Not so eternal Egypt..

Last week a friend of mine did something together that we had postponed for far too long - hit the Museum circuit of montreal. No not something that we do all the time, and in a city thats is apparently such a liberal art vortex, its about time we indulged in a dose of 'culture' and exorcised the complacent 'mshamba' aura that we had become so accustomed to. My most memorable thoughts on: Eternal Egypt @ The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts:

* First off, we get in in laughing at all the suckers who opted to pay an additional 5 bucks for an 'audio' guide - a clumsy looking phone like contraption that speaks out a commentary on each respective artifact once u come within kidu 0.5 metre radius of it. I mean call me cheap, but 5 bucks to hear some mechanical voice payuka what i can read on the walls, no soundtrack, no headset - Surely ..i expect a such a respectable museum to be slightly more 'creative' in their efforts to rip us off.(the entrance fee is 7 bucks..to put things into perspective)...


* The female form is thing of beauty. And I ain't talking about the exhibition. It took me a while to get into the idea that I had come to see egyptian collections and not for my restless eyes to be darting around the stunning women present. Such a great pick up spot - cant believe my Mac radar had failed to pick up on this earlier. The atmosphere of brought about by a cluster of impatient people desperately struggling to appreciate art must certainly have accentuated the impression of the female in all her curvaceous glory upon my weak senses. Each curve complementing the other in seamless fluidity ..oh man..I wouldn't classify myself as a shameless gawker, just one who like to give credit where its due with my eyes...

* None of the artwork exhibited gave any slight mention as to how they were found.mostly what they represented. I felt it ironic that this stunning egyptian art was so far protracted from the people who championed it. This british museum is profiting immensely from the relics that should belong directly to the linked and owned by Egyptian heritage; I mean what makes the british any different form art conscious grave robbers?

* The theme that most jumped at me from observing the archaic pieces of limestone, papyrus reeds, gold, silver and bronze was this: man, today, yesterday, tomorrow, has an undying obsession with his past. Thats what each artifact essentially was: an individual time capsule, a means with which to iconify some individual for times to come. Skilled sculptoring was a much heralded profession in the middle ages before Christ, and really only aristocracy could afford them. One had to be trained extensively to write in hieroglyphs - meaning the vast majority was left out of these 'history books' and 'time capsules'. I want to hear what the average man in 1872 BC was about. Hopefully by the same token 4000 years form now the web server that hosts this blog will be unearthed by some 'digi-ologists' who can read my blog and ascertain what it was like to be a thoroughly cool average joe from kenya studying in Montreal. (and just incase u do read this from the future...i lied..I was the most influential person in Africa for the next 30 years.)

*I have a childlike impatience after like an hour of standing in an enclosed area.

* Who do they think they are..those kings and queens of misri..ati considering themselves 'deity'! Hapana. Thats just plain presumptuous. Power is a dangerous thing to have. The one great thing that came our of their ego-stroking art work is that most of the stone figures were sculpted in larger than life size.something that perhaps useful for archeologists today who aren't fans of the shovel.

* Every sculpted face was missing its NOSE. No this one has bugged me ever since i was a kid wondering what the hell went wrong with the sphinx. (ever read the Asterix comic with Cleopatra& ceasar..haha good stuff). Seriously though, it didn't matter how small the sculpture was - the mapua was ALWAYS missing. Something these grave-robbers knew that we don't. I posit that either these artists had one zany sense of humor , or that something seriously valuable was stored there in a not so discrete fashion.

* What was the rest of Africa doing 2000 years before Christ? was this obsession with capturing history something isolated only to the egyptians? I am especially concerned with what may be left of such an archaic East Africa. i refuse to believe it was a bunch of hunters and gathers struggling to figure out how to trap their next antelope dinner.

Looking forward to my next Museum trip..