The Egyptian Museum

    Today, Shelbi and I went to the Egyptian Museum

of Ancient Antiquities.  It rocked!  It's well organized,

Thank you, grave robbers!

informative (I learned soo much) and they have some great

antiquities.  Thank you, grave robbers!

So we walked around the museum, starting with the

second floor which houses most of the treasures found in *my favorite*

King Tut's Tomb.  They even have the "Death Mask" the famous gold

mask which covered the mummy itself.   The mummy remains in

the outer casket in the Valley of the Kings, and rightly so.  I

honestly felt kind of bad viewing all of these treasures, considering

the great pains the Ancient Egyptians went to to keep them preserved

and safe.  But then the other part of me is just glad to be able

to see it all.  So King Tut's treasures take up two wings of the

second floor.  There are countless alabaster vases for perfumes

and incense, and the other kind which contained the organs of the

mummies...there are countless pieces of jewelry, chairs, chariots, beds

made of solid gold, and even a foldable cot, in case King Tut wants to

go camping in the afterlife.  Various God figurines, shoes,

clothes, writing utensils, everything one can imagine ever

needing.  There is so much because King Tut's tomb was never

plundered before it was discovered, and it is all well preserved.     There's also a room dedicated to Ancient Egyptian

jewelry.  Let me tell you what, those queens had it made!

Gorgeous necklaces, earrings, bracelets, all gold and studded with

turquoise, lapis lazuli, and other various stones.  I would

seriously wear every piece in there.     The first floor is organized chronologically,

starting with the Old Kingdom, then the Interim period, Middle Kingdom,

Interim Period, and then the New Kingdom.  Personally, I'm a fan

of the New Kingdom, which is mostly defined by King Akhenatun, who

started the first monotheistic religion.  They worshipped the sun,

Atun.  His wife was Nefertiti, and the museum has some great

statues of them, along with pictures of them worshipping the

sun...unfortunately he was labeled as a heretic, and the civilization

later returned to polytheism.        There is an enormous, perhaps 70

ft tall? statue of a king and queen (didn't catch their names,

sorry...) There are a ton of sarcophogi, and it seems like every inch

of everything is covered in ancient egyptian hieroglyphics.

Ancient scrolls, weapons, fishing tools, musical instruments...we saw

everything!  Your not supposed to take pictures, but...maybe we

accidentally took a couple. (Check back later).

Sadly, we didn't get a chance to go into the Royal

Mummies Room, which houses mummies the likes of Ramses II and Queen

Nefertari.  Admission was an extra 50 gs, and we are cheap.

But we did get to see the mummies...in a book in the gift shop.

Kind of gross, but still amazing!  More than 3000 years old!

It's amazing to think of how advanced Ancient

Egyptian Society was, and how many clues they left behind for us to

discover.  And there are still countless antiquities abroad

(actually, the Egyptian government is having a hard time getting some

back from other countries) and hopefully more to be discovered!