Oldest objects owned by the Queen go on display in Buckingham Palace exhibition The exhibition mainly comprises photographs taken by the then Prince of Wales's photographer, Francis Bedford, who accompanied the future king on a four-month private tour of Egypt, Greece, Turkey and the Middle East. But it also includes gifts and souvenirs acquired by the prince, such as a funerary stela, or tablet, belonging to Nakhtmontu from the 3rd century BC which was excavated in the presence of the prince. Alessandro Nasini, co-curator of the Cairo to Constantinople exhibition, said: "The Prince of Wales was allowed to take part in an excavation in Thebes in March 1862, and in recognition of his status he was told he could keep anything that was found. The tablet was unearthed, along with a small mummy, both of which were brought back to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight and put on display there. The mummy has since gone missing, and may have been buried in a cemetery on the Isle of Wight, but in 1869 the prince returned to Egypt and brought back 19 mummies, which were given to museums around the country. The future Edward VII, sitting on the fifth camel from the left, at the pyramids in Cairo The journalist John McCarthy, who followed in Edward's footsteps for a BBC Radio 4 documentary last year, said: "One of the fascinating things about going to the places he went and comparing the photographs with today is that in many cases the physical landscape has not changed but the human landscape is completely different. We went to Israel and Palestine and saw timeless landscapes that Francis Bedford photographed, but looking at his diary he hired mules and rode into Jerusalem along tracks that now have a border going through them. Other scenes have changed hugely - there is a picture of the Great Sphinx in Giza which is still buried up to its neck in sand, because it hadn't been excavated at that time. Other exhibits in Gold include a gold crown from Ecuador that pre-dates the Inca invasion and a life-sized tiger's head in gold and rock crystal from the throne of Tipu Sultan, an 18th century ruler of Mysore in India. Gold and Cairo to Constantinople: Early Photographs of the Middle East are at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from November 7, 2014 to February 22, 2015