King Tut (Funky Tut)

Went to see the Tut exhibit on Wednesday, as part of a big, jovial office trip. I hadn't ever been to Philly, let alone the Franklin institute, so while we were waiting until three, when our timed tickets were for, we ran amok in the giant heart, crawled through arteries, and played with demos on the wonders of electricity. There was also much childlike giggling.

The exhibit itself doesn't exactly contain much from Tut's tomb, but rather incorporates him into a long line of his predecessors, including the famous Ankenaten. I also didn't realize that the majority of the most famous pieces (the funerary mask, the carved chair) didn't make it. These disappointments aside, the exhibit had some spectacular pieces, such as Tut's diadem, an alabaster vase inset with small triangles of blue faience, some stunningly fabulous wooden furniture, a leather dog collar, and a miniature coffin for Tut's viscera. Some of the objects were very plain, but some blazed with color - that specific blue of faience, the brilliant red enamel, the gold, the paint that still shows bright on two thousand year old wood. I could ask for an end to the annoying music looped in the background, and some of the projected text was blurry and annoying, but on the whole the labels were well-written, the objects were well-presented, and I was very happy to have gone. (Er, especially since I didn't have to pay for myself. Thirty bucks is a very steep price, even if a portion is going towards conservation of Egyptian artifacts and historic sites.)

The gift shop had five thousand dollar necklaces for sale. A bit optimistic of them, yes? They were doing much better business with the mummy rubber ducks and the gold "cleopatra" beaded headdresses.