Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" is making its final U.S. stop at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, where it will remain until Sept. 30. Next is London.

In Philadelphia, the whole city is caught up in the excitement, with Egyptian menus at restaurants, Tut-tini cocktails, Cleopatra spa treatments and Egyptian-inspired jewelry. A Tut Trail for geocache enthusiasts is in the works. There's even a Tut Trolley to shuttle visitors between the Franklin Institute and a companion exhibition at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

It's a different vibe and a different exhibit from the first Tut visit, when Tut-mania swept the nation. Nearly 8 million people saw Tut artifacts during a 1976-79 "Treasures of Tutankhamun" tour that included the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

This time, Tut takes his place in context. More than half the current exhibition, including many of the flashiest artifacts, details the lives of his father and grandparents. Tut's burial mask is considered too fragile to travel, so the gilded funerary mask and gilded coffin on display are those of Tjuya, who was probably Tut's great-grandmother. Until Tut's tomb, the discovery of the burial chamber of Tjuya and her husband, Yuya, was considered the richest find of the 20th century.

From Tut's treasures, the most elaborate item is ]a miniature gold coffin inlaid with colored glass and semiprecious stones. Four of the 15½-inch coffinettes were placed in a canopic chest to enshrine his mummified vital organs, this particular one for his liver.

Among the 50-some other objects from Tut's tomb, you'll likely be impressed by:

• a white calcite bust of Tut from the canopic chest;

• a cloisonné pectoral necklace showing a detailed scene of the king with the gods Ptah and Sekhmet;

• a scarab pectoral that symbolically spells out his throne name;

• statuettes of the king wearing the crowns of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt; and

• three pieces of gold that were wrapped up with the mummy: a diadem worn by Tutankhamun in life and in death, a collar in the shape of a falcon and an elaborately engraved dagger.

The most enduring image of Tut to take away from this exhibition may be the simplest one. It's a life-size wooden mannequin that may have been used to hold ceremonial garments. Gaze at that face and a boy looks back at you, not a king.

Tut was still a boy when he came to the throne in 1332 B.C. at age 9 or 10. He died unexpectedly when he was about 19. X-rays of his mummy had created suspicions that he died from a blow to the head. In 2005, a CT scan disproved that theory but revealed a serious leg fracture that had occurred within days of his death.

His brief reign came at a pivotal time in Egypt. His father, Akhenaten, had made radical changes in Egypt's religion during a 17-year reign that ended in 1336 B.C. Akhenaten abolished the traditional gods in favor of the sun-disk Aten and honored Aten with a new city, Amarna. Tut returned the nation to the traditional deities and moved the court back to Memphis.

At the Penn Museum, "Amarna, Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun" gives insight into the unique royal city where Tut grew up in the royal court of Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti.

Artifacts displayed at the Penn Museum come from more than a century of Egyptian digs sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. David Silverman, Egyptology professor, is national curator for the current Tut exhibition. He was co-author of the text panels and labels for the 1970s Tut exhibition.

The university is the reason that Philadelphia got the Tutankhamun "Golden Age" exhibition. Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, earned his doctorate at Penn. He said that he insisted on bringing it to Philadelphia. "It's my way to pay back," he said.

Egypt also is getting a big payday from this Tut tour, in contrast to the 1970s version, which Hawass says shortchanged the mother country. Ticket and merchandise sales at each venue produce $10 million to $11 million for Egyptian preservation efforts, Hawass said. The exhibition host earns $2 million to $4 million, he said.

The other host institutions have been art museums in Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., (with opening dates in 2005) and the natural history museum in Chicago (2006). Attendance has ranged between 700,000 and 1 million people at each. With a record 400,000 advance ticket sales, Philadelphia expects more than 1 million visitors.

The Franklin Institute is the first science museum venue and the first place where part of the exhibition is accessible without a special ticket. Explanations of scientific discoveries through X-rays and CT scans of the mummy are in a separate room outside the gift shop.

The exhibition takes a twisting path through 12 rooms connected by a walkway over the atrium. Designer David Lach enclosed the walkway and used the disruption as a transition from Tut's family to Tut's rule. Children's voices echo below as you walk away from Tut's childhood and walk toward his future.

The boy king awaits in all his splendor.