Filed under: Exhibit Installation | Tags: archeology, Columbus, COSI, Egypt, Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science, mummy, museum, science
Today, we moved “Annie” our mummy to her new glass encased home where she will be on display through September 7, 2009. You could hear a pin drop as we rolled her down the hallway.
Filed under: Trip to Egypt, Trips & Travels | Tags: Brad Feinknopf, Canon, Egypt, photography, SanDisk, Valley of the Kings
This story was shared with us by our photographer for our Egypt trip, Brad Feinknopf. We thought you might find it interesting too, so we’re sharing it here:
I am a commercial photographer located in Columbus, OH and I was recently hired by COSI, the local science center, which was in the process of creating an exhibit which will open the Summer of 2009 entitled Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets. Modern Science to travel to Egypt on a photographic expedition to create imagery for this exhibit. This exhibit will premier in Columbus, OH and then travel the United States. All the photography on this trip was shot with a Canon Mark II 1Ds on SanDisk Extreme III 4 GB cards.
Now to the story.
We were on Day 9 of this incredible expedition and we had been granted special access from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities to photograph three of the tombs at the Valley of the Kings. There are not many photographs of the tombs at the Valley of the Kings because photography is strictly forbidden and they rarely grant access. When we arrived at the Valley of the Kings, our Egyptologist knew the head guard, and he agreed to actually close each of the tombs we were to see for one hour apiece so we could photograph them. Keeping in mind that there are thousands of people who come to the Valley of the Kings every day, so to close the tombs for an hour was incredible and out of the ordinary.
The first tomb we visited was KV 9, the Tomb of Rameses VI. This tomb has been uncovered for a very long time – there’s even Greek and Roman graffiti on the walls in some places. It is filled with incredibly brilliant color decorations of religious iconography including the gods and goddesses. We were very excited about this – the photos were beautiful. At one point we asked if the color had been restored since it seemed impossible for it to have survived intact for so long, but our guide Ehab said this was all original and just very well preserved. At the end of the long ramp down, there was an enormous stone sarcophagus – truly worthy of a king.
The second tomb we saw was a surprise. We had intended to visit Rameses III next, but it was so swamped with people that we could barely move through it. The temperature inside was probably 95 degrees Fahrenheit (you’d think the tombs would be cooler inside, but with all the people going through and the lack of air circulation, it’s like a sauna). Ehab suggested that instead we visit KV14, the tomb of Tausert, the royal wife of Sety II who became regent of Siptah and eventually the last ruler of the 19th Dynasty.
The last tomb we saw was KV 34, the tomb of Thutmes III. Now the story gets interesting. After shooting for 3 hours on a SanDisk Extreme III 4 GB card, I did the final shot of the day. I was standing on a bridge which connected the shaft to the burial chamber over a 50-foot drop. I was bracketing my exposures to make certain I had the correct exposure and my Canon knocked out 2 of the 3 shot bracket, filling up the 4 GB card. My initial thought was that the 2 captures would be fine, so lets wrap up and go. I then thought to myself that I had traveled all the way to Egypt to do this photography, so why risk any chance of not getting the shot? I had extra cards, so let’s switch out the cards. I opened the back of the camera and pressed the eject button (maybe a bit too hard) and the card shot out and fell 50 feet into the dark precipice with all the images from my entire time at the Valley of the Kings stored on it! I was frantic. I informed the group, and we shined a light borrowed from the videographer on the expedition into the precipice and could see the card. We immediately informed the guard at the tomb and were told, “In Egypt, whatever the problem, we will find a solution!” About 15 dreadful minutes passed, and then several men came back with a long rope which one of them wrapped several times around his waist. The others stood as if playing tug-of-war and carefully lowered him to the bottom. I watched fearfully as he wandered around the bottom of the pit, stepping with inches of the card several times. Despite the language barrier, he found our lost card, and they pulled him back up. Their generosity was overwhelming and deeply appreciated.
I now had my card back but had no idea if the 50 foot drop to the rocks would have affected its contents. The next few hours were arduous as we left the Valley of the Kings with no idea whether we had anything to show for our efforts. We traveled back to our hotel where I raced to my laptop to download the images (if they were even there). I am sure that it didn’t take long although it seemed like an eternity while the images downloaded from the card and I opened them up. After several grueling hours, I discovered that the SanDisk had held up and the images were intact!
