I got a chance to go to the last day of the Egyptian Book of the Dead exhibition on Sunday, yesterday, but at the last minute, although I admit I still had my head cold from having flu last week, I chickened out. Although I could have gone, I was scared to. That whole way that they looked at the afterlife as a natural journey that every individual goes on (and therefore that's why they had to take all their worldly goods into their tombs with them). I think I felt it was all going to be too much. It isn't like me to do that but when you're still a bit wobbly with flu it can feel a bit surreal and when you go and see a show about dreams and death, you can start feeling a bit off.
I dithered and dithered and finally decided to go but got there too late, just as they were closing! Disappointed but at the same time somehow relieved, I went into a cafe on Museum Street and had a chocolate croissant and an English Breakfast tea. Sitting amongst the tourists, I somehow felt better. Nothing like a warm chocolate croissant on a cold day to cheer you.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead is supposed to be a set of spells to ensure good luck of a human soul in the afterlife. I didn't feel ready to look at that kind of thing I don't think. It felt weird to be afraid of an exhibition, normally I love the British Museum, I could wander in there for hours. But they had a god with a dog's head and somehow that scared me - I recently lost my dog. I know the ancient Egyptians revered dogs and that both enthralls and worries me. I know when I was planning Flash's burial I had that tendency myself as I looked back on his life and remembered how noble and brave he had been. Maybe that tendency to worship or deify what we love is in all of us. I was brought up in the kind of religion that frowned on the worshipping of idols. Although I have never been religious, perhaps my upbringing is affecting me now. I yearn to discover ancient civilisations but there's a part of me that thinks, oh come on, how can you deify an animal? And yet they did. They had cat-headed goddesses too, gods with lion and eagles' heads. Maybe I think if I go and see that kind of exhibition I'll start going round muttering spells myself. Maybe you might start thinking you can talk to those who have passed over. For some people, life on this earth is demanding enough without adding those who have passed on into the mix as well.Perhaps as well, the ancient Egyptians could teach us a thing or two about facing death. They didn't sweep it under the carpet; they thought about it a good deal, talked about it a lot and wrote about it on tablets and drew paintings of it and made papyrii about it and what happened after it.
The British Museum has a new exhibtion too now about the ancient people of Afghanistan. There's a lovely golden crown which features on all the exhibition posters which belonged to a nomadic princess around 500 B.C. They liked beautiful jewellery and ornamentation rather than worshipping eagles headed statues. Interesting how each civilisation differed.
My real preference at the museum however, is the Ancient Greek collection. It's really comprehensive and takes in the ancient worlds of Greece and of Asia Minor which is now Turkey. I saw a lovely figurine in deep red terracotta of one of the nine Muses with a lovely hairstyle and dress. Somehow the Ancient Greeks scare me a lot less. And the Romans of course modelled their own culture on ancient Greek culture.
Maybe next visit I won't be so scared.
