The Met: Egypt

The ancient Egyptian precincts of the Met are arguably its largest, spanning 3,000 years or so of continuous history and resulting from numerous Met-sponsored digs. We did the Egypt tour on September 30th, then lingered, and then have returned several times for assorted bits and pieces previously missed. It's that large. It is no help that ancient Egyptian art changed little over the long course of its history. Vicki is the resident Egyptologist here, having visited Egypt in 1982, and also having visited Highclere Castle--home and museum of Lord Carnavon--at least three times. She is fond too of the recent Mummy movie series, the lead female character of which is a librarian. My total knowledge of ancient Egyptian history, culture, religion, etc., comes from Boris Karloff movies. 

The pix below are not in chronological order, since the tour skipped around a bit, and then we skipped around a bit too, back-filling. All dates and dynasties are BCE. As other, later pix from the Egyptian division emerge, I'll add them in a second post.

Writing on the wall

Standard pose, kilt; no bagpipes

Discoveries from a Met dig, tomb goods; for use in the Afterlife

Actual items; several rooms thereof

Also small boats and crews for use in the Afterlife

Photo from the dig of this stuff

Mummy body bag

Quite a few of these

Implements, tools

Mirrors, jewelry, etc.

Toiletries case

Beautiful gold work

In one of the several large format rooms; all pharaohs; the chin hair is a give-away

Chin-hair=pharaoh; ankh=god, key to Underworld

The Temple of Dendur, in its special humongous display hall facing
Central Park; the Temple was a gift from Egypt to the US in recogntion
of America's help with the Aswan high dam...flooding from which
was going to bury/destroy many such monuments; Egypt specified it
had to be on view 24x7

Dendur is actually a temple from the Roman era; that's Caesar
Augustus (right) paying homage to Isis and Osiris

Colorized version

Temple guardian

Closer up

19th century graffiti

More graffiti

Interesting foot gear concept

Ancient Egyptian linen; seriously; the desert is great for preserving
some things

Note shabti in the box left; your servants that will
spring to lfe...in the by and by....

Egyptophile

Thousands upon thousands of items; sort of like in the
study room for classical Greek and Roman bits; the Met has
sufficient space to put everything on display, in some form

And thousands  more

Toy game

The wig is contemporary but the hair-net thing is ancient

Another boat for getting around in the Afterlife

Interior of an actual tomb, removed and reconstructed from Egypt