I am eternally indebted to SanDisk for a fine product. One of the most incredible days of my life would have been lost to eternity had it not been for some very kind Egyptian guards at the Valley of the Kings and one very durable Sandisk Extreme III 4 GB card!
Filed under: Construction News | Tags: Blue Rhino Studios, camel, COSI, Dan Miller, Dick Leerhoff, Egypt, Lost Egypt, saddle, Sarah, science museum of minnesota, SMM
Author: Kate
Our camel (who we’ve nicknamed Sarah) is almost finished! A couple of our Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) partners headed to Blue Rhino Studios to see the progress. To see if the camel is going to hold up as thousands of kids climb on it, we have to test it (that’s the fun part!), so here’s the team at Blue Rhino, as well as Dan Miller and Dick Leerhoff from SMM hard at work!
Blue Rhino Testers
Dan Miller and Camel
Dick Leerhoff and Camel
Since last time, the eyes, ears, and teeth have been added, and the camel has been painted.
Camel Face
Camel Face
Sarah’s hump is pretty tall, and we’ve had to think about how people will climb into the saddle. We designed the saddle similar to real ones on camels, and we’ll be adding some decoration like blankets to soften it up. We have added a stirrup as well to help the riders.
Complete Camel
It’s been amazing seeing Sarah emerge from a block of foam, being sculpted into a camel that looks just like the ones we saw in Egypt!
Filed under: Construction News | Tags: Big Science Park, Egypt, floor, limestone, pyramid, rock, sled moving activity, stone, weight, wooden frame
Author: Josh
Exhibit design is exciting, and it’s definitely rewarding, but it’s not without its challenges. Take for example the development that our “Pyramid Rock Challenge” as gone through to this point:
Our concept for this piece was to create an experience that gave visitors a taste of just what a daunting task moving the pyramid stones would have been. We started out designing something that replicated the size of some of the largest stones. This would have been a simple piece (a frame that showed in three dimensions the size of one of the stones), but it definitely would give a person a feel for just how big one of these stones really is.
Wooden Frame Model
As we thought about this more, we decided that we wanted to design a piece that was more tactile and preferably something that was more interactive (a place where visitors could do something rather than just look at something). As we discussed this, someone came upon the idea of having a piece of limestone inside the exhibit that was the same size as one of the pyramid stones. What a great idea! People could touch the stone and even try to move it, and it would feel much more authentic than a wooden frame.
We contacted a local stone company, and they said they could provide a stone of that size (about six feet by six feet by three feet). We even looked into getting two stones so that we could use one in the Atrium to let people know about the exhibit and one in the exhibit itself. Unfortunately, that’s when physics started getting in the way of our plans. We had originally figured that our floor (and the floors at other museums) could support a stone that weighed about 5,000 pounds. Unfortunately, a stone the size of the pyramid blocks would weigh considerably more than that. A cubic foot of granite weighs roughly the same amount as a cubic foot of limestone, and if you’ve ever been in Big Science Park you know that our 5,000 pound granite sphere is a lot smaller than 6’x6’x3’ (well, it’s a sphere and this would be a rectangular prism, but you get the point). The size of the stone got even smaller after we spoke with an engineering firm. It turns out that we needed to not only think about the weight of the stone, but also the weight of the forklift that would be moving the stone. The forklift we use weighs around 3,000 pounds. When lifting a 5,000 pound stone, most of the combined weight would be focused on the front two wheels of the forklift. That breaks down to 4,000 pounds of weight per wheel (5,000 lb. stone + 3,000 lb. forklift / 2 wheels), and the maximum load the wheels could safely support on the upper floor of our building is 3,000 pounds per wheel.
So our 5,000 pound stone had to become a 3,000 pound stone. That’s not a very big stone! It became time to rethink the activity again. And when we thought about it, we realized the intent of the activity was to show that while it would have been very difficult to move these stones, ancient Egyptian technology would have made it easier. So we came up with this:
Sled Moving Activity
This lets the visitors move a weight over different surfaces using technology (wooden sleds and ropes) that would have been available to the Egyptians when they were building the pyramids. It’s much more interactive than a big stone, and it should give our guests a good idea of how the ancient Egyptians may have moved these tremendous objects. It’s also a lot less likely to fall through the floor, which makes our facilities people quite a bit happier.
