Saturday, October 30, 2010

Unwrapped Mummy: Review of The Egypt Experience at the Toledo Museum of Art

My 8 year old son and his 9 year old friend had a blast and really enjoyed the Egypt Experience exhibit at th e Toledo Museum of Art.  The cost was $10 for adults and $5 for each child.    The exhibit had 2 mummies, alot of ancient artificats and a replica of a tomb.  One of the mummies is unwrapped from the shoulders up.  Upon close inspection my son noticed that the mummy is missing his pinky finger.  Hopefully he lost it after he died and not before.  One of the workers told us that the Libbeys, the family who had started the Art Museum,   had unwrapped the mummy in the 1930s.  Apparently the fashionable thing to do at the time was to have an "unwrapping" party with your mummy.  My son has always wondered what it looks like underneath all of the bandages the mummies are wrapped in so this was fascinating for him to see an unwrapped mummy.

The exhibit also contained a lots of walls with hieroglyphics, canopic jars, artwork, and other Egyptian items.  I though it was well laid out and very interesting.  At 7pm there was a free session where the kids could make Egyptian art, Egyptian collars, and crowns using hieroglyphic stencils, jewels, and other art supplies.  We all enjoyed making the art and the kids brought home some nice artwork.  At the end we visited the museum gift shop and got some Egypt themed gifts for the kids.

All 3 of us enjoyed our visit to the Egypt Experience at the Toledo Museum of Art.  I highly recommend it to anyone with school age kids.

1 comment:

  1. Great post! The Penn Museum in Philadelphia is featuring mummies from western China in their "Secrets of the Silk Road" exhibition come February. Check it out - http://www.penn.museum/silkroad/

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