Nefertari in Portland

Over the weekend Mark and I drove up to the Portland Art Museum to see an exhibition of ancient Egyptian artifacts from the time of Queen Nefertari, wife of Rameses II.  The artifacts were (most recently) from the Museum of Turin.

I'd say we've been spoiled by the MET.  I did wish the PAM could have turned up the lights some, although I understand that low lighting is needed for conservation purposes--but it made it difficult to see the minute details on some of the items (and I had to crank up my camera's ISO to the max to get any kind of photo).  I would have had a few of the items pulled away from the walls, turned ninety degrees, or installed in front of a mirror to make it easier to see the back.  I always want translations of what I'm looking at, and if I had been curator I would have had a augmented reality or video display of the artifacts with the hieroglyphs highlighted, along with transliterations and translations (the MET sort of does this sometimes when they shine projections onto the Temple of Dendur).

The artifacts were interesting early Late Kingdom items--but there was nothing of fabulously spectacular craftsmanship fashioned out of gold and inlayed with precious stones.  This wasn't too surprising, as the majority of the objects were every day things from a stonemason's village.  And, to be fair, the show wasn't trying to be a second King Tut exhibit.  There were a number of stelae, pointy-ended jars, little wooden or stone votive statues, and tons of shabti.  The curators did seem awfully fond of a pair of ladies' size nine palm flip-flops.  I'd say my favorite pieces were a bronze cat, an eyeliner case, a carving of the Two Ladies (a cobra and vulture representing Upper and Lower Egypt) with cool detail payed to the two neb baskets, and an early 1900's architectural model of Queen Nefertari's tomb.  

There were only one or two instances of the htp-di-nsw offering formula, so I was challenged to be able to read the writing, but I did on occasion manage to pick out someone's name or phrases like "forever" and "eternity."  To me it seems like New Kingdom era hieroglyphs are the ancient Egyptian equivalent of Helvetica.  It was cool to see some actual papyrus scrolls of The Negative Confession and what I think was Chapter Eleven from the Book of Gates, where Apep the Chaos Serpent is bound--even if they did have a line-drawing feel instead of a luscious carving feel.

I think I'd revisit the exhibit, especially on a weekday when it would be less likely to be crowded.  While I felt like I didn't learn anything new--and Mark said that he thought the exhibit was more of a display of ancient things than a teaching moment--there were enough there that was interesting to warrant a return visit.