My folks were interested in checking out the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum, so on Saturday the whole family trucked down to Chicago to see it. Apparently, tickets are fairly expensive (in the $22 range), and the exhibit is so popular, that your ticket only entitles you to see it for a certain period of time during the day.

The exhibit itself is pretty decent. The intricate artistry of the artifacts that were found in Tut's tomb is amazing. Some of the pieces rivaled what can be made today, and made it clear how the Egyptian civilization was an important milestone in humanity's evolution. The only real let-down was that Tut himself isn't actually a part of the exhibit. They have a life-size projection of the mummy's bones, but no mummy himself.

One odd thing - they are really pushing the audio tour (which we didn't have), which makes for a bit of a surreal experience. Mixed in with the ambient noise of the exhibit itself, are the muffled headphone noises of all of the other exhibit attendees. With their headphones on, it was almost like these attendees were little drones, immune to casual interactions with their fellow participants, absorbing the knowledge of Tut like a sponge.

And when we all finished, it was lucky that we could be re-united in the almighty gift shop. The tackiest thing that I saw was the King Tut kleenex dispenser:

Blow your nose with tissues from Tut's nose!

Yikes.

And I almost forgot, there was one really annoying thing - while touring the King Tut exhibit, all photography is prohibited. So, I don't have any pictures from inside of the exhibit, to remember the experience by. Totally lame.

-Andy.

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