Filed under: Construction News | Tags: archaeologist, blog, dakhleh, Egypt, kate, oasis, Sahara
Author: Kate
We’re continuing to film interviews for the Lost Egypt exhibition. Two weeks ago we met with Dr. Tosha Dupras at WOSU@COSI.
Tosha is one of our project advisors, and has been with us since the beginning of Lost Egypt. She’s an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Central Florida, and she teaches human osteology (the study of human bones), and forensic anthropology. She works at a couple of different sites in Egypt: the Dakhleh Oasis Project, and more recently, Dayr al-Barsha.
We had a great time interviewing her – it was fascinating to hear her talk about forensics and the bones she uncovers. She left for Egypt last week for another field season. Here’s my favorite picture of her, riding one of the military camels in Egypt!
The Dakhleh Oasis Project is really interesting. It is in the Western Sahara Desert in Egypt, one of five major oases there. Many different archaeological teams from universities and organizations work there, looking at many different time periods in Egyptian history, since there have been people living or traveling through the oasis from the Middle Pleistocene (around 400,000 years ago!) through today.
Scientists are studying the interaction between environmental changes and human activity here, which helps us better understand the present-day problems of life in a desert oasis, where there is fertile soil but a finite supply of water.
The Dayr Al-Barsha Archaeological Project is being led by an archaeological team from Belgium. Talking to Tosha about her different projects made us realize how many different languages you need to speak, read or at least understand as an anthropologist or archaeologist.
There are universities and organizations around the world leading the projects, and even within a team from the United States, there are often people from different countries hired as specialists. In addition, within Egypt, most of the teams are assisted by local crews, so communication is a big issue. French, German, Dutch, and Egyptian Arabic are among the languages it is useful to know (not to mention being able to read hieroglyphics!).
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: amazing, blog, Brad Feinknopf, Egypt, photos, trip
Author: Carli
Our photographer, Brad Feinknopf, has posted a slideshow of photographs from our Egypt trip on his blog. Take a look at these amazing professional photos!
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: culture, Egypt, Greeks, heritage, lives, Nile, past, religion, Romans, wonder
Author: Josh
What’s left to say? Carli and Kate covered our experiences today nicely (as they have for the entire trip, allowing me to wax philosophic while they provide you with the real nuts and bolts of our experience), and now as I’m trying to sum up my feelings about this voyage I find myself drawing a blank.
Sleep deprivation can only be partially credited; I’ve found myself at a loss for words more than once during these past two weeks. I literally found myself wandering about the Egyptian Museum today with my mouth hanging open, surrounded by thousands of pieces of Egyptian history (125,000 pieces, to be more exact, with more than 1 million others in the museum’s storerooms).
If we consider that the first seeds of human civilization began about 10,000 years ago, then the Egyptians have dominated our landscape for roughly a third of that. Think about that. That’s six times as long as the Romans were king, roughly that for the Greeks, and about thirty times the amount of time that the United States has been a country… almost all of that took place at least 2,000 years ago. And we’ve spent the past few days retracing their footsteps.
We’ve asked ourselves more than once during the development of this exhibit, “How can we convince people to care about the past?” I’d say the answer to that question lies right here on the shores of the Nile.
These ancients speak to us about their lives, their loves, their hopes, and their dreams through each and every discovery, and as much as we’d like to convince ourselves otherwise, they weren’t that different than us. People 3,000 years ago were pretty similar to you and me. And if we haven’t changed that much during all that time, then how can those of us living on this planet right now really be all that different, regardless of our heritage, language, or religion?
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: artifacts, Cairo, cow bed, Egypt, experience, goodbye, King Tut, memory, museum
Author: Kate
It was wonderful to finally meet Salima, who has been one of our project advisors for the past couple of years. I’ve had phone conferences and email exchanges with her, but those don’t quite capture her energy and humor. She was very patient with us – we were exhausted today.
In my attempt to be efficient, I only scheduled 1 hour for us to film in the Egyptian Museum (a major miscalculation!), so we spent time almost running from room to room and still only saw a small portion of the objects there. There were wonderful papyrus scrolls on display, along with lots of ostraka, which are pieces of pottery, stones, etc. on which the ancient Egyptian wrote notes, receipts, and other information (kind of an early version on Post-Its).
