Just got back from the Childrens Museum in Indy, which is also featuring a 3 month run of ancient Egyptian items, including some stuff from Tut’s tomb.
Quite cool, and I urge anyone within driving distance (and children) to check it out this summer.
I’d never been to this place before, and it’s pretty damn impressive. Lots of cool things for kids and adults alike to share/do/experience.
The Tut exhibit is really awesome. Looking at 3,000 year old objects from various places in ancient Egypt as well as some things from Tut’s tomb was awe-inspiring. The intricacy. The age of the objects. The fact that my 7 year old is entranced with all things mummified or from Egypt (there are no human mummies in this exhibit).
If you can, please go. Apparently this is the last time that items from the Tut collection will travel anywhere ever again. So if a drive to Indy is cheaper than a flight to the Cairo museum, where these artifacts will remain forever after, it’s worth it.
Plus the museum itself is great. Free garage parking, reasonably priced tickets, helpful and interactive staff…it was a memory we’ll share forever.
Heh. An article from today’s SF Chronicle savaging the exhibit ( there are parallel openings in both SF and Indianapolis ) and the museums hosting it, as grotesquely commercial: Profit, not learning, drives 'Tutankhamun'
I’m still considering going to my local one, to see all the cool stuff :). But I have some sympathy for those that decry the ( purported ) crassness of it all.
Meh. Yeah, there’s a seperate gift-shop that sells expensive Tut-oriented knick knacks at the end of the viewing (the museum has it’s own seperate gift shop too), but we picked up a stenograph ruler that allows you to write the letters of the English alphabet in hieroglyphs, a miniature sarcophagus within a sarcophagus, and a “unearth your own mummy” toy for about $40.
I was told the proceeds from the sale of the Tut items go towards funding the replica of the Indy Children’s Museum that they are building in Cairo.
I thought it was neat. Especially since I shared it with my son, and the fact that these items (if what I was told is true) will go back to Cairo forever and never be allowed to travel again, I viewed it as a once in a lifetime experience. The likelihood of me taking my boys to Cairo to view the entire collection is about nil.
Yep. The writer of the above article marks that as the beginning of the GREAT DECLINE ;). But he also says the MET had the resources to support both crass commercialism and serious research, whereas smaller museums like the above, don’t, necessarily. It’s a bit of an elitist, Ivory Tower view.
Now I think he is being a bit of a drama-llama about the whole issue and like I said I STILL want to see the exhibit, money-grubbing or no. I was just a little amused because I had been reading that article just moments before I saw this thread :).
I saw the exhibit in Dallas, and yes, the gift shop was a little Spaceball-ish (King Tut the Baseball! King Tut the chocolate candy!). However, I will say that the sarcophagus-themed tissue cover was inspired–you pulled the tissues through the nose.
I seem to recall the big “King Tut” craze in the late 1970s as being both crassly commercial and inspired by a national tour of Tutankhamun artifacts. This isn’t necessarily new. (But, hey, it netted us Steve Martin’s song and the sleeper Konami video game Tutankham!) Tarnished Tut’s image not one whit, and undoubtedly served as an educational opportunity for some, so I don’t see the harm.
<divergence>The overall problem of overly commercial traveling museum exhibits is an interesting one, though. My former in-laws included a few folks on the board of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and they lamented the fact that they had to balance the desire to present less-popular educational touring exhibits with more popular, less educational money-making exhibits that would bring dollars into the organization that could fund research and permanent features. As a made-up example, you end up with big museums hosting thinly-veiled commercial Star Wars or Harry Potter tie-ins for months to raise enough money to build a new (and worthwhile) permanent paleontology exhibit… good in the long term, but it unfortunately means the museum hasn’t the space of funding to book worthwhile, lower-key exhibits on Indian history or marine exploration in the short term.
Yeah, the CMoI has hosted the Star Wars and Harry Potter exhibits in recent years, among other blatantly commercial things. They’ve also nearly doubled in size in the last decade, and drastically amped up the quality and care of their permanent exhibits, so the money raised has gone to good use. If the King Tut tour is another blatant money grab to raise funds, well… it’s definitely more educational and historically interesting than the pop-culture tie-ins, so it seems even more excusable than usual. And the museum has a track record of using its funds wisely to further its mission to educate children, so… I’m not going to complain. It’s disappointing that they can’t use their space to book other tours in the mean time, but in the long run the museum is going to be able to permanently present more features.</divergence>
I saw the Tut exhibit when it came around last time and wasn’t sure I should bother to see it again. But I was informed by my daughter that was 30 years ago, and now that the new museum in Cairo is near completion it may never travel again. So II saw it again, and it’s really impressive again. Seeing it up close is so much more than the pictures in National Geographic.
Eh, I think that’s a bunch of pretentious San Francisco bullshit. The captivation of commercial desire isn’t as strong as they like to think. I didn’t buy anything but the museum tickets so it didn’t bug me that much.
I’m not sure if it’s the same thing, but I saw a King Tut exhibit in LA a few years ago and it was terrible. Thirty something dollars to get in, we had to queue up in a tent outside for an hour first, we weren’t allowed to have purses, then- to top it off- they over sold it so I was literally body to body with people, stumbling forward at a snail’s pace, the entire time.
And while I’m a huge Egypt freak, I thought it was a bit misleading that all the ads for the exhibit had the gold death mask, but. . . there was nothing of the sort in the actual exhibit. Actually, most of the stuff was from different periods entirely, if I remember correctly. Neat stuff, but not at all what I needed to pay $30 to say, when I could have seen similar stuff at any museum’s Egyptian history section.
The Met has a huge wing devoted to Egyptian artifacts–obtained back in the Good Old Days when Robber Barons could buy boatloads of ancient treasures from greedy dealers. By the time Tut showed up, the rules were beginning to change, so the stuff mostly stays in Egypt. Where it requires a modern museum–which is expensive; some of that money is going to Cairo.
US museums also need money; they always have. The writer looks back to some forgotten Golden Age:
Let’s hope our museums can continue to function with a balance of profitable shows & challenging ones. While maintaining permanent collections; the best way to really learn about art is to look at it, again & again. And running educational programs. They can’t get all their money from memberships, regular tickets & the kindess of the extra-wealthy.
We can’t all make it to The Met if we want to see some Egyptian stuff. Much less to Cairo. If a special show takes somebody to a museum for the first time, how wonderful! They will find more things of interest for future visits.
I found myself in Indy and had time to kill, so I went to the Children’s Museum.
The first thing I’d say is that it’s also very adult friendly. I was a bit apprehensive. I’d heard so many good things about it, but I thought it was just geared for kids. It’s actually quite cool for any age.
But…I got there three days before the Tut exhibit, lol. So…about 1/3 of the museum was blocked off. And I obviously missed the Tut exhibit, which really bummed me out.
I’m always disappointed when other cities have cooler museums than Portland’s beloved OMSI.
Invariably, some part of the Children’s Museum is always blocked off. There is almost always a new installation going up/down or construction going on. Shame you were there so close to the opening, though… chances are, everything was in place and ready to be seen except for banners and stuff.
The Museum is definitely adult-friendly. No one freaks out at adults being without kids, and any interactive exhibit is going to be open for adults to use(/play with), not just children. It’s even a good place to take a date. The noise level can be overwhelming, though… children having fun are not quiet, and there are certainly a lot of children there!
