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Last weekend, my fam and I went over to D.C. for a distant relative's wedding. The wedding itself ended on a disappointing note for us (only the bride and groom got to have any bit of the cake, and the food the rest of us got was lousy "fancy restaurant" shit), but on the bright side, we did get to see some of the museums in the area. Biggest highlight for me was the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, which was a real treasure trove of photogenic exhibits. Not only did they have lots of dinosaurs and other fossilized animals, but they also had sections for material culture from ancient Egypt and other African countries.
Many of you will be pleasantly surprised at what the exhibits have to say on the topic of the ancient Egyptians' African heritage, as well as one of their mummy reconstructions!
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A building designed with the intention to illuminate human and natural history has a section with a display piece that is a distortion of social relationships of ancient groups. Marvelous! At least they didn't say they came from Asia or something.
Posts: 1123 | From: New York | Registered: Feb 2016
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quote:Originally posted by Thereal: A building designed with the intention to illuminate human and natural history has a section with a display piece that is a distortion of social relationships of ancient groups. Marvelous! At least they didn't say they came from Asia or something.
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Wow, that I'm surprised about. There was no "are they, aren't they" babble when it comes to the Ancient Egyptians... they were pretty forward about it. I give them points for that.
Knock down some points for having those drawings of the different races of man rather than referencing the actual tomb paintings.
Posts: 116 | From: Birmingham, AL | Registered: Oct 2011
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quote:Originally posted by HabariTess: Knock down some points for having those drawings of the different races of man rather than referencing the actual tomb paintings.
I agree that using photos from the original tomb would have been better. Another issue was that they failed to point out who was who in those illustrations anyway (e.g. the chocolate-brown people being native Egyptians, the very dark people being Kushites, the olive-skinned ones being Asiatics and northern Libyans, etc.).
quote:Originally posted by Thereal: I'm talking about the Egyptian part.
OK. So what do you find problematic about this particular exhibit's presentation?
quote:Originally posted by Thereal: The implied racial difference between the Egyptian and Nubians.
The only thing I see in that exhibit that could be construed that way is its inclusion of that reproduced "Table of Nations", albeit without labels identifying the different nationalities represented. I know that people have used such reproductions to make various claims about the ancient Egyptians' bio-cultural relationships to neighboring nationalities, but credit where it's due, at least the Smithsonian didn't say "only Kushites should be considered 'black'" underneath their usage of the reproduction.
Though, like I said to HabariTess, that reproduction being used without commentary at all is problematic. They'd probably be better using actual Kushite art for the background illustrations.
posted
Interesting I should post some of my pics from my visit to Bahrain, Dubai and Guam museums
Posts: 8805 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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