Oriental Institute's museum has several different collections, among them an Egyptian collection of circa 30.000 objects.
The Institute was founded in 1909 by James Henry Breasted, who was an Egyptologist and an Orientalist. It was also him, who collected the main part of the collection. The other objects came into the collection through British Egypt Exploration Fund (later Egypt Exploration Society), who donated objects to the Institute, because the Institute was sponsoring their archaeological digs in Egypt. The Insitute also had their own digs in Egypt: Between 1926 and 1932 they excavated in Medinet Habu, which is the modern name of the Memorial Temple of Ramesses III.
The objects in the collection illustrates daily life, funerary beliefs and religion in Ancient Egypt. Have a look at their webpage here, where you can also find links to the other collections of the Institute.
During excavations in Medinet Habu in 1930, the archaeologists from the Oriental Institute found a colossus of boy king Tutankamun. Tutankhamun reigned from circa 1333 - 1324 BC. The colossus is 17 feet tall and even though it is of Tutankhamun, there are no inscriptions on it bearing his name. He probably died before his name was engraved on it. It was thus the man following Tut on the throne, the nobleman Ay, who engraved his own name an titulary on the colossus. After Ay was dead, he was followed by Horemheb, who skratched out Ay's name and titulary and engraved his own. The face of the colossus look exactly like the face on the famous goldmask of Tutankhamun, and that is why we know that it originally depicted him. You can read more about that here.
The image is taken by ricklibrarian.
The year after, excavators found yet another colossus of Tut, which is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Looking at this statue's face, it is once again clear, that it is Tutankhamun and not Ay or Horemheb.
The image is from the website of Oriental Institute.
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