We made our monthly trip to the "first saturdays" at cma on Maddie's bday. CMA has an Egyptian treasures exhibition "To Live Forever" thru June from the Brooklyn Museum. I am fascinated, like most people of this ancient culture. This exhibition is a collection of middleclass Egyptians funeral items. So instead of gold coffins you will see coffins painted yellow. The Egyptians believed you could defeat death and live forever in the afterlife. Part of that process involved certain rituals & material things from this world that often they were buried with. ie, shabtis (small nude statues that were their servants in the afterlife), senet (the oldest known board game). You get to see all of this stuff as you walk around. We even got to play a modern version of senet. The one they have on display was unbelievable...made me think about how creative you had to be for entertainment 4,000years ago!
One of the most fascinating things I saw was the Mummy Demetrios. He is still wrapped in bandages & linen, painted red & has a portrait showing his face. He is one of two mummies never unwrapped in modern times. There was even a CT scan done of him revealing he had gall stones. It was fascinating!!
Oh & the art project that the kids made was clay canopic jar. The Eygptians used these to store body parts in for their burial!! Thankfully we didnt need body parts to make ours. Take a look at J&M's
