Welcome to the Egyptian Gallery. If we should pick one area of archaeology that folks think of first in connection with the study of the past it would probably be Egyptian Archaeology, and we'll include Egyptology (there is a difference, and students are quick to point this out).
Your writer learned how to read at age five going through his Grandmother's old world book of knowledge fascinated with the section on ancient Egypt with some pictures of pyramids and a Cleopatra's Needle. I would go around asking grownups what such and such word meant. I was anxious to find out all about this ancient land. It fascinated me. It's all amazing, and here we all are on a web site!!!
Following are some articles from the WAS Newsletter.
The first one is entitled: "Ramses" appearing in the July 8th, 1989 WAS Newsletter No. 35. The second article is from No. 4, 1972 about the first King Tut exhibit when it was in London.
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Ramses
I recently visited the Ramses show in Dallas, Texas and wanted to share the adventure. The spectacular exhibits were in the Auto Show building on the Texas State Fair Grounds. Nearby was the famous Cotton Bowl and several science museums that had some coordinated displays.
Since cameras were forbidden (except one day a week), I had my sketchbook and drawing pen cocked. This was excitement time! My Mother, Nadine Miller was along, as were my Sister Judy and her Husband Jim.
We first went down a long, introductory, corridor room with big murals of Egypt. It was as walking along the Nile. There was an exhibit showing a sifting screen with legs (just as we use here in America) and a basket.
An excavated square showed stratigraphy - the classic layer
cake look.
A pre-dynastic exhibit showed a big fist pick of flint as well as a cobble chopper and some flake tools. The fist pick looked like a crude artifact out of the European gravel beds. But I find them here too in Long Creek Valley, southwest Missouri near Branson (Taney County). I also find the same looking cobble choppers. The archaeologists in Alabama with their "pebble tools" will know what I mean, as will the followers of Dr. Leaky in Olduvai Gorge, Africa. Here in America though we have some dating problems on such artifacts. Locally, the residual soil is terrible for stratigraphy. Dr. Leaky inspected the Calico Mtn. finds in CA and dated them at around 45,000 years, but I haven't heard many archaeologists who aggree. Tom Lee also found crude stone work at Shequianda, Canada that had been beneath a glacier and dated at 20,000 but archaeologists have been very slow to accept.
In any case, the Egyptian crude tools would go back before the Neolithic to the old stone age way before 10,000 years ago.
Another exhibit was a scaled model of a big, Egyptian temple complex along the Nile. Colorful pennents were flying atop poles. There were beautiful gardens and plenty of grain storage pits out back.
But, we were not really in the big show. We still had to go through an airport-like metal detector. Pocket knives, keys, purses, sketchbook with wire binder all went in baskets.
Next, we picked up recorders with simple on/off, reverse/forward, audio switches and headphones. Jim had heard that this was a must. Well, what do you know!? We were welcomed by none other than the sonorous tones of Moses...Charlton Heston that is! Who else! So much fun, because Mom when she and Dad were managers of the Owen Theatre in Branson, and when Dad had invited him down for a Queen judging at Branson High (and he accepted!), a phone call for Heston from Hollywood came through in the little office. She found him watching one of his own movies, a western, that Dad was showing to tie in the promotion. Mom left the office to give him some privacy. When he came out he was all smiles and told her: "I just got the part of Moses."
So much for diversion. Back to the exhibit. Heston would tell us what to do, about this or that exhibit and when to click off the recorder between exhibits.
Now, we entered a big orientation room with three large screens. We sat on long, padded, square, no back seats with lots of leg room - an easy in and out facility...and you will see why shortly. There was a place for wheel-chairs in back.
After nine minutes of audio-visual orientation, the center screen pulled back revealing a big statue of Ramses, veiled mysteriously by a gossamer screen. This, too, parted and thus we walked down the center isle through the screen area into the first room! How dramatic can you get?!
We moved on to other rooms seeing many displays in cases with atmospheric controls. Gold and silver vases and earrings were fabulous. We saw a big, heavy, gold necklace - the kind Ramses flung from a balcony to brave soldiers as a reward for valor. We were reminded that Ramses (c. 1200 - 1213 B.C.) was a great warrior pharoah. (cont).
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"Well, can you see anything?" That was the question asked British archaeologist Howard Carter as he held a candle up to the newly opened hole in the seal of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
"Yes, wonderful things," was his reply.
Recently, a number of select artifacts from the famous tomb of the Egyptian boy Pharoah were displayed at the British Museum. We talked with a number of people, Americans, who started to see the treasures but were unable to do so because of the great waiting line. Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Mac McKenzie were there but short on time nd unable to see the showing. Charlotte of the Kansas City Kansan and Mac a Vice President of TWA brought us an excellent publication on the exhibt. It is a special newspaper supplement, "Tutankhamun", appearing in the, Evening Standard Souvenir. It is a large publication, 16 and one half inches by 12 and one half inches and has some full color gold printing. It contains such articles and accounts as: "How I Discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamun", by Howard Carter...and "Why Did the Boy King Change His Name?" by A.J.S. Spawforth.
There is also a piece that every museum director and parent should read, "To Some Children This Show Really is a Matter of Life or Death," (Merry Archard offers parents a bit of advice). What a perceptive article this is! What is it like from the kids standpoint? Skinny little kids get colder than big folk when waiting in line. Perhaps the bawling ones would be better off at home - under some swap system of watching, worked out by mothers. A week of education beforehand " interesting" children instead of on the spot "exciting" of children would be best. Another article, "Happy Hours With King Tut's In-Crowd," by Anne sharpley tells of an unthoughtful mother who scared her little girl half to death by saying, they were about to enter, "the dead King's tomb."
One very interesting thing about this publication is that the ads are "archaeological" tied in with the main King Tut theme. Along this tie-in line, a final article is, "And after Tut, What About a Bite to Eat?" by Jennifer Stone. She gives a list of good places to eat plus two detailed maps. In our opinion this is an excellent example of scientific-archaeological journalism.
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Speaking of Egyptians, Egypt is preparing a big thing this fall to honor Howard Carter (the discoverer of King Tut's tomb) and Jean-Francois Champollion (deciphered the Egyptian glyphs). There will be a ceremony at the tomb site in the valley of the tomb of the Kings. (Item from the Christian Science Monitor, Fri., Aug., 18th, 1972).
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We welcome any comments by those visiting the present touring King Tut Exhibition.
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