Egypt’s Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany and French Culture Minister Franck Riester on Thursday opened a landmark Tutankhamun exhibition in Paris.

More than 150 treasures from the boy king's tomb, including over 50 pieces that had not left Egypt before, will be on display during the blockbuster show at the giant la Villette arts complex.

The Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities has said this is the largest number of Tutankhamun artefacts to have ever left the country, and may not happen again. The collection had been insured for $800 million.

The “Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” exhibition began its global tour with a stop in Los Angeles last year.

More than 1.2 million visitors gathered to see 45 pieces from the boy pharaoh’s tomb at the Petit Palais in 1967, the last time the Egyptian treasures visited the French capital.

Organisers said more than 130,000 tickets had been sold as of last week.

The global tour, which will include six other cities that have yet to be announced, marks the hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the pharoha’s tomb by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922.

During his speech at the opening, EL-Enany said Egypt will unveil three new ancient discoveries in the coming few days.

The Paris show opens for the public on Saturday and runs until mid-September.

Howard Carter (9 May 1874 – 2 March 1939), the British archaeologist and Egyptologist who became world-famous after discovering the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922

Egypt’s Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany and French Culture Minister Franck Riester C in grey and blue) at the exhibition