(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

This 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.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

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.

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.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I might have written exactly the same, and had similar responses.... But mostly such topics didn't really come up. What is an RE teacher?

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.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

What is an RE teacher?

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.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Religious Education

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.