Tutankamun impressions
Back in June of 2009, I wrote about the exhibition, “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 94118 (phone 415-750-3600)!
Today I visited the Tut exhibition, with my family. The exhibit will run until March 28, 2010.
First off, no photography is permitted (nor painting nor sketching), so I had to observe “really closely” and try to “drink it all in.”
What were some of the pieces of funereal art and artifacts that struck me?
- A calcite urn for oils, carved from one piece of translucent calcite, through which light passed almost magically and a calcite cup
- A dagger made of pure gold and its sheath, buried inside Tut’s wrappings, to protect him in the next life. Models of boats, with intricate wood work and painting that defied thousands of years of the ravages of time
- The structure and order of a society (apparent in almost all of the objects) that valued these attributes and allowed them to span physical death
- Ornate beadwork of pectorals and the base of a fan, sans ostrich feathers, adorned with a hunting scene
- Artifacts for mummies of two stillborn girls, quite possibly daughters of Tut and perhaps his half-sister – quite possibly victims of DNA homologous recombination from parents so closely related
I spent a LOT of time observing, at times feeling frustrated without my camera. 
I spent a lot of time being careful not to run into others who were touring the exhibit on this rainy Martin Luther King Day. The exhibition was busy, but the crowd was very polite, even the young children who were present with their parents.
King Tut’s mask no longer travels from Egypt, and Tut’s mummy has never left Egypt. In my life, I missed the opportunity to see the mask in Chicago, while I was attending Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin, Madison during the 1970s. I spoke with a friend at a joint Livermore Art Association/Pleasanton Art League meeting tonight who had attended both exhibitions. She said that there was very little overlap, that the exhibitions were really complementary.
If you are in San Francisco before March 28, you may want to take in this extraordinary opportunity to gaze into a culture that flourished long ago and far away.
-Bill at
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