ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARTIFACTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT.

As the world's longest river, the Nile--with its annual rhythm of flooding--helped establish what is arguably mankind's oldest civilization. For more than 30 centuries, Egyptians along the Nile strove to make order of the natural world through their art, architecture, religion, and lifestyle. About 140 works demonstrating this rich landscape and culture are on view at the Seattle (Wash.) Art Museum.

The exhibition reveals the treasures of more than a century of archaeological excavations by the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and includes objects dating from the third millennium B.C. to the Greco-Roman period (332 B.C.-642 A.D.). Over the years, university archaeologists have worked with such important monuments as the palace of King Merenptah--the only excavated ancient Egyptian royal palace on view anywhere--and the massive 4,300-year-old funerary chapel honoring the nobleman Kaipure, which recently was conserved and forms the architectural centerpiece of the exhibition.

The exhibition...