A couple of days ago at the Visitor Center for the Valley of the Kings, we watched footage of Howard Carter and his team taking the objects out of King Tut’s tomb, including the famous “cow bed.” Today, we saw the real thing. A solid gold bed. The beads and jewelry were incredible – intricate collars and necklaces in gold, the deep blue of lapis lazuli, orange carnelian, and other stones. My sister Lisa, who does beadwork, would love these.
We walked through rooms of stone statues 20-30 feet tall, and the sheer number of objects we saw overwhelmed us. It really brought home the concept of how much the ancient Egyptians took with them to the afterlife, and the amazing artistry that went into the creation of all these items.
I’ll miss Egypt. It’s been an amazing experience being here – one I’ll always remember. Brad and I looked back through his photos at the many faces and places we’ve seen. Will I remember it all? Not just the sights and sounds, tombs and pyramids, but the feelings? What it was like to see Sekhmet in the darkness, drink tea with the tomb guards, talk to the archaeologists who I’ve only read about in books, or share my heart with this astounding place.
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: Cairo, Egypt, goodbye, home, King Tut, museum, Salima Ikram, sarcophagi
Author: Carli
Today began with an interview with esteemed animal mummy specialist, Salima Ikram, and ended with a journey through the Cairo Museum, a building of priceless treasures which, like everything else we have seen, is hard to describe with words. Room after room of immeasurable riches were a fingertip away.
I found myself standing face-to-face with the mask of King Tut. We stood in a room of mummies including Tuthmosis and Ramses II. We saw the mummy of an 18-foot alligator. We wandered through corridors of towering statues, sarcophagi, and cases of amulets, jewelry, and art. Our guide said there were over 150,000 pieces on display and hundreds of thousands more in the basement and other storage areas.
We fly home tomorrow, and part of me can’t believe the trip is coming to an end, and another part of me feels like we’ve been here for a month based on the amount of experiences we’ve had, and wonders we’ve seen. I should write a more profound and reflective ending, but I’m so tired that I’m having a hard time keeping from falling asleep on the key board. I’ll save a finale for when my brain waves return. Goodbye from Egypt!
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: Cairo, COSI, Egypt, exhibit, Giza, interview, Lost City, Lost Egypt, Mark Lehner
Author: Josh
Sorry for our missing entries from yesterday-we stole some moments in the afternoon for some much-needed rest, sleep that was pretty much negated by another late-night flight (this time, back to Cairo) followed by another 5 am alarm clock bell. But please don’t regard this as a complaint. While we have certainly been burning the candle at both ends, there is no doubt in my mind that this trip has been a wild success.
After spending our time yesterday refining the rest of our itinerary, rewriting some interviews, and reviewing our remaining shots, we had the chance to film some more incredible interviews today. As Carli mentioned, we met with Dr. Mark Lehner, who was absolutely amazing.
After having spent so much time the past few months reading about Mark’s work, the opportunity to sit down with this remarkable scientist was one of the high water marks of my professional career. Hearing him speak so passionately and eloquently about archaeology in general and Giza specifically, and visualizing the way his words melded beautifully with our exhibit…well, words fail to describe.
But in addition to meeting with Mark, we had the pleasure of meeting with some of the members of his team at the Giza site. We spoke with Mary Anne Murray, an archaeobotanist, Anna Wodlinska, a ceramicist, and Camilla Mazzucato, a GIS specialist. Each of these women provided us with more wonderful insight into their jobs at the Lost City and how what they do is influenced and enhanced by the other members of their team.
It’s been a revelation to me just how wonderful and gracious each and every person whom we’ve interviewed has been thus far. They’ve given freely and happily of their time, in some cases with very late notice, and each and every expert has provided us with more real scientific information that we can place directly into Lost Egypt. I can’t imagine having created this exhibit without their thoughts, expertise, and good will. If any of you are reading this now, again, I thank you.
It’s hard to believe that we will leave this wonderful place in just over a day. Each and every day here brings new discoveries and more breathtaking sites, and our little exhibit has grown infinitely stronger with each passing hour. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to return…well, no time for sentiment now. We’ve another full day tomorrow.
