Challenged by the rise of the American and Japanese powers, the 1924 – 1925 British Empire Exhibition hoped to stimulate trade and reaffirm the United Kingdom's status in the world. Shown here, Queen Mary of England and Queen Marie of Romania stroll through a pagoda and exhibition streets that Rudyard Kipling, the “poet of empire,” named. Commoners and royals could gasp at a working coal mine, a reconstruction of King Tut's recently discovered tomb, and a life-size statue of the Prince of Wales sculpted in frozen butter.