Adventures in Ancient Egypt

The BrassGears Adventurers Society visits King Tutankhamun's
Tomb! Mystery! Golden Treasures! A Pharoah's Curse!

Many of our friends enjoy the Steampunk costuming scene, and formed a little club in which to plan events that give them more opportunities to dress in costume than just the science fiction conventions. We like to join in when schedules permit. This summer, my very good friend Susan planned the BAS outing to our local museum, which had a traveling exhibit for King Tut's treasures. Quite the appropriate event for costumers of the Steampunk persuasion!

We started out meeting in the museum's foyer, where we got a short introduction to the exhibit and other interesting tidbits about the museum's history of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Then we moved on to the beginning of the exhibit, where we got audio tour wands that played the audio portion of the exhibit tour, but only to each individual person. This was my first experience with such a device, and I liked it. The initial portion of the tour introduced us to the history of archeology in Egypt, the Valley of the Kings and Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon.

no photo could do justice

After the initial portion of the tour, we were sent into the main portion of the tour. It was set up to give us a similar experience to what Carter and Carnarvon experienced as they opened each section of Tut's tomb. It was extremely well done, with each reproduction piece in the "tomb" rooms painstakingly made and placed exactly how they were in the real tomb. It was awe inspiring and took my breath away. My only issue was that the tour was timed, while I wanted to linger over each "room" and inspect it carefully. But I asked the museum lady if I could go back and see the rooms and of course I could.

We also went through rooms of reproductions of the treasures that were found in Tut's tomb. You might ask, why bother going to see reproductions if they aren't the real thing?  Firstly, any traveling exhibit of the real treasures is usually limited to a small selection of pieces, and THIS exhibit was literally overflowing with beautiful and accurate reproductions... I've SEEN the traveling exhibit that had some of the real treasures, and there just weren't that many. This exhibit left me feeling very satisfied! Secondly... the sheer value of all those real pieces, they are priceless and what if a terrible accident happened.  Thirdly, these were extremely accurate reproductions, to the point that all that gold you see? it's real gold. They did not skimp.

Here's a selection of photos of the exhibit!

This crown!

All the details there, "just" a reproduction.

Hail, Sekhmet!

My son and I have this game and play it often! :)

I took so many more pictures! I cannot possibly fit them all here. But here's one last picture in the room with Tut's primary mask... all of us BAS members and our museum tour guide. :)

After we'd finished touring the Tut exhibit, the museum's Egypt exhibit and all the other parts of the museum that we wanted to see, we were invited to the atrium overlooking the hill the museum is on and further away, the river. There we enjoyed a lovely luncheon that the museum itself provided, designed to go with the Egypt theme with lamb meatballs, the best rice I've ever had, some vegetables that were sweetened with honey as well as the usual hummus, pita and crackers. After lunch, we went into the museum's theater and watched the accompanying 3D movie that went with the exhibit. Well done!

These parasols!

Because most of the BAS members were from out of town, a whole day of adventure had been planned, so after the museum we went to Vanderveer Park, a park that had been designed and built during the period in which Steampunk is set. The day was amazingly lovely, and we saw 3 separate wedding parties in the park taking photos (and we ended up taking pictures with one of them).  We strolled the promenade took our own photos for the fun of it.

After our stroll in the park, we retired to Credit Island Park, a place with a lot of history in the time period. There we partook of tea and refreshment (and a little wine). We also did a little strolling about the park, where we found an art installment of statues set in the turn of the century, some historical plaques about the park, and a tank.

To finish off the day, the BAS members remaining spent the evening at Susan's home where we tried to watch the original "The Mummy" film in  her backyard, but technical difficulties drove everyone into the house (I'd gone home before then). It was a superb day!