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Apr. 9th, 2009 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fajrdrakoThis evening I went with Sandi and Lyn to the Museum of Civilization to see the Ancient Egyptian exhibit, Tombs of Eternity, and, even better, to see the IMAX movie, Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs.
The exhibit was not large, but it was beautiful.
The movie was fun. It had me thinking about how often in my life I have seen the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs and priests depicted as villains - in Biblical epics, in things like The Mummy. But this film did some reenactment of scenes from the time of Rameses II, and it was a thrill to me to see the Egyptian costumes, and the historical characters depicted without prejudice.
There were three levels to the movie; it showed, as background, the mummification process and the ceremonies of the time of Ramesses II; it showed the events of 1881 as Charles Wilbur discovered Rasmesses' tomb; and it showed current-day studies of modern mummification processes in attempts to study and understand the chemistry of mummy DNA.
And all this with many gorgeous scenes of Egyptian statues and carving at places like Abu Simbel, Karnak, and Luxor.
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Date: 2009-04-10 03:32 am (UTC)My parents are huge egyptophiles. My father copied a full-size tomb painting onto our wall when I was a kid. Of all the things my parents have been into, that's the one that's rubbed off on me. :-)
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Date: 2009-04-10 01:17 pm (UTC)Oh, how wonderful! I wish I could have had that! I had very nice blue wallpaper but a tomb painting would have been wonderful.
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Date: 2009-04-10 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 01:13 pm (UTC)Many of the artifacts in this one were from Boston.
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Date: 2009-04-10 01:26 pm (UTC)a great place to go is the Louvre in Paris - 2 full wings dedicated to Egypt - we went twice as one was closed for cleaning on our first day
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Date: 2009-04-10 01:46 pm (UTC)The Royal Ontario Museum is pretty good. I loved the Egyptian stuff at the British Museum.
I want more!
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Date: 2009-04-10 02:03 pm (UTC)Berlin (East as was) - I still remember walking through that Ishtar Gate, I'd only seen in a book and yeah, they had that head (well they had 20 years ago when I visited - September 89, two months b4 the wall came down - goodness I was young!)
so glad I'm not the only archaeology buff here :D
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Date: 2009-04-10 04:07 pm (UTC)I spent a lot of time there when I was a student in London. A lot of time. I made it a point to do a lot of my research there - that was when the National Library was still on the premises, though sadly decrepit. Then when I wanted or neeede a break from research, I'd wander the halls, all starry-eyed and staring at the wonderful, wonderful artifacts.
Or I'd just sit and crochet in the Assyrian rooms, soaking in the atmosphere.
I haven't been to Berlin or Cairo - yet. It's a dream still to be fulfilled.
so glad I'm not the only archaeology buff here :D
I totally, totally adore that stuff.
I wish we saw Captain Jack in the historical past more. Maybe I should write a "Captain Jack meets Ramesses II" story.
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Date: 2009-04-10 04:13 pm (UTC)Cairo - yeah, would be nice
Considering I live in the UK the British Museum should be doable, really
we should write Jack and that Volcano Day story - what if he met Donna and the Pyroviles (can't meet the Doctor of course - that's after)
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Date: 2009-04-10 04:18 pm (UTC)It would be for me, too!
Considering I live in the UK the British Museum should be doable, really
Go sometime. You are so lucky to have that amazing building in your country. The only good Egyptology collection in Canada is at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and it's exciting and wonderful, but not nearly as exciting and wonderful as the things in the British Museum.
Jack meeting Donna and the Pyroviles - what a great idea! I like the added bonus, that when Donna saw Jack in "The Stolen Earth" she asked who he was because he was someone she'd already met in another time and circumstances. So it wouldn't be "Who is that? I'd like to meet him!" so much as "Who is that? I met him and I'll never forget him!"
He could save her from the Pyrovile - or she could save him.
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Date: 2009-04-10 04:23 pm (UTC)London - will go, would be a great day out or two I'm sure
yeah, I can see that story work...what do you think, shall we try something new - can't quite believe I'm suggesting that in the middle of the Tardis Big Bang - and write it together (me Donna, you Jack or vice versa?)
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Date: 2009-04-10 04:30 pm (UTC)When I visited Vienna I was sick with flu. I loved the place - I remember beautiful palaces and beautiful flowers - but my strongest memory is sitting in some cafe with an Eiskaffee and how delicious it was, creamy and cold and tasting good when I felt feverish and parched.
...what do you think, shall we try something new - can't quite believe I'm suggesting that in the middle of the Tardis Big Bang - and write it together (me Donna, you Jack or vice versa?)
That sounds like such fun. I don't usually do collaborations, but... what a hoot. Okay. Which of us should be which? I could do either, and happily. Want me to start off?
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Date: 2009-04-10 04:44 pm (UTC)I've never done a collaboration either, but as we've come up with the plot together we should write it together and it'll stretch us (well definitely me) as writers and it could be fun
I'll pm you my e-mail address and I'm happy to do Donna (she's been a focus of said Tardis Bigbang, so she's quite at the front of my mind) and I loved her in that episode
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Date: 2009-04-10 05:06 pm (UTC)Salzburg - ah, yes, I loved it so very much, and all the more so as we were there before I got sick. I have lovely, lovely memories of Salzburg, all the more so since The Sound of Music was a favourite movie from childhood.
I've done collaborations, sometimes with resounding success, sometimes not. (One story remains forever unfinished because my collaborator and I didn't agree on direction.) But if this isn't too long or rambling, it should work! Certainly worth a try, and I think it will be fun.
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Date: 2009-04-10 06:58 pm (UTC)That's one of the things that really bugs me: the prejudices of the Bible have permeated how people in the West regard a range of ancient Near-Eastern cultures – Egyptians, Philistines, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians. Why should we be expected to accept the value-judgements of one highly prejudiced and ethnocentric cultural source? It's the same regarding ancient Persian culture being regarded through the prism of the Greeks. I loved it, because as a child I had a picture-book of tales from the Shah-nameh of Firdausi, as well as one on Greek mythology. I could recognise shared motifs, perhaps going back to a common origin in the steppes (what is the story of Cuchulainn and his son but a Gaelic Sohrab and Rustum?). I remember that I really pissed off an RE teacher at high school, because I wrote that I thought the Old Testament was one-sided and I had a lot of sympathy for Phoenician princesses who came from a sophisticated maritime culture and had to put up with ranting monotheistic, misogynistic prophets.
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Date: 2009-04-11 08:32 pm (UTC)I have a lot of sympathy for Phoenicians in general! I tended to love all the 'other' nations, and always wanted to know more about them. Still do.
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Date: 2009-04-11 11:00 pm (UTC)Religious Education. Even in regular state schools, it's compulsory, and in my day was still predominantly Judaeo-Christian in content. The teacher was seriously Christian, and pontificated at my father on a school open evening about my more pagan outlook (I had written in an essay that I didn't think the conversion of Britain to Christianity was a 'good thing'). Dad thought it was very funny: as he told me later, it was clear that at 15, I was better-read on the subject than she was.
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Date: 2009-04-12 01:16 am (UTC)I thought it might be that, but I didn't want to just guess. We had some form of Religious Education in very early grades, but not much at all. I don't know if that still exists. I rather hope not.
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Date: 2009-04-11 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 06:03 pm (UTC)