Goddesschess' Seventh Anniversary!!!!!

Part 2 

Eventually the line that Don and Jan waited in snaked forward, up a flight of stairs, behind a black lined curtain, into a sort of anteroom - barely lit with pin lights from above, crowded and stuffy.  Images of enlarged hieroglyphics alternated with well-known photographs taken during the discovery of Tut's tomb, projected onto the walls of the waiting area.  Museum employees weaved their way up and down roped-off lines of waiting people, offering programs and audio-program headsets for sale.  The line of people again slowly moved forward.  Snippets of desultory conversations filled the air.  

And then, they were into a second chamber and another dark lined curtain dropped behind them.  The meager lighting dimmed even lower - it was the start of the exhibit (officially titled "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs").  About 50-60 people were crowded together, standing in this small space to watch a film outlining the discovery of Tut's tomb by Carter, et al. For someone without any background knowledge of the discovery of Tut's tomb, it was probably informative, but to Jan and Don it was boring.   

At last, the film finished, the screen was raised into the air and a narrow entry on the right side was revealed by a black curtain swept to one side.  Good for magic acts, perhaps, but in this setting this type of entrance was out of place and dangerous!  The crowd surged forward almost as one and people pushed against Jan and Don from the back and both sides.  Jan held her nose against the overwhelming smell of overheated, sweaty bodies and, keeping a firm hold on Don's arm, yanked him backwards with all her might so they would not be crushed in the surge.  

The initial introduction to the exhibit and, actually, about half of it altogether, was in almost total darkness - pin-lights from above high-lighted a piece of sculpture or an  artifact. There were some fabulously beautiful artifacts but - ultimately, not much from Tut's tomb!  The emphasis of the exhibit was objects from the time surrounding Tut, and not so much on Tut himself.  The Field's presentation seemed geared more to highlighting objects from its own collection of antiquities from that period of ancient Egyptian history that were added to and scattered among the items on loan from Egypt.

The lay-out and overall plan of the exhibit left much to be desired.  The emphasis on keeping the exhibits in darkness made it hard to navigate.  Because of the darkness, people often bumped into each other, especially when someone stopped in front of an exhibit to examine it for a few seconds.  Visitors who rented earphones to listen to descriptions and histories of the pieces stopped in the spaces which were supposed to be "aisles" and there wasn't enough room to go around them.  Traffic jams of people and clogged aisles abounded.  While Don and Jan viewed the exhibit there were at least two people in wheelchairs - but the aisles in the exhibit weren't wide enough for them to adequately maneuver.

Jan suffers from mild claustrophobia, she doesn't do well in crowds or crowded enclosed spaces.  Several times she and Don ducked under the  arms of people who were at a stand-still and squeezed under and around exhibit cases, circling along the back edges of the exhibit rooms, just to get moving somewhere and spend a few moments in a space where the air was a little cooler and they felt they could breathe!  

Although Don and Jan kept a look-out for board games, gaming pieces and other ceremonial objects that might offer a possible connection to board games, there was only one small game board from Tut's tomb included in the exhibit.  It was a two sided board, ivory-colored (unfortunately, neither Jan nor Don recorded the material from which the board was made, it might be alabaster or ivory), featuring senet on one side and "20 squares" (imported from Sumer) on the other side; the 20 squares side of the board had a tail of 8 playing squares and a larger square composed of 4x3 playing spaces.  The board was small, not any longer than 6 to 8 inches and not wider that 3 or 4 inches, with a depth of perhaps 2-1/2 inches.  It rested flat on the exhibit surface, it did not have feet and was not one of the "sledge" type boards often photographed from Tut's tomb.  The board was so small, Jan and Don wondered how someone could comfortably play a game on it, unless they had very small playing pieces, and small hands.  But it was a very beautiful board, in excellent condition considering its age.  Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the Tut exhibit, so Don and Jan weren't able to get any photographs.  They would have chanced it, except there were museum employees everywhere casting jaundiced eyes upon them, and the crowds did not allow for lingering before any exhibit for more than a second or two. The exhibit label identified the game as "tau."  However, this is a misnomer ("tjau/tau" meaning "thieves" or "robbers") - it's more likely Parlett's name of "aseb" for the game of 20 squares is correct.  The Egyptian version of 20 squares dates to the old kingdom.  

Jan's and Don's consensus on the Tut exhibit was that it was not as interesting nor of the same caliber as the "Quest for Immortality" exhibit put on by the Milwaukee Public Museum in 2004.  The Tut exhibit was not as well presented or as well laid out as Quest, but they're glad they saw it.  Short of visiting the British Museum, the Louvre, or the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, they're not likely to see such fine artifacts again.

After Jan and Don finished viewing the Tut exhibit, they headed toward the exhibit halls they hadn't had a chance to see during their prior visit to the Field Museum in September, 2004.  Don got a good shot of the giant totems in the main hall (see separate photo section at end of article), and from there they visited the Native American and Pacific Islands exhibits.  Don also got photos of several Hopi gaming instruments (the exhibit indicated "Games and Toys of the Yuma and Mohave Desert Farmers and Gatherers of the Southwest").  Seeing the real thing is awesome - the line drawings in Stewart Culin's Games of the North American Indians do not do the pieces sufficient justice.