more on Tutankhamun exhibit
So about the Tutankhamun exhibit: The short of it is that the artefacts were astounding and the lack of museum pedagogics dumbfounding.
First, the whole setup was sensationalist in the extreme. Did you know that Tutankhamun was only 9 years old when he ascended to the throne? And that they thought he was a God? Indeed the whole exhibit seemed to aim not to explain, but to aesthetically shock and awe. Reverent silence in the face of 3000 year old gold objects was the name of the game, barring any questions of social, cultural or political context. Just look at the idiotic title; there is nothing about the 10 year pharaoship of Tutankhamun that particularly recommends itself as a golden age. If the grave hadn't survived the ravages of time until the 1920s, would anyone have cared? It was a golden age because they found so much of the metal in his grave.
Furthermore, the organizers apparently were convinced that people could not be relied upon to walk through an exhibit in an orderly fashion, read all of the explanations and remember what they had read. As a result, they felt compelled to repeat the same information over and over; every canopic jar would elicit yet another regurgitation of the coarse outlines of the process of mummification. But, just in case someone would read two of the descriptions, they introduced slight variations, adding this and omitting that, like some developing story on CNN.
The overall effect then was one of almost a puzzle game: Information would be hinted toward obliquely, and only after having read all of the descriptions in all of the rooms would the pieces be available to make the explanation come together. Things that were introduced in the first room in their function were only named in the last one. Components of rituals that validate the religious paraphernalia were scattered across five exhibit rooms.
The matter was complicated by the fact that the artefacts bore no exhibit numbers and were not cross-referenced; thus, it was not even possible to draw comparisons between objects, in either the description or the audio-guide, that did not happen to be located in adjacent displays.
It was truly baffling.
Don't get me wrong, I took my 10-12 pages of notes like always, and got tons of stuff out of the exhibit. I had the notes, I found all the connections that were interesting to me. I didn't get all my questions answered, but I usually dont anyway. (_MWife_ wanted to know which of the canopic jars-for lungs, stomach, liver and intestine, respectively-the kidneys ended up in.) I just wonder what the other people did.
The poor quality of the exhibit was revealed in a splendid fashion by stellar exhibit that the Dallas Museum of Art had put together without the help of either National Geographic or the high council of Egyptian antiquities on the photography of Harry Burton, who not only photographed and filmed the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun, but also over the next decade or so Carter's work on the over 5000 artefacts found. The exhibit is located in the hallway adjacent to the entrance area, right next to the VIP lounge and the staircase to the second level, and is not to be missed.
First, the whole setup was sensationalist in the extreme. Did you know that Tutankhamun was only 9 years old when he ascended to the throne? And that they thought he was a God? Indeed the whole exhibit seemed to aim not to explain, but to aesthetically shock and awe. Reverent silence in the face of 3000 year old gold objects was the name of the game, barring any questions of social, cultural or political context. Just look at the idiotic title; there is nothing about the 10 year pharaoship of Tutankhamun that particularly recommends itself as a golden age. If the grave hadn't survived the ravages of time until the 1920s, would anyone have cared? It was a golden age because they found so much of the metal in his grave.
Furthermore, the organizers apparently were convinced that people could not be relied upon to walk through an exhibit in an orderly fashion, read all of the explanations and remember what they had read. As a result, they felt compelled to repeat the same information over and over; every canopic jar would elicit yet another regurgitation of the coarse outlines of the process of mummification. But, just in case someone would read two of the descriptions, they introduced slight variations, adding this and omitting that, like some developing story on CNN.
The overall effect then was one of almost a puzzle game: Information would be hinted toward obliquely, and only after having read all of the descriptions in all of the rooms would the pieces be available to make the explanation come together. Things that were introduced in the first room in their function were only named in the last one. Components of rituals that validate the religious paraphernalia were scattered across five exhibit rooms.
The matter was complicated by the fact that the artefacts bore no exhibit numbers and were not cross-referenced; thus, it was not even possible to draw comparisons between objects, in either the description or the audio-guide, that did not happen to be located in adjacent displays.
It was truly baffling.
Don't get me wrong, I took my 10-12 pages of notes like always, and got tons of stuff out of the exhibit. I had the notes, I found all the connections that were interesting to me. I didn't get all my questions answered, but I usually dont anyway. (_MWife_ wanted to know which of the canopic jars-for lungs, stomach, liver and intestine, respectively-the kidneys ended up in.) I just wonder what the other people did.
The poor quality of the exhibit was revealed in a splendid fashion by stellar exhibit that the Dallas Museum of Art had put together without the help of either National Geographic or the high council of Egyptian antiquities on the photography of Harry Burton, who not only photographed and filmed the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun, but also over the next decade or so Carter's work on the over 5000 artefacts found. The exhibit is located in the hallway adjacent to the entrance area, right next to the VIP lounge and the staircase to the second level, and is not to be missed.