Ben Franklin and King Tut
2007-07-30 | Filed under Life |
The Sunday after visiting the Art Museum we went to the Franklin Institute’s King Tut exhibit. And the Franklin Institute in general, which I’d never visited before. (That weekend was very Philadelphia intensive.) I definitely understand the complaints about a bias toward entertainment rather than education—I mean, I love a Jacob’s Ladder as much as the next girl, but the science discussion seemed a bit lacking for some things. Still, that complaint wasn’t universal and the big giant heart was cool. I’m looking forward to shepherding my theoretical future children through the ventricles someday.
The IMAX movie was appropriately narrated by Christopher Lee. Since we were not sitting in the two or three good seats in the sweet spot (which I presume exists) it looked kind of crappy. Even if it had looked good, I don’t think there was much benefit to the IMAX presentation. But anyway, beyond the technical presentation the mummy introduction wasn’t all that impressive (or particularly appropriate, as it did not focus on Tutankhamen). They had three or four plotlines they were sort of developing, but didn’t do justice to any. The crime story of the grave robbers who found the tomb, and revealed its location only when the western Egyptologist set the local authorities on them…the science fiction tale involving the Amazing Cure for Disease discovered in the DNA extracted from the mummy (or, alternatively, evidence that the mummy was an alien)…the Indiana Jones knockoffs involving the discovery of any of the tombs or the Rosetta-fu of the Egyptologists…the science fictional exploration of Ramses’s politics—if he was such a wise and reasonable ruler, but also the biblical Pharaoh, what was up with the Hebrews and OMG the only explanation is that God really did harden his heart and therefore must exist…and so forth. But instead it was kinda lame, except for the Christopher Lee part.
(Hm. I’m really sounding quite negative here. That’s a bit unfortunate, because I did in fact enjoy the exhibit, and the Franklin Institute in general, and certainly liked hanging in with the out of town friends we went with.)
The exhibit itself was very impressive and surreal. There were pieces I recognized from the archaeology class I took in college. I’ve had similar experiences on other museum jaunts—the Dalí exhibit a couple years ago, the walls o’ Renoir at the Barnes, and so on and so forth. But in those cases, the paintings are reasonably modern. Not created within living memory, necessarily, but within a countable number of generations. That’s not the case with the Egyptian pieces. It’s more akin to the experience of walking through the British Museum and wondering why they didn’t just go whole hog, disassemble the Parthenon and relocate it. (Okay, the Elgin Marbles are more surreal than tomb-loot; even the bigger pieces are still pieces—sculpture, knick-knacks, not architecture.)
The percentage of wooden artifacts was also odd. First, because it’s so old but still the original wood, not even the temple of Theseus effect you get with, say, Japanese structures. Second, because the use of wood (and other humble materials) means that a fair number of the pieces aren’t intrinsically valuable; they’re only valuable because they’re really, really old. (Okay, the Egyptian craze also played havoc with their market value, undoubtedly more than the purely academic interest.)
Which leads into my persistent low-level discomfort with the exhibit. As I was walking around, I kept feeling like there were probably better things to do with these pieces. With my single archaeology class, I might well have been better informed about Egyptian art and history than a fair percentage of the people there (e.g. I walked in knowing about the religious and artistic changes during Akhenaten’s reign). But I was nonetheless nothing but a consumer looking at shiny things. My intellectual snobbery was pitted against my democratic desires.
Note that my intellectual snobbery is not wholly self-centered: I lump myself in amongst the rubes who are, if not precisely “unworthy,” at least incapable of making any contributions to the field thanks to their trip to see the exhibit. And yet, surely everyone should have access to works of art, a basic human right somewhere between freedom of speech and freedom from spam. And maybe the next great archaeologist will find his or her calling at the Franklin Institute (thus reconciling the snob and the democrat).
My internal democrat had a more difficult time shouting down my internal snob when the exhibit let out in the gift shop. I really hate that; it’s so tacky. (And, as Larry pointed out, had the side effect of making the actual artifacts look rather shabby in comparison to the replicas on sale.) I think part of the reason I didn’t have the negative “Why are these people looking at this stuff rather than Experts?” reaction to the Art Museum’s calligraphy exhibit is that it dumps you back out into the museum. After looking at the work of Taiga and Gyokuran, we looked at a Japanese tea house, Hindu temple, and crossbows. There was a slightly more dignified air of imbibing Culture and being educated, rather than entertained.
Dunno. Maybe this just means I have a stick up my snobby ass.
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5 Responses to “Ben Franklin and King Tut”
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So few museums get it right. Some now are too hands-on and you hardly learn a thing, just push buttons. Others are dated and dull. Many are too damn dark or too damn crowded.
One thing is clear, I miss Philadelphia. Maybe I will come to the noircon just to breathe in that cheese-steak air.
I did get to play Thebes, an archaeology themed game, recently. It’s a lot of fun though I spent many weeks digging in egypt and other locations with not necessarily a lot to show for it.
Mmm…cheese steaks…. I don’t get into the city nearly as often as I should, especially since it’s Right There. Maybe I ought to put NoirCon on my schedule. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a convention (even though PhilCon is Right There).
I have a friend who used to work at the Franklin Institute; he left a few years ago because he didn’t like the direction things were going. I’m not in a position to comment on “before” and “after” but I think his (far more expert than my) opinion has colored my impressions. That said, it was really neat to see kids crawling all over exhibits and showing some degree of enthusiasm.
Crowds were a problem with this exhibit, to a degree I haven’t experienced with other timed-entry special exhibits. If they’d cut the number of people by about 30%, I would’ve been happier (but don’t know that would otherwise impact the exhibit, price, schedule, etc.) Certainly there was plenty of space for the people they let in and, while everybody was naturally clustering around the Interesting Stuff, they did the smart little things like putting multiple labels on the cases and some verbiage on the walls.
I guess you’re digging in the wrong place, Lee. Are you sure you got all the info you needed from the staff’s headpiece?
(I thought I already posted this)
No I only have the half that is burned into my hand.