Sydney will be one of only 10 cities it visits, marking the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter. The upgrades to the museum for the exhibition will be funded in next week's budget. “The Tutankhamun exhibition is a game-changer for Sydney and Australia," Mr Harwin said. Gold Wesekh Collar and Counterpoise Vulture with Spread Wings and Uraeus Credit:Supplies "Sydney is the major cultural city in the Pacific/South East Asian region, and the significant upgrades to the Australian Museum will ensure we have world-class museum exhibition spaces for visitors as well as residents to enjoy.

“As well as the transformed exhibition space, the refurbishment will also create new education facilities, enabling school student visitors to double to 100,000 a year – all completed in time to host the Tutankhamun exhibition." The exhibition will feature more than 150 objects from King Tut’s tomb, including 60 treasures never previously displayed outside Egypt. Naguib Kanawati, professor of Egytpology at Macquarie University, said the exhibition was an "incredible coup" for Australia. Colossal Quartzite Statue of Tutankhamun. Credit:Supplies "I couldn't believe that an Egyptian exhibition like this would come to Australia, we are very fortunate," Professor Kanawati said.

"This is obviously an irreplaceable heritage and absolutely this is the last time these items will leave Egypt because they are packed up just while the Grand Museum is being built." Professor Kanawati said King Tut's coffin would not be included in the artefacts because it is "pure gold and too heavy" to be moved. "But we will get a miniature coffin, a canopic coffinette, which is where his liver was," he said. "There are four of those but just by getting one tells us everything we need to know." Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the upgrades would deliver a boost to the culture economy.