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: archaeology, balloon, Cairo, Egypt, Giza, interview, Lost Egypt, Luxor, Mark Lehner, ride, science, scientific method
Author: Carli
We’ve been averaging about 5-to-6 hours of sleep per night, and working about 17-hour days. I can barely keep my eyes open, but the incredible adventures continue every day, and I don’t want to miss a single moment. Yesterday, I got on a hot air balloon at 6AM and floated amongst 30 other balloons, watching the sun rise over the Nile, and taking photographs of the sugarcane fields and the Valley of the Kings below. We hopped an evening flight back from Luxor to Cairo, arriving around 2AM to the hotel, and slept until about 5:30AM this morning. We then headed back out to interview team members from the Giza Plateau Project.
My triumphant moment of the day – interviewing Mark Lehner, living legend of the discipline of Egyptology, esteemed archaeologist, and foremost expert on the pyramids. During the interview, we talked about the Giza Mapping Project, his discovery of the Lost City, the interfacing of different archaeological disciplines to complete pictures of ancient daily life, the importance and relevance of studying ancient Egyptian history, and scientific method involved in the process of archaeology.
The final line of questioning relating to scientific method and the proving or disproving of hypotheses brought me to tears. He essentially outlined the entire educational function of the Lost Egypt exhibit in a way that combined science, fantasy, discovery, curiosity, and the desire to seek out truth.
I couldn’t help but picture children at COSI standing in front of a kiosk station listening to Dr. Lehner speak and becoming inspired to take a similar career path. The impact of the project and the interview itself overwhelmed me. I am so proud of the work we have done here, and the product that will result from our efforts.
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: archaeology, chickens, COSI, Egypt, food, gifts, Khan el-Khalili, Led Zeppelin, market, money, Nile, street
Author: Kate
We were happy to see Ana again today and to meet with her team. Going through the interviews and conversations with these people really brought home the interdisciplinary nature of science. Each one’s work influences the other, and the synergy that results provides new insights into our world. It was such a gift to meet with each of them, and we are so grateful. All the experiences we’ve had here have allowed us to better tell the story of Egyptian archaeology in our exhibit, but the scientist’s stories are providing such a beautiful and direct look into what science is all about. Amazing.
As a contrast to our extraordinary morning, we went shopping later today at the Khan el-Khalili market – a huge open market with hundreds of vendors lined up on street after street, selling everything: food (fresh oranges and bananas, live chickens, candy), clothing (t-shirts, belly-dancing outfits, galabyas, and thousands of scarves), gifts (wooden inlaid boxes, brass lanterns shaped like stars, incense, spices), and just about anything else you could imagine.
We bought a few brass lanterns for the exhibit, but spent most of our time just getting used to the shopkeeper’s teasing, “I miss your money!” and the sights, sounds and smells (mostly good smells, by the way – incense, cooking food, baking bread). Being there was like being in a movie – just unreal. I kept expecting a director to yell “Cut. Now, let’s get a few more donkeys in the scene, and where’s my smoke machine?!” The experience was topped off by riding back to the hotel listening to Led Zeppelin on the taxi’s radio, as we crossed the Nile River. The two worlds merge and clash in ways that are both startling and funny.
Filed under: Trip to Egypt | Tags: bazaar, buggies, chickens, Egypt, flavor, food, horse, local, Luxor, market, organic, Quickie Mart
Author: Josh
You wouldn’t think there’d be more to say after Kate and Carli’s entries, but there is. We ended the day at a local market, after unsuccessfully attempting to make it to the only FedEx store in Luxor before it closed (the working hours of most stores here are much more flexible than those of businesses in the States – yet another reflection of the generally relaxed attitude here).
We asked our cab driver to take us to the actual local market, not the kind of bazaar that the tourists usually frequent. And we certainly got what we asked for. It was quite obvious to everyone involved that we weren’t local, a fact that was highlighted even more by the frequent horse and buggies that ferried the tourists rapidly through the streets. What an experience. We saw live chickens being sold, colorful local fruits that were clearly grown organically, baskets of spices, donkey-pulled carts, and about as much local flavor as we’ve had the chance to experience anywhere on this trip.
Overall, our experience has been rather sanitized, as we’ve been shuttled from our sheltered hotels back and forth to the sites by a team of guides and guards who are clearly dedicated to taking the best of care of us. And while we’ve certainly been well looked after, we’ve missed out on some of the Egyptian flair that helps to further illustrate that we aren’t in Kansas anymore.
It’s nice to remember that in some places, there are no such things as price tags, eye-catching packaging can be substituted with quality merchandise, and, maybe most importantly, that the vast majority of the world doesn’t do their shopping at the Quickie Mart.
