Egyptian Book of the Dead on display at Brooklyn Museum

by Sean McLachlan on


After three years of careful study and restoration, an important version of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead has gone on display in the Brooklyn Museum.

The Book of the Dead was a collection of prayers, spells, and rituals to help the dead in the afterlife. The book has its roots in prehistoric times. As the civilization in Egypt developed, the prayers and spells became more elaborate. Eventually they were gathered together in chapters to create what we call the Book of the Dead. Individual chapters or sets of chapters were written on tombs, mummy cases, and rolls of papyrus. Many burials have portions of the book, one of the largest being the Papyrus of Ani, which you can view online.

The Brooklyn Museum example was for the tomb of Sobekmose, a gold worker. It’s an early and long version, probably dating to the reign of Thutmose III or Amunhotep II (c. 1479–1400 BC). It’s 25 feet long, written on both sides, and contains nearly half of the known Book of the Dead chapters.

Portions of this book have long been on display at the museum. This is the first time the entire book is on display.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

The Met launches its new expanded art website

by Sean McLachlan on


One of the best art museums in the world now has a world-class website.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has redesigned and expanded its website. The Met’s site now offers access to all of its more than 340,000 works of art.

There hasn’t been a major overhaul of the site since 2000, the cyber equivalent of the Late Bronze Age. Each of the almost 400 galleries at the museum and The Cloisters now has its own description and photograph on the interactive map and there are thousands of zoomable art images to explore. Students and aficionados will find the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History handy. It’s searchable by date, period, style, region, and theme. First-time visitors will want to check out the suggested itineraries to the Met.

As museums and galleries strive to attract real visitors in a virtual age, they’re hard at work developing their online presence. The Smithsonian Archives is another of many institutions to spruce up their Web profile.

[Photo courtesy morrissey]

Portland’s International Cryptozoology Museum to get a bigger home

by Sean McLachlan on


One of Maine’s most offbeat attractions is about to get five times the space.

The International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland will be moving from its current home in the back of the Green Hand Bookshop at 661 Congress St over to 11 Avon Street, where it will have much more room to show off its collection of Bigfoot print casts, monster photos, movie props, and thousands of other strange items. The move, according to the Portland Daily Sun, is to give the museum a more visible location and attract more visitors.

Cryptozoology is the study of animals thought by science not to exist. The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and the Mothman all qualify. Sometimes animals thought extinct, like the coelacanth, turn out to be still alive and move from cryptozoology into mainstream biology.

Museum founder Loren Coleman hopes this success will be repeated with other monsters. Coleman was born in 1947 (the same year the term “flying saucer” was coined) and has dedicated much of his life to studying strange sightings of things that shouldn’t exist. His books show a skeptical eye, an open mind, and most importantly a sense of humor. He probably wouldn’t be impressed by this purported photo of the Mothman. Considering that it was uploaded by someone whose Wikimedia Commons handle is Mostlymade, I have to say I’m skeptical too.

Despite being a skeptic I love museums like this. Once while hiking in the Himalayas I found some Yeti footprints that turned out to be from a normal animal, but I have had a strange experience with the legendary Thunderbird.

The museum’s “Grand Monster Reopening” is scheduled for noon to 6 p.m. on October 30.

Ivory Coast national museum ransacked

by Sean McLachlan on

During the civil war earlier in the year, the national museum in Abidjan, capital of the Ivory Coast, was nearly stripped bare by looters, Art Daily reports.

An estimated $8.5 million worth of art and artifacts were taken while the city suffered bitter warfare between political factions. Some of the most severe fighting swirled around the museum itself, which was used as a sniper’s nest.

Once famous among African museums for its fine collection of art, it is now a pale semblance of its former self, with all the most valuable artifacts gone. The Ivory Coast is home to a rich variety of cultures and a long history of ancient civilizations. A wide variety of arts are practiced there, including making masks like the one shown in this photo courtesy Guérin Nicolas. Luckily, this particular mask is in the Museum Rietberg in Zurich where it remains safe.

Civil unrest and cultural looting go hand in hand. In places like Iraq and Afghanistan, criminals have taken advantage of the chaos and lack of law enforcement to steal their own heritage and sell it on the international antiquities market. By doing so, they take away evidence of their common history, thus making it easier for factions to emphasize their differences and renew the cycle of violence.

National Slavery Museum goes bankrupt without ever opening

by Sean McLachlan on

The National Slavery Museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia, has filed for bankruptcy.

This will make little difference to potential visitors, however, since the museum doesn’t actually exist.

Former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder, shown here in this U.S. Government photo, founded a nonprofit organization in 2001 to create the museum. It was supposed to open in 2004 but never did. A small memorial sculpture garden was opened in 2007.

Since 2008, the organization has owed taxes on the property, which have now risen to $215,000. The city has stepped in and is now trying to sell the land. The museum’s filing for bankruptcy is aimed at stopping this from happening. Its bankruptcy paperwork says the organization has more than $3 million in debts.

The museum is also embroiled in a legal battle with Therbia and Marva Parker, who donated almost 100 historic artifacts with the understanding that they’d be put on display. Since it’s obvious that’s not going to happen, they want their artifacts back.