Milwaukee Public Museum
I hope you all had a wonderful long Memorial Day weekend. I certainly did. I started it on Friday by going to Milwaukee to the Mummy exhibit at The Milwaukee Public Museum. I'd been wanting to go but it never seemed to fit into the schedule and then I heard that the exhibit was packing up and moving on today so I figured I'd better get moving. I find looming deadlines motivational.
First of all, if you've never been to the museum you should go. It's an AWESOME natural history museum that covers all regions and major cultures of the world. It even has a live butterfly room that I could spend all day in if it wasn't 1000° in there! The Mummy Exhibit in particular was simply amazing. They had it set up so that only a certain number of people got in at a certain time which was fortunate because it seemed that every school age child in the tri-state area was in the building; spring field trip season being in full swing. First you started off with small things that were naturally mummified; cats and squirrels found in attics etc. I thought, "Uh Oh, this is not what I signed up for. These aren't mummies, these are just gross dead things!"
Pretty soon it progressed to the Coptic mummies and then South American. There were displays of the tools used in the mummification process (in the case of the Egyptian mummies) and the artifacts interred with them (South American). Numerous TVs showed various related videos. There was one particularly good video of the oldest mummy ever found; a 6,000 year old infant whose skin still held it's original peachy tones. It was unbelievable!
There was a room that held a mother, father and child that died in Germany in a 17th century TB epidemic. They were accidentally discovered in 1997 behind a wall in a church along with 151 of their towns folk who had also succumbed to the disease. Conditions under the church were such that natural mummification was possible. The same was true of a 16th century baron and baroness that were found in the 'basement' of their castle; preserved right down to their hosiery.
But of course, my favorite, and the reason I wanted to go, was the bog mummy. They only had one and she was pretty beaten up but I was fascinated and spent most of my time with her...oh and the bog dog. The only dog found mummified in a bog! I don't know why I'm so attracted to this phenomenom. Maybe I was a bog mummy in another life? Wait, if that's true that I probably still am. Given the very nature of bog mummies....I must still be out there somewhere! Attention! People of Eastern Europe! Please go to your nearest fen and poke around with a stick and try to find me immediately, won't you?
First of all, if you've never been to the museum you should go. It's an AWESOME natural history museum that covers all regions and major cultures of the world. It even has a live butterfly room that I could spend all day in if it wasn't 1000° in there! The Mummy Exhibit in particular was simply amazing. They had it set up so that only a certain number of people got in at a certain time which was fortunate because it seemed that every school age child in the tri-state area was in the building; spring field trip season being in full swing. First you started off with small things that were naturally mummified; cats and squirrels found in attics etc. I thought, "Uh Oh, this is not what I signed up for. These aren't mummies, these are just gross dead things!"
Pretty soon it progressed to the Coptic mummies and then South American. There were displays of the tools used in the mummification process (in the case of the Egyptian mummies) and the artifacts interred with them (South American). Numerous TVs showed various related videos. There was one particularly good video of the oldest mummy ever found; a 6,000 year old infant whose skin still held it's original peachy tones. It was unbelievable!
There was a room that held a mother, father and child that died in Germany in a 17th century TB epidemic. They were accidentally discovered in 1997 behind a wall in a church along with 151 of their towns folk who had also succumbed to the disease. Conditions under the church were such that natural mummification was possible. The same was true of a 16th century baron and baroness that were found in the 'basement' of their castle; preserved right down to their hosiery.
But of course, my favorite, and the reason I wanted to go, was the bog mummy. They only had one and she was pretty beaten up but I was fascinated and spent most of my time with her...oh and the bog dog. The only dog found mummified in a bog! I don't know why I'm so attracted to this phenomenom. Maybe I was a bog mummy in another life? Wait, if that's true that I probably still am. Given the very nature of bog mummies....I must still be out there somewhere! Attention! People of Eastern Europe! Please go to your nearest fen and poke around with a stick and try to find me immediately, won't you?
I WANT MY MUMMY!
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