Mummies take Center Stage at the Toledo Museum of Art

The Mummies exhibit at TMA. Teddy admires the 1906 guide to the fledgling collection. The colorful
 background of  this collage is an abstract art work on sale at the Museum Shop, along with the beautiful glass bowls.  

As someone who loves Egypt I was happy to join my friend Teddy to see the new Mummies exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art.

The pieces in this exhibit were collected by the founders of the Museum, Edward Drummond Libbey and Florence Scott Libbey, on a trip they made to Egypt in 1906.  They bought 239 ancient Egyptian artifacts and art works, including Mummy of an Old Man and Mummy of a Young Priest, for the new museum they had founded five years earlier.  The exhibit guide notes that the Libbey's added two rooms to the original museum on Madison and 13th Street to show their collection, which proved very popular.  It's a piece of Toledo history, among many, that I never knew and am happily just learning.

An excellent guide to the exhibit, with
thoughtful & studied commentary on
the meaning of "cultural appropriation"
and "the ethics of exhibiting mummies."

The exhibit focuses on the popularization of everything Egyptian at the turn of the century and again with the discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922. Egyptomania!

From the 19th century to the present day, imagery from ancient Egypt has been appropriated for architecture and design, advertisement, cosmetics, plays and novels and popular culture.  As the guide thoughtfully notes "Appropriation, or the borrowing and alteration of images and cultural heritage, changes the context of what you see and what it means.  It can cause us to lose sight of the real people and rich history of a culture/civilization in favor of stereotypes and misunderstandings."  This is a caution well worth considering. I greatly appreciate its inclusion in the guide.

The two mummies the Libbey's purchased from Egypt are on display. They are the focus of the exhibition, which considers mummies in the context of Egyptomania, while also examining their original role within ancient Egyptian religious beliefs. (All information about the exhibit from the Museum guide or panel notes and descriptions accompanying the art.)

It is fascinating to read about the modern techniques used to study and identify mummies. For instance the mummy of the young priest was first thought to be a woman until Xrays and genetic testing confirmed otherwise.  Radiocarbon dating determined that the mummy was a young man, about 20 years old when he died in about 800 BCE.  He was almost certainly a priest because his head and body were completely shaved for ritual purification. Art scholars also learned that the pose of the mummy--hands crossed across the chest--is a position known only for men.

The other mummy, the old man, dated to 50-150 CE when Egypt was part of the Roman Empire.  Xrays and other studies determined he was about 45-55 years old when he died, about the average life expectancy for his time. The details of his entombment revealed a life of heavy labor and signs of bone problems and arthritis.  Imagine being able to uncover such details.

I pondered the art of the dead and the science of life.  The ancient Egyptians believed that death began a journey to the afterlife, where all the necessities of their former lives, including their bodies, would be essential to eternal survival.  The grand story of the god Osiris and his resurrection, a belief common across religions as Joseph Campbell reminded us, was the source of the ancients belief that life continued in another sphere after death. My brother Loren believed this, and since his sudden death from a  heart attack in May 2010 I want to believe it too.

These beliefs of course are sacred. They need to be taken seriously, respected. Fittingly, the Museum, on the cutting edge of museum practice, addressed the issue head on in a large interpretive panel titled "The Ethics of Exhibiting Mummies."  The panel notes that when the Libbeys purchased the items for their Egyptian collection it was common to exhibit mummies as scientific and cultural curiosities. In recent decades, however, "there has been a world-wide dialogue about respect for national cultural patrimonies and reverent treatment of the remains of the dead, whether ancient mummies or more recent burials of indigenous peoples. In addition, the display of human remains in an art museum prompts its own questions of appropriateness."

Kudos to TMA for giving viewers a context for understanding this exhibit and enriching our museum experience.

I couldn't believe I was at the Great Pyramids of Egypt,
and that I saw the moon rise and the sun set on 2011
in the Valley of the Kings and Queens
in the desert outside the amazing city of Luxor on the Nile.

The exhibit took me back to my fabulous trip to Egypt at the close of 2010 with Peace Corps friend Jud. I didn't know it then, but we were following in the adventurous footsteps of the Libbeys! Not that we could purchase any art! But like the Libbey's we were engulfed in antiquity, immersed in the art, artifacts, beautifully designed and painted "cartonnage" (linen, glue and plaster with paint) in the Egyptian Museum of Art in Cairo and wherever we went along the Nile. The colors were still brilliant, as if they had been painted yesterday and not thousands of years ago. Egypt's culture and history filled me with awe. Perhaps it was seeing the art in its own cultural context, unfiltered through the interpretation of others, up close, in person. The Pyramids! I stood at the bottom of the stairway to these enormous tombs, and stopped, transfixed. I honestly couldn't believe I was in Egypt, actually seeing them first hand. The train trip from Cairo to Luxor also filled our senses; the landscape and views along the historic Nile River were riveting, the scenes of daily life fascinating, and the archeological splendor of Luxor beyond imagination.

Ah Egypt, we wish you the glories and beauty of your antiquity as you move into an uncertain future. Thanks to TMA for its sensitive portrayal of the Mummies and for keeping the stories and the memories alive. 

In Cairo, at the Egyptian Museum of Art, at the pyramids, at the Valley of the Queens and Kings, in exquisite beautiful Luxor. The trip of a lifetime in an ancient land going back some 5000 years.  How lucky to celebrate New Years Day 2011 in the Luxor desert, upper right.

Some Egypt Blogs at www.fran-ukrainian-adventure
http://fran-ukrainian-adventure.blogspot.com/2011/01/art-and-architecture-for-dead-egypt.html
http://fran-ukrainian-adventure.blogspot.com/2011/01/eqypt-seductive-our-whimsical-hostels.html