"Water supports life in lakes, in mountains — mountains are large reservoirs or water," Asher Shomrone, founder and executive of the New York Museum of Water, said at a New York City event on March 22, World Water Day. "Our civilization is water. Life is water. We are water."

An opening date for the museum is less than, well, solid right now, as another $500,000 to $1 million will be needed to find a space in Manhattan, hire more than a skeleton staff and see to the basic needs of an institution, Shomrone says.

***

So far, Shomrone has funded the preparations for the museum through private donations and money from friends and family. The museum itself is a program of the 1-BluePlanet Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing potable water to 250 million of the world's neediest people by 2015.

"We're right on watershed, as it were, about whether we're going to create a real viable future," said Johnanne Winchester, vice president of international alliances for the communications-coordination committee for the U.N.

We are on a mission to create entertainment centers that act as an ambassador for water, its protection, and our childrens future access to clean and ample water. Our purpose is to create the world's clearinghouse for all water related themes and to do it in an entertaining and accessible fashion that engages as wide an audience as possible and brings joy and wonder to peoples lives.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is an exhibition from National Geographic. Organized by Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions in association with The Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt and The Field Museum. Tour Sponsor is Northern Trust. Chicago Sponsor is Exelon, Proud Parent of ComEd.

Howard Carter had spent five years searching the Valley of the Kings for the tomb of Tutankhamun. His funding was coming to an end, but he persuaded his patron, Lord Carnarvon, to support his work for one more season. A few days after digging began again, a young water-carrier put his hand on a stone step.

"It was a spectacular discovery -- a tomb untouched since antiquity, its inner sanctum never looted by tomb robbers," says James L. Phillips, Acting Curator of the Near East and North Africa at The Field Museum and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The only tomb of its era found intact, it was also, Phillips notes, the first major discovery in the age of easy worldwide communication. That, along with rumors of a mysterious curse, helped make Tut the most popular of the pharaohs.

But there is no denying the allure of the treasure itself. More than 5,000 beautifully preserved artifacts were found in Tut's tomb, and the 50 selected for this exhibition -- along with more than 70 from other royal tombs -- are among the most breathtaking objects of ancient Egypt. Only a few of these artifacts were in the original exhibition, and many have never before traveled outside Egypt.