 B.C. - both older than Tut's treasures - will be on display, along with mummified falcons, wooden statuettes, bronze figurines, and headrests.

The exhibit also includes a life-size replica of a chariot, a re-created everyday house scene, and replica Osiris, sphinx and hawk statues that provided scenery in the 1956 movie ``The Ten Commandments.''

Ancient Egyptian civilization's continuing fascination for Americans may be due to its providing an accessible link to the distant past, with the additional attraction of riches buried in support of an afterlife.

``People think about King Tut and the gold: you can take it with you. People like hearing about expensive things,'' curator Norma Gurba said.

Gurba calls the Egyptian civilization one of the greatest in the ancient world, and certainly the longest lived - lasting more than 3,000 years.

Items on exhibit in Lancaster range from the Middle Kingdom through the late period, which ended around 332 B.C. with Egypt's conquest by Alexander the Great.

Museum visitors can enter a raffle to win an authentic Egyptian antiquity: a shawabty, a tiny statue of a servant.

The statuette was buried in a tomb to serve the departed in the afterlife because, unlike in movies, Pharaohs didn't kill their servants to be buried with them, Gurba said.

``That's Hollywood,'' she said.

The display opens with a public reception from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. A lecture at 2 p.m. is by former Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History curator of archaeology Jay Bisno on ``You Can Take It With You... The Importance of Magic in King Tut's Tomb.''

A drawing by the LMAG Associates, the museum's fundraising organization, will raffle off the shawabty and tickets to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana to see an exhibit of mummies. Grand prize is air fare, hotel stay and tickets to San Francisco's De Young Museum's show on woman pharaoh Hatshepsut, who ruled about 130 years before Tut.

The museum will also have an ``Egyptian Bazaar Gift Shop'' selling Egyptian-themed items and toys, books, belly-dancing clothing and authentic artifacts.

The exhibit was financed with sponsorships from Boeing, First City Credit Union, California Tile Supply, All About Stone, and Healy Anytime Glass.

The sponsorships enabled the museum to buy artifacts and items including the falcon mummies, the replica chariot, sarcophagi masks and jewelry. Those items will be toured later through local schools, Gurba said.

``A lot of kids don't get a chance to go down below to see it,'' she said.

The museum is at 44801 Sierra Highway. It is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. It is closed Mondays and holidays. Admission is free. To arrange a school tour or for more information call [phone].

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Larissa Nickel, an aide at the Lancaster Art Gallery, prepares a chariot scene for an exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Above, tiny shawabty figures such as these pictured were buried in tombs to serve the departed in the afterlife. A shawabty will be raffled off as a fundraiser. At left, this wall relief and many other artifacts will be on display during the free exhibit that opens Saturday at the Lancaster Art Museum.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer