23 November 2009

Field trip to Egypt

Well, not really, but it felt like it!

Recently Gracie and I went on an extended field trip to the Bay Area. We went to see the King Tut exhibit currently at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco and the Egyptian-themed Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose.

Unfortunately there was no photography allowed in the exhibit, but we were quite surprised to see a stunning resemblance between King Tut and certain members of our family! Who knew? Maybe we're descendants of royalty! At the Rosicrucian museum, we felt like we had been transported to Egypt. The grounds were beautiful and filled with intricate buildings and plants like papyrus and pomegranate that made us feel like we were walking along the Nile. The highlight for us was a recreation of an ancient Egyptian tomb that we could walk through. The walls of the tomb were decorated with images from Egyptian mythology. On the right hand wall you can see some of the gods weighing the dead man's heart to determine if he will make it into the afterlife.This is a recreation of Hammurabi's Code that is supposed to be almost identical to the original.

There were also recreations of the Rosetta Stone and King Tut's actual mummy case (the original never leaves Egypt). There were plenty of original artifacts in the museum as well, but the recreations pleased us just as much. We learned about Hammurabi and different types of ancient writing, like cunieform and heiroglyphics earlier this year, so it was neat to see something close to the real thing. And it will be a while until we can travel to Egypt or Europe where those artifacts reside!

Although it's fairly small, it's a very comprehensive museum. On their website they have a 10-day curriculum guide to go along with a museum field trip, including a quiz, which we used as a scavenger hunt at the museum.

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