The Tower of Babel in Egypt?

Can you imagine a museum that is like your garage or attic where things are piled up nearly on top of each other with little wall or floor space? Now imagine that space with 100 people, 200 people…? The mammoth Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo is just like that. There are antiquities everywhere. And where there is any space there are visitors. The guide rightly said that it could take 6 months to see everything—and that they did have a basement where even more of the antiquities were stashed out of view. The only thing that makes the experience more intense is that the visitors were like what I imagine if I had been at the Tower of Babel, all speaking different languages, all with different cultural norms and all with different perceptions of space and distance.

Plemon later pointed out that with so much stuff no wonder there are vendors selling things everywhere with great persistence. Blame the museum for the culture of selling in abundance.

There were sarcophaguses (sarcuophagi?) to fill a decent sized cemetery and beautiful death masks—including the well known image of King Tut’s. By the way, the guide pointed out his slender body and budding breasts depicted in some of the statues of his likeness. The guide made some hand gesture indicating he might have been gay… and then quickly dispelled that with evidence of wives and children. I debated teaching our guide the word transgender but whispered to Margaret instead who was thinking along similar lines. While I couldn’t hear the guide over the din, the reason for the body, had to do with Tut’s father, who may have been transgender or due to some medication…I couldn’t quite understand… All I know, is that because it was the way his father’s statues were built and so somehow he was honoring his father that way.

With all of this homage to death and the second life around us, I am surprised we have not had much discussion of the afterlife in our traditions…perhaps a round of interviews are in order.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Ben Stiller if you are following this I have the perfect spot for another sequel to A Night at the Museum

Alas, no cameras were allowed so you will have to see for yourself...