Yesterday the GF and I took advantage of what had been another disturbingly warm weekend to head down to the Field Museum to check out the “King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” exhibit. Seeing as how you can’t walk more than two blocks in this city without seeing some sort of publicity for this exhibit*, and since it was due to close shortly after the new year, we figured we might as well go during the Bears game, which would shut down all parking near the Museum and scare away nerd-families who’d be afraid of the crowds. And as it turns out, we were right! The museum was nowhere near as busy as it would have been otherwise.
Still, even though we arrived at 11:30, we couldn’t get tickets to Tut until 2:00. So we were left to our own wanderings around the museum to kill time. The Field is an odd museum in that it’s been around forever, and yet it’s still transitioning from old school to new school museum. By that I mean that some of its exhibits are very much the “Here’s a dead stuffed Wapedi that’s been on display since 1915 so it’s getting a little ratty along with a hand-typed card explaining what it is” while some other exhibits are the “ZING! WOW! LOOK, KIDS – IT’S AN INTERACTIVE MODEL OF SOMETHING POOPING!! COME SMELL THE INTERACTIVE ARTIFICIAL POOP SMELL AND PLAY WITH SIMULATED WORM MUCUS!!! IN SPAAAAACE!!!!! KEWL!!!!” type. (sigh)…I miss the days before everything got MTV-isized…
I did get to make my own little red injection-molded T-Rex though. It was awesome, a little monster that I made in this little machine for a buck-fifty, which upon its removal from the machine promptly began trying to climb the GF’s shoulders and eat her hair, making fierce growling sounds. She responded by taking shutting him away in her purse until I** calmed down.
By then we got to go through the Tut exhibit, which, I have to admit – was pretty disappointing. While there is a decent amount of stuff in there, very little of it was actually from Tut’s tomb. Most of the items there came from a tomb of his aunt and uncle which was found nearby, and even of the stuff in his tomb only 4-5 items were actually his in life. Oh, and that big picture of the mask you see on the home page of the exhibit’s web page? That’s not the big mask that we’re all familiar with, it’s actually from a miniature version that was part of a canopic jar that held Tut’s liver. Talk about a letdown.
Still, I’m glad we went. At least I can say I saw it, and can pooh-pooh it with a sense of real authority.
* It’s on buses, billboards, bus stops, and pretty much every other media available
** Wait, did I say “I”? I meant “he”...
Still, even though we arrived at 11:30, we couldn’t get tickets to Tut until 2:00. So we were left to our own wanderings around the museum to kill time. The Field is an odd museum in that it’s been around forever, and yet it’s still transitioning from old school to new school museum. By that I mean that some of its exhibits are very much the “Here’s a dead stuffed Wapedi that’s been on display since 1915 so it’s getting a little ratty along with a hand-typed card explaining what it is” while some other exhibits are the “ZING! WOW! LOOK, KIDS – IT’S AN INTERACTIVE MODEL OF SOMETHING POOPING!! COME SMELL THE INTERACTIVE ARTIFICIAL POOP SMELL AND PLAY WITH SIMULATED WORM MUCUS!!! IN SPAAAAACE!!!!! KEWL!!!!” type. (sigh)…I miss the days before everything got MTV-isized…
I did get to make my own little red injection-molded T-Rex though. It was awesome, a little monster that I made in this little machine for a buck-fifty, which upon its removal from the machine promptly began trying to climb the GF’s shoulders and eat her hair, making fierce growling sounds. She responded by taking shutting him away in her purse until I** calmed down.
By then we got to go through the Tut exhibit, which, I have to admit – was pretty disappointing. While there is a decent amount of stuff in there, very little of it was actually from Tut’s tomb. Most of the items there came from a tomb of his aunt and uncle which was found nearby, and even of the stuff in his tomb only 4-5 items were actually his in life. Oh, and that big picture of the mask you see on the home page of the exhibit’s web page? That’s not the big mask that we’re all familiar with, it’s actually from a miniature version that was part of a canopic jar that held Tut’s liver. Talk about a letdown.
Still, I’m glad we went. At least I can say I saw it, and can pooh-pooh it with a sense of real authority.
* It’s on buses, billboards, bus stops, and pretty much every other media available
** Wait, did I say “I”? I meant “he”...
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