Review - To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum
For ancient Egyptians, death was the easy part. Gaining eternity was, regardless of rank, a journey that makes Dante’s Inferno look like a walk in the park. And though they could not buy their way into the afterlife, those with means definitely had a strong advantage. That is the context of “To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum” at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.
More than 100 objects spanning 4,000 years illustrate the evolution of a complex system of beliefs and rituals regarding the departure from this life and entry into the next.
We see how those lower on the food chain emulated as best they could the surface feeders and understand that it wasn’t just for show. How one was buried and with what accoutrements were, literally, life and death issues. Amassing the money needed to pay for a proper sendoff could take years.
Preservation of the body was paramount, as was specific identification by name. Different levels of mummification were available, and whether you got the full treatment, in which most of the organs were removed and everything encased in resin, or a simple wash-and-wrap job, depended on your budget. The heart, considered to control thought and emotion, was left in the body. The brain, not believed to have value, was destroyed.
The goal was to arrive in the netherworld beneath the earth, undertake a perilous journey by boat, avoid the onslaughts of demons and find an advantageous spot to settle down permanently.
Unlike other large shows of Egyptian antiquities I have seen, this one is not intended to inspire awe. It gives us a sense of how real people coped with the exigencies of life and aspirations in death. Because so much time is covered, we also see how many practices changed. And though it dwells on the nonrich a lot, most of the objects belonged to those with some means. The poorest people probably could not afford even a simple coffin.
The Brooklyn Museum, which organized the show from its own enormous, world-famous collection, sent few objects made of precious metals and gems. But I really like the show. It has a clear mission and makes sense of the carved stones and old statues that tend to make our eyes glaze over in many antiquities shows.
Excerpted from an article by Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic for tampabay.com
To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum is at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota, through Jan. 11. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. Admission, which includes the Circus Museum and Ca d’Zan, is $19 adults, $16 seniors, $6 children 6 to 17. (941) 359-5700; ringling.org.
“To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum” at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida
Ancient Egyptian culture was founded on the belief in an afterlife. Elaborate burial rituals for people of all stations in life were meant to enhance the transition between this life and the next.
According to Virginia Brilliant, “…the Egyptians really loved life, they loved their life on earth, they had a very joyous life.” She has overseen the installation of more than 100 objects of ancient Egyptian art originally collected by Charles Edwin Wilbour, an amateur Egyptologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and now part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Highlights include the mummified remains of Demetrios, a wealthy citizen of Hawara at around 100 A.D.; two mummified dogs and the painted coffin of a mayor of Thebes from around 1075-945 B.C. The exhibition is touring to 10 museums across the country. The Ringling is the collection’s second stop.
“To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum” will be on display through Jan. 11, with a wide range of supporting programming, including educational ones for children and adults, and an evening of Egyptian-styled food.
Book Review: Osiris: Death and Afterlife of a God
Osiris, ruler of the netherworld, played a central part in the religious life of the ancient Egyptians, and his cult grew in popularity down the ages, resonating in all the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. This is the first book to tell the story of the cult of Osiris from beginning to end. Drawing together the numerous records about Osiris from the third millennium bc to the Roman conquest of Egypt, Bojana Mojsov sketches the development of the cult throughout 3,000 years of Egyptian history. The author proves that the cult of Osiris was the most popular and enduring in any ancient religion. She shows how it provided direct antecedents for many ideas, traits, and customs in Christianity, including the resurrection after three days, the concept of god as trinity, baptism in the sacred river, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. She also reveals the cult’s influence on other Western mystical traditions and groups, such as the Alchemists, Rosicrucians, and Freemasons.
