Welcome to the Warehouse of History

The other day I went to the Egyptian National Museum.  I had a fantastic time, yet it was definitely a different experience than one would find within most museums.  The most significant difference is the basic layout of the museum.  Artifacts are not exactly on display, but seem to be simply in storage.  Everything is arranged by Old, Middle, and New Kingdom, but otherwise the objects seem to be dispersed at random.  Very few objects have labels, many things are laying about with no lighting, and the rooms have no sense of context.



However, there were many fantastic aspects to the Museum.  I saw all the artifacts from King Tut's tomb in addition to a mumified horse, two mummified crocidiles,  ancient egyptian drawings on papyrus, and entire chariots dating from several thousand years ago.  The best part was to look at all the other tourist - raven haired Russians, Europeans with silly haircuts, and pudgy Americans.  Most of these folks were part of large package tours with exotic names like 'Dreams of the Nile' that supplied them with name tags, museum guides, and tour buses.