Today I drove up to Ft. Lauderdale to view the Tutankhamen exibit at the Museum of Art. One of the few reasons I'm glad to be in this area is that I have the chance to see this as it passes through. According to the Egyptian government, it will be the last time that any of the treasures of King Tut's tomb will pass through the United States. I think the exhibit is going through three other cities.
The exhibit was great in that I got to see many of the jewels adorning Tut in his tomb as well as many of the furniture pieces, bit of jars, games, and statues of dieties found in the tomb when it was first opened in 1922. Most engaging, to me, was Tut's childhood throne, made of wood and obsidian with a little foot stool, it was so tiny as to look like something a doll might be displayed upon. The note next to it explained that it was what he would have sat on during rituals when he first ascended to the throne. I think, for me, an incredible reminder of how very young Tutankhamen was when he first became pharaoh.
I have a great interest in Egyptian history. This comes from an incredible experience I had (twice over) putting Philip Glass' somewhat biographical opera up, "Akhnaten." The opera loosely tells the story of King Tut's heretic father and his wife, Nefertiti. Most of the text is taken directly from letters and documents found in jars buried during Akhnaten's reign. I started reading about the Amarna period and Tut's rise (and untimely death) afterwards, and have never lost interest. "Akhnaten" was one of those artistic experiences that changes your life forever. It was my very first opera and not only prompted a major career shift, but also opened up a world of creation and storytelling for me that had never been explored.
That being said, this exhibit was most interesting to me for the back story rooms before actually moving into the Tutankhamen treasures. They briefly told the story of Akhnaten and his attempt to turn Egypt into a monotheistic society. They had pieces from the Amarna period that I had never seen before. One struck me as I turned a corner, a huge stone sculpture of Akhnaten's head looming over the entire room, with its long features and sad eyes. I was completely entranced. Everyone else sort of walked past, rushing to get to Tut, but I stood for minutes upon minutes, taking in every cut in the stone, every scrape along the surface of the sculpture. Beautiful.
Overall, I didn't learn anything new from the exhibit. The most interesting thing to me was the modern sculpture, based on Tut's skull, of what he - in all probability - would have actually looked like. They put this among a ton of photographs of different sculptures of the pharaoh so you could see how differently he was portrayed in various times and for various ritualistic reasons. That was interesting to me because it showed a turn back to some of the non-realistic artistic ideas that came before Akhnaten came to power. Every sculpture of Akhnaten looks exactly the same, as do sculptures of Nefertiti and of his daughters (of which there was one on display that embodied such dignity and beauty that I wanted to stare at it all day).
In logistical speak, I didn't like the way the entrance to the exhibit was set up. I didn't pay for an audio tour, but I had to stand in line for 40 minutes behind everyone getting an audio tour before I could go in. There wasn't any ante room or waiting period except for the 90 second introductory video, and so the exhibit itself was so crowded that you had to literally push through people to see any of the pieces. Not managed well, but then I should be used to that in Southern Florida. Seems to be the norm around here.
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