Dutch exhibit raises tempers in Egypt

In a Dutch museum the sound of hip-hop blares out next to sarcophagi and statues, in what curators say is an attempt to show the influence of ancient Egypt on black musicians.

A photo of superstar Beyonce dressed as Queen Nefertiti sits next to ancient busts, while a video of Rihanna channels Egyptian styles.

What appears to be a pharaoh's golden mask turns out to be a modern sculpture based on the cover of an album by the rapper Nas.

But the "Kemet" exhibition at Leiden's Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) has enraged Egypt, which has reportedly banned the museum's archaeologists from a dig at a key site.

Egypt's antiquities service said the museum is "falsifying history" with its "Afrocentric" approach, which seeks to appropriate Egyptian culture, Dutch media reported.

The museum said it had meanwhile been hit with comments on social media that were "racist or offensive in nature" after the row blew up in Egypt.

And so what was meant to be an empowering celebration of "Egypt in hip-hop, jazz, soul and funk" has instead become a culture war.

With a small handful of visitors inspecting the exhibits on a quiet weekday morning, the canal-side museum in a Dutch university town doesn't exactly look like a battlefield.

There are walls of album covers showing the influence of ancient Egypt by artists including Tina Turner, Earth Wind and Fire and Miles Davis, and a special interactive video installation.

One visitor said the reaction to the "informative" exhibition was overblown.

"This doesn't make any sense to me and they're just sort of being too sensitive or trying to score political points maybe... Nothing to me was shocking," said Daniel Voshart, 37, a filmmaker and artist...