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| Printed from ABQjournal.com, a service of the Albuquerque Journal URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/venue/589218venue08-26-07.htm Sunday, August 26, 2007 'Excavating Egypt' Exhibit Brings Collected Splendor to Light in N.M. By Kathaleen Roberts Journal Northern Bureau SANTA FE— From Cleopatra to Indiana Jones, the allure of ancient Egypt has seduced Americans for more than a century. At the turn of the 19th century, digging for Egyptian treasure could be compared to gold mining in the Wild West. Excavators kept their digs secret, guarding them from both Europeans and locals. Soon "Egyptomania" swept the globe, with art, architecture and design all reflecting the styles of the riches found in royal tombs. This fascination with the pharaohs would reign throughout 20th-century pop culture, from the earliest "Mummy" movies (they started in 1912), to Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile" (1937) to Steve Martin's ode to "King Tut" (1972) and the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" (1986). "Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology University College, London" documents one of the earliest explorers in an exhibit of more than 220 objects dating from 4,000 B.C. to the first century. Most hail from the Nile Delta and Meroe in the Sudan. Reportedly a model for the "Indiana Jones" character, Sir William Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) amassed the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities in England. Known as the father of modern archaeology, Petrie changed the field from a treasure hunt into a science, said Peter Lacovara, senior curator of ancient Egyptian, Nubian and near Eastern art from the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University in Atlanta. "People would just go and pull big monuments out of the ground," Lacovara said. "They paid no attention to small objects like pottery." Petrie documented the position and arrangement of every object he found at a site. He was also the first archaeologist to use photography. He developed "seriation," a method for establishing the historical chronology of a site based on identifying stylistic changes through time. An extremely prolific author, Petrie penned more than 1,000 books during his lifetime. You could call his approach "thinking outside the tomb." "Unlike Howard Carter, who was his student who found the Tut tombs, he didn't just go for tombs with lots of jewelry," Lacovara said. "He went to industrial sites and habitation sites. He didn't just go for the goodies." The goodies gathered range from a beaded net dress that would make Madonna blush to tools and ceramics used in middle-class homes. The revealing dress is one of the oldest in the world, dating to circa 2400 B.C., Lacovara said. Woven of faience (crushed quartz ceramics) beads and shells, it leaves little to the imagination and was likely worn by a woman at court. "We're not sure if they wore a dress underneath it or not," New Mexico Museum of Art curator Joseph Traugott said. A gilded mummy mask shows a woman with elaborately styled hair tumbling in tiers of ringlets. Featuring one original eye made from glass and calcite, it includes eyelashes and a pair of ornate snake bracelets, armbands and a pectoral with figures of Isis, Harpocrates and Serapis. Beneath the mask is the foot case used to protect the mummy's feet. Its gilded surface, like that of the mask, associated the deceased with the sun god, whose flesh was believed to be covered in gold. A limestone relief of a Nile god at the Temple of Min at Koptos depicts the head and shoulders carrying a tray of vessels. Its pose and considerable breast identify it as a "fecundity figure," a personification of the bounty of nature. Amuletic jewelry glittering with gold and precious stones was more than decorative, Lacovara said. "It wasn't just beautiful; it had a magical function." The collars, earrings and scarabs protected the wearer from scorpion stings and illness. Ever the populist, Petrie also collected more mundane objects like a wooden doll, a live rat trap and "the world's oldest blueprint— it's for a shrine" Lacovara said. The collection also features decorative art from the palace/city of Queen Nefertiti, the beautiful wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten. "They had changed the worship from many gods to one god— the first monotheistic god in history," Lacovara said. A pair of coffins bookends the exhibit— one from the Bolton Museum in London and the other from the Carlos Museum in Atlanta. The traveling exhibit marks the first time most of these ancient works have left Britain; some have never been seen publicly at all. "During the war, the building the museum was housed in was bombed," Lacovara said. "They had put all the objects in country homes. Then they jammed them into the old stables." Thanks to England's arts lottery, these priceless objects will have a permanent home in 2008. WHAT: "Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology University College, London" WHEN: Opening noon-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 1. Reception from noon-2:30 p.m. Exhibit continues through Jan. 6, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. seven days a week WHERE: New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe HOW MUCH: $5 special exhibition fee in addition to regular admission fee of $8 for nonstate residents and $6 for New Mexico residents. Children 16 and under free. New Mexico resident seniors (60+) with ID free Wednesdays. Museum Foundation members free. Students with ID $1 discount. Contact (505) 476-5072 or www.nmartmuseum.org |