Would you care to handle my very old... thing?
I had great fun at the ROM on Saturday. I added two new arrows to my quiver. (In this case, that's a metaphor, but given that one of the Gallery Interpreter objects is an ancient Greek arrowhead, I felt the need to spell that out :D)
1. Egyptian Mummy Portrait
They date from Roman Egypt. A person's mummy would be placed in a coffin, then a portrait of the person would be placed on their coffins, in a hole cut over where their head would be. Wealthy people would have their portraits painted in their lifetimes and hang them as a work of art until they died. But most of the portraits were mass-produced, so poorer people could buy a generic one, male or female.
What interests me is the cultural mix: Egyptians had a tradition of preserving the body so the soul could go to the afterlife, Romans had a tradition of making very realistic busts or paintings of their ancestors. In this part of Egypt, southwest of Cairo, the two traditions blended. Our mummy portrait is gorgeous.
2. Meteorite
Yup. A real live meteorite. Now, generally, I'm more interested in our cultural artifacts than our natural specimens. But people go ape-shit over being able to handle an actual 4.5 billion-with-a-B-year-old meteorite. No one guessed what it was right off. As they passed it around and were guessing it was some kind of rock and looking fairly unimpressed, I would say, "Trust me, when you find out what it is, you'll be so glad you touched it." They all were.
We'd talk about how it formed, how it came to Earth, what happened when it hit our atmosphere (shooting star), what it was made of, what happened when it landed (from tectites to oopsy, sorry Mr and Mrs Dinosaur). I also had a real live tectite to show them. (When meteorites land on earth, they displace a lot of debris. The debris - a clump of earth or rock say - becomes incredibly hot from contact with the meteorite. It melts and fuses into a squiggly shape, then becomes solid as it cools. That solid squiggly clump is a tectite).
I also fixed a bat display. Don't ask.
1. Egyptian Mummy Portrait
They date from Roman Egypt. A person's mummy would be placed in a coffin, then a portrait of the person would be placed on their coffins, in a hole cut over where their head would be. Wealthy people would have their portraits painted in their lifetimes and hang them as a work of art until they died. But most of the portraits were mass-produced, so poorer people could buy a generic one, male or female.
What interests me is the cultural mix: Egyptians had a tradition of preserving the body so the soul could go to the afterlife, Romans had a tradition of making very realistic busts or paintings of their ancestors. In this part of Egypt, southwest of Cairo, the two traditions blended. Our mummy portrait is gorgeous.
2. Meteorite
Yup. A real live meteorite. Now, generally, I'm more interested in our cultural artifacts than our natural specimens. But people go ape-shit over being able to handle an actual 4.5 billion-with-a-B-year-old meteorite. No one guessed what it was right off. As they passed it around and were guessing it was some kind of rock and looking fairly unimpressed, I would say, "Trust me, when you find out what it is, you'll be so glad you touched it." They all were.
We'd talk about how it formed, how it came to Earth, what happened when it hit our atmosphere (shooting star), what it was made of, what happened when it landed (from tectites to oopsy, sorry Mr and Mrs Dinosaur). I also had a real live tectite to show them. (When meteorites land on earth, they displace a lot of debris. The debris - a clump of earth or rock say - becomes incredibly hot from contact with the meteorite. It melts and fuses into a squiggly shape, then becomes solid as it cools. That solid squiggly clump is a tectite).
I also fixed a bat display. Don't ask.