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Minneapolis Institute of Art - "Eternal Egypt" Master works of Ancient
Art from The British Museum
On Thursday, March 6, 2003 I had the opportunity to go visit the Institute of
Art in the cities. I had been excited about seeing this exhibit as I've not
seen many Egyptian ones here in MN.
The exhibit costs $10.00 per adult on weekdays and $12.00 on weekends. You get
one shot going through the exhibit and that's it. For $5.00 you can carry an
audio tape recording describint the exhibit. I didn't get one as I pretty much
knew about most of the items on exhibit already from my KMT magazines. In fact,
this exhibit was featured in one of them and I'm using it to spell things! That
doesn't mean I know how to pronounce them though!
Go to the second floor of the Institute and way in the back is for special
exhibits. The statues and such are arranged in chronological order from the
Early Kingdom to Late or Old Kingdoms. I'm going to be jumping around here so
what I say here won't be in order. I'm just going to describe what I remember.
The first room I went into was the Mummy room and they had 2 wooden coffins and
2 occupants. They also had a full-length x-ray of our mummy from the Science
Museum. You know the one with the extra head between it's legs? I don't think
they have decided why that extra head is there. (Maybe it's a relative?)
The oldest piece was an ivory plaque of King Den from the First Dynasty killing
or "smiting" one of his enemies. There were lots of stalae or relief's depicting
the different scenes or gods doing different things. Also what they call false
doors. Just an opening in the wall like a shelf with statues or whatever.
Probably used for religious purposes or offerings.
There are lots of heads on display from the different periods. Too many of them
in fact. I thought maybe they could have tried to have more of a variety of
things. But that's just me. They also had lots of square block statues and these
were of scribes. Too many I thought too. You'll see 4 or 5 of them. One is of
the scribe Iny, I remember. There's very little jewelry displayed. About
2 display cases that show earrings, rings, spacer bars - and this is the only
thing with cats on it. I saw no animal mummies or too many animal statues. I
found that disappointing.
There are several papyrus depicting the Book Of The Dead. The Papyrus of Ani is
there. They are surprisingly brightly colored!
There are a few artifacts on Akhenaten and Tutankhamen but these are relief's
more than statues although there are a few Tutankhamen statues. Some were
usurped for Horemheb - the king after Tutankhamen. Seems Tut didn't live long
enough for the workers to finish carving out the statues and so Horemheb's name
is on some of them. But the features are definitely Tutankhamen's!
A few Ushabti's and amulets are featured. Ushabti's are tiny statues that are
buried in the wrappings of a mummy. They are of gods and such for protection in
the afterlife. Note that Kings were gods in ancient Egyptian times and they were
worshipped as such!
I especially like the oversized red-granite lion, which was reinscribed for
Tutankhamen. I found out what graywacke was. It's a very coal black stone with
no other colors or hints or hues in it and several statues are carved of this
stone, notably the head of Thutmose III. At first they thought it might be the
head of Hatshepsut - a Queen who ruled Egypt for a time. A large head to waist
statue of pink granite represents Rameses II. Several other giant pieces are
included in this exhibit and are quite fascinating! The granite statue of
Senwosret is notable too.
They had a gold/gilded mummy mask from the 18th Dynasty and I liked this. Also
several different gilded and painted pieces are displayed in another case that
include head, chest, legs and feet pieces. Also at the end of the exhibit is a
very brightly painted wood panel of a lady's head from the Roman times. This was
placed over the face of the mummy and was usually a painting of the occupant.
A naos is a shrine or a box with a god in it and you will find a couple of
these. A statue of a king will be holding a "naos" One naos had the god Atum in
it.
What I really found interesting was a couple of artists training or working
drawings on ostraca - flat stone palettes if you will- showing grid lines on
which they drew sketches of statues or whatever to be used as a scale model for
the real thing. Very interesting!
There is also a room with a video on Ancient Egypt that runs about 12 minutes. I
sat through it after going through the exhibit. Also there is a shop to buy
souvenirs. I wouldn't waste your money! I didn't buy anything there.
There was so much to see there and if you're not an ancient Egyptian enthusiast
like I am, you'll still be able to enjoy this exhibit as everything is describe
on the displays plus if you have one of those headsets to help guide you through
the exhibit it should be quite an interesting experience.
I personally felt that there could have been more variety of things instead of
so many heads or block statues. I would have liked to see animal mummies and
more jewelry. Maybe some other objects like of household use or for work. I
didn't see any urns or pottery that I remember. You have to remember though that
this is a traveling exhibit from the British Museum. They have to ship all of
this stuff around from city to city. So maybe heads was easier to pack and
ship! But still it was worth the $10.00. If you haven't seen it, it runs until
March 16th. From here it will go to the Chicago Field Museum and run from April
26 - August 10, 2003.
Also at the Institute are displays from Ancient Egypt. It's worth looking at
too! You will find about 24 small statues of gods amongst other things. I also
looked at the China displays on my way
out of the Institute. That was fun too.
During my visit I ran into another like-minded visitor. I wore my black sweater
that has white cats and mice, yellow tulips and bows and red hearts. (Mom knows
which one I'm talking about.) It's very brightly colored. Half way through the
exhibit there was a voice behind me saying "Excuse me!" I thought I was blocking
something or someone so I turned around to find this little old lady with a cane
looking up at me. She says, " I think your sweater is far more interesting than
anything in here!" I laughed! I told her I got lots of compliments on the
sweater! I said that I liked cats as well as Egypt! I thought that was awfully
cute!
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