Tutanhkamun

[trickykitty]

I went to the exhibit hoping to find txtriffidranch and czarina69 as planned. I arrived in time to relax a bit and eat lunch in the Atrium Cafe. I ended up having to go into the exhibit alone. Near the end we finally met up, and I discovered the hour difference in our ticket entrance times was the cause of our missing each other early on. We combed through the two gift shops and then headed out to dinner afterwards. I do wish I had been able to spend more time in the actual exhibit with them, but it was still a nice cultural day for me.

I also bought a couple of items:

I purchased a simple, black ceramic, paperweight-sized statue of Bastet to add to my eclectic black ceramic cat collection (and plastic cats that poop candy for kids). She now resides...well, I haven't decided on a permanent home yet, but she's currently in the hall guarding the random dice bags.

The Czarina and I both purchased this Senet game. However, I'm holding out hope that the Egyptian government would see fit to bequeath Tut's actual senet game found in the annex of his tomb, or maybe just the ~5" travel-size example that we saw in the exhibit. As I mentioned over dinner, that cute little thing almost made me want to take up wood whittling. I also came across a downloadable version of the game, although I'm sure there are plenty more out there if you actually do a search for it.

I'm placing a slew of magnetic hieroglyphs on the fridge. That image doesn't do the images justice, but to their credit that site also seems to have quite a lot of other nifty stuff to look at. (txtriffidranch, that last one is just for you)

Lastly, I purchased a jigsaw-meets-litebrite 10,400 piece puzzle. It's essentially a pixelated picture that you put together, one pixel at a time. 1000 piece puzzles are usually my minimum when it comes to jigsaw puzzles unless they come with a fun story and really interesting picture. 5000 piece is I believe my maximum puzzle size to-date. But this is 10,400 pieces, each one so teeny tiny in its footprint that the entire completed puzzle is only 53x66cm (~2.75x~2.5ft). Not only is the puzzle going to take a long time to put together, but it will take just as much time ripping each and every one of those little pieces from the plastic sheets they come attached to. (By the way, as a result of this puzzle, I think I've now found a new hobby that appeals to both my OCD and my geekery all at once. Though the best part about the Ministeck puzzle is the mistranslation on the box from the German "Anschrift aufbewahren" into the English "Retain address!" while talking about the danger of children under 3 swallowing the small pieces. The correct translation comes out more as a cross between "use caution" with "pay attention to the directions."


So, the ultimate lesson that I learned from the King Tut exhibit is, "Retain address!"

PS - Remind me to buy stock in LEGO.