A TOURING exhibition of Bolton Museum’s Egyptology collection has attracted its one millionth visitor in the Far East.

The exhibition — Quest For Immortality: The Bolton Museum Collection — is currently in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and will move to Shanghai, in China, in May.

A council spokesman said: “To have reached the one millionth visitor in a country which has 23 million inhabitants is quite something in itself and is a benchmark that very few exhibitions meet.

“To date, the Quest for Immortality exhibition has been exceptionally successful and to think that a million people have seen the artefacts from Bolton Museum is pretty outstanding and something we are very proud of.

“It seems they held a big celebration when the one millionth visitor was registered and she was presented with a replica Rosetta Stone as a memento.”

The exhibition has already visited Taichung and the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital.

The council expects the exhibition to continue touring until 2014, with another four or five venues being lined up in China.

Each exhibition is different and lasts for about four months.

More than 100 objects from the Egyptology collection are touring the Far East. The collection dates back to the 1880s when the daughter of a mill owner from the town donated a mummy and other items.

It is seen as among the best in the museum world, and has been built up to more than 1,500 pieces. Much of the collection is still on display at Bolton Museum.