Big Weekend in Atlanta

This weekend Atlanta is fortunate enough to open two new museum exhibitions of world-class caliber.

The first is the latest King Tut tour, lured to town by the wonderful Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. While everyone has heard of Tut-ank-amun, very few understand that he was really a king of insignificance in the context of Egyptian history. His fame is due to the fact that his tomb was found intact, the only such occurence since well before the invention of archaeology. Finding the tomb before the ancient grave-robbers has yielded an unprecedented quantity of kingly funerary art for all to see.

I've seen the exhibit before, a few years back in Los Angeles, and was absolutely blown away with the quality of the works. I've seen a lot of ancient art exhibits, but nothing at all like this. The collection truly stands out in quality from anything else I have seen from its era, anywhere else in the world.

When my wife and I visited the famous Cairo Museum in 2006, we were told that the only items from Tut's tomb allowed to leave the museum were those that had duplicates that could remain on display in Cairo. I'm not totally sure that's true, but the over-abundance of material in the Cairo Museum means that it really doesn't matter.

The second museum exhibit opening this weekend in Atlanta is that of China's Terracotta Army. I will admit that this is not a topic on which I am well versed, but I know enough to be fascinated. We're members of Atlanta's High Museum, where the exhibit is taking place, so I'm sure we will visit as soon as the opening-weekend crowds die down.

That makes me think... I need to really dig into Chinese history.