Ancient Egyptians faced tricky compromises over how they would be seen dead, a new exhibition at New York's Brooklyn Museum reveals. "To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt," emphasizes the often unpalatably expensive options that lay before Ancient Egyptians when considering burial. They had to think long and hard about what they could afford in the afterlife.
I dropped my phone last week and it stopped working. As the daughter, sister, and wife of engineers, I generally regard most broken things as a challenge and I am quite often able to fix them, so I gathered tiny screwdrivers and a good light source and prised the handset open. Inside was a world mostly unknown to me, of miniature circuit boards, teeny candy-striped transistors, and delicate little welds. I identified the problem, but it was beyond repair, so I went out and bought another phone with a renewed respect for the intricacies inside the things we use every day.
You are interested in the immortality and the life after death then you would love to see this exhibiton on Ancient Egyptians carefully prepared for the gods for a new beginning.First-ever exhibiton of Egyptian antiquities, Chrysler has more then 120 rare objects from Brooklyn Museum. There is anice range of mummies, coffins, sarcophagi, jewellery . You will see how the Egyptians prepared their tombs and got ready to live forever. Also many gods play part in this great exhibition such Osirus, Horus, Seth, Re, Isis. To live forever there was a process that they have follwoed and here they will focus on the mummification process focusing on Demetrios. Incredible exhibiton, To Live Forever brings you a once in a life time opportunity to experience the best of the Ancient Egyptian art in Hampton Road.
The Brooklyn Museum holds 7 human and over 60 animal mummies in their collection. We know already quite a lot about their human mummies, but now Lisa Bruno tells us more about the animal mummy research project at the Museum in an informal presentation for the Museum's '1stfans'. The Brooklyn Museum's conservator Lisa Bruno talks about what an object conservator exactly is (and how to become one), the travelling exhibition 'To Live Forever' which is coming to the Brooklyn Museum February 2010 and the research the Getty Institute did on the 'red mummy' Demetrios - once thought to be a female.
"If it doesn't spread, it's dead." Don't worry, not another 'send your flu-buddy to get your medicines' warning, but the title of a paper by Henry Jenkins on social media. "What has this to do with taking photographs in museums?", you'll ask. Well, quite a bit. Museums benefit of their collection being popular and 'hot': more visitors, more book sales, more research, more funding and more prestige. Most advertisement companies would be delighted at the idea of thousands of people wanting to take photographs of their products to show them to their friends. Even more delighted if people would post them on the internet with the bylines "Look how marvellous!" and "I had a great time!" Yet many museums are taking the opposite path, saying 'Njet!' to photography in their galleries and sending visitors home with at most a postcard to show to their closest friends.
Those of you who just can't get enough of the Ancient Egyptians and their obsessive-compulsive burial rituals are in for a treat at the Brooklyn Museum when it opens its exhbition, Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets, this November.
Museums clashing occurs frequently - the most famous case probably being the British Museum vs. the Acropolis Museum - but such an entertaining 'museum fight' as the naval battle that took place last week was never seen before: teams of museum employees from the Queens Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio, were waging war against each other in an epic and chaotic conflict on the shores of Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
The Roman naval battle was part of the art project "Those About to Die Salute You" by Duke Riley for the Queens Museum of Art and took place at... the World's Fair reflecting pool. Although part of the evening was orchestrated, the real battle was not. Aim: to capsize, sink or destroy other boats (whilst trying to avoid the concrete edge of the pool).
Last week the Brooklyn Museum took four of their ancient Egyptian mummies to the North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, as they were in dying need of a CT-scan. Pure Archaeology 2.0, not only because of the use of modern technology, but because the museum staff used 'the web 2.0' to document their trip and the scanning of the mummies as it was happening on Twitter - #mummyCT - and Flickr. Over at pyramidofman.com there's an elaborate report on the mummies' journey, but here are some of the highlights of this episode of CSI: Mummy:
Pepy II was a child of just six when he ascended the throne around 2,300 BC, and thus began one of the longest sovereign rules of any person in history. Yet while Pepy was a child, Egypt was reigned over by his mother, Queen Ankhnes-meryre II - and it is that relationship conveyed through this alabaster statuette. At first glance it appears that the young pharaoh is depicted as a child, but as he has to sport his royal regalia, he is instead shown as a miniature man. Mother and child are turned 90 degress from one another, and each one averts their gaze straight forward. The queen rests one arm on her lap, while the other holds her child's back. Pepy clasps her resting hand in his, in a gesture of affection and dependence. Pepy's feet also have their own platform, as if to stop him dangling and losing some of his socialising power. The statuette now enthralls visitor's to New York's Brooklyn Museum.
I dropped my phone last week and it stopped working. As the daughter, sister, and wife of engineers, I generally regard most broken things as a challenge and I am quite often able to fix them, so I gathered tiny screwdrivers and a good light source and prised the handset open. Inside was a world mostly unknown to me, of miniature circuit boards, teeny candy-striped transistors, and delicate little welds. I identified the problem, but it was beyond repair, so I went out and bought another phone with a renewed respect for the intricacies inside the things we use every day.
