King Tut

On Wednesday, Aug 5, Queen Teen and I finished our holiday in San Francisco with a trip to the De Young Museum to see the King Tut exhibit. I missed it when it was here 30 years ago (my parents went but didn't take us kids), so there was no way I was missing it this time. I also wanted to show Queen Teen real objects from Egypt to try and help her understand what Egypt is. She knows it's a place and can find it on a map, but it's just so much theory and pictures in a book. I hoped seeing King Tut's artifacts would help her understand better about the Ancient Egypt she learned about in school last year.

The exhibit was great. Truly stunning artwork. The intricacy and detail work on the furniture and jewelry is incredible. I was particularly struck by a large gold necklace in the shape of a hawk with its outstretched wings wrapping around the wearer's shoulders. Thousands of tiny feathers were carved into the necklace, each one perfectly proportioned. Who had created such a beautiful thing?

I wore the FM system so that Queen Teen could hear me as I described each exhibit piece. Although it was crowded, people were considerate and allowed us to get close so that Queen Teen could see. She seemed interested in what we were looking at because she'd raise her head to see better, something she rarely does. She hates lifting her head, and in fact has a visual field loss above her forehead. This time, she raised her head to look up at the statues and other items displayed on pedestals encased in glass and leaned forward to get a better look. Thirty minutes later, she turned to me and said, "I can't wait to go back to school and tell everyone I saw stuff from Egypt. This is cool."

Another thirty minutes later, she was done. Her whole body drooped and she didn't raise her head anymore. We had one more room to explore (the exhibit is huge!), but she was too tired to care. She suddenly declared, "I'm bored of looking at stuff." I examined the last few items, not quite ready to leave, despite my daughter's heavy sighs.

We exited the exhibit into the gift shop (of course) and I bought her a postcard book filled with images of what we'd just seen so she could show her classmates when school starts again. I also paid a dollar for a machine to write her name in hieroglyphics.

After a too expensive lunch in the museum's outdoor garden cafe (which was delicious), we drove home, both worn out from our three day adventure, feeling satiated on Egyptian art and good friends.