Egypt of the Pharaohs Fieldtrip to NYC, November 2002
Text by Elizabeth Crowley and Caroline T. Schroeder. Photos
by Schroeder.
Students in Prof. Carrie Schroeder's Egypt of the Pharoahs history
class
recently toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Egyptian art wing. The
college-sponsored trip allowed the group to see the art objects in
person that they had studied in class through pictures from the
Internet, slides, and books. Junior Stephen Wagner said he was able to
better understand the artwork after seeing it in person rather than
seeing it in black and white pictures.
The works on display
are from a collection of about 36,000 items, three-quarters of which
were excavated by the museum's own expeditions to Egypt. The most of
the items were arranged in dynasty order, with each successive room
covering a different period of Egyptian history. A tour guide led the
group through 3,000 years of history, and then the students examined the
exhibits individually.
Senior Nicholas Sisson said, "After having read selections from the
Book of the Dead, seeing the actual Book of the Dead in person brought
to life the content of what we here reading." Sophomore Carolyn Brooks
agreed, saying, "It was cool to see the Book of the Dead and the
chapter that we'd read." Other students also had favorite items in the
exhibit. Junior Jennifer Broner found some magical amulets the class
had studied in the previous week. "It was cool to see [the curse
items], and there were a whole bunch of them, and it shows they wanted
to kill a whole bunch of enemies at once." Junior Ryan Dethy
appreciated seeing objects from an Egyptian tomb. "The thing that I
liked the most was the ka statue and the false door ... just to see it
right there and knowing that it was 3,000 years old."
The group also attended a performance of the Broadway musical, "Aida."
On the ride back to Ithaca, they debated the artistic merits of the show
and the accuracy of its depiction of life in ancient Egypt. Most
enjoyed the production but many, thought the portrayal of the forbidden
love between the future pharaoh and an enslaved Nubian princess was a
stretch of the imagination. As sophomore Brad Benjamin and Broner
noted, male pharaohs often had slaves as concubines or had multiple
wives, and some wed foreign princesses to consolidate their power over
other regions.
