live from the portland airport

[ceitidhcat]

portland airport rocks, they actually have free wireless, unlike "tree"land. i think oregon is sad for us to be leaving, because ever since we've been in portland it's been rainy. this morning we set off early to make it to the portland art museum for their egyptian show. it was very very cool, they had even done a replica of what the tomb looked like, with the complete hyrogliphics (sp!) it was the story of the night, the hours osiris travels through to get to the day. i had no idea but the egyptians thought of time through the night in terms of places, so you would have the thebes hour, and then the next the hour would be in a different region. so the story of osiris is how he travels over the land every hour of the night, and when he moves away from the nile his boat turns into a snake. the objects were funerary, but many of them bridge life to afterlife, such as the games that children would play, but also in the afterlife one has a chance to play for eternal life if they win the game. one stone piece caught my eye how they depicted the women and men in a funeral march, but it was clearly festive because some of the hair on the women swung up as if she were dancing. I'm very glad that i had a chance to see the show, and i have a few ideas about things which might have made it nicer, and also what worked with this, hopefully they can be brought into the exhibit we'll be doing in my class on egyptian medicine!

edit: apparently i'm mistaken it's the sun god Ra not Osiris, althought i thought it was Osiris traveling with Ra, but oh well. should have listened to the kids guide more than the adult one, they had an anthropology superhero and egyptian princess talking for them!