Egypt comes to Cincinnati

After taking care of a few chores in Georgetown today we drove north on I75 to the Cincinnati Museum Center to see the traveling exhibit on ancient Egypt. This is the first time that I had been to the museum since it reopened following significant structural repairs and upgrades to the building and exhibits. As members of CMC we have been to many traveling exhibits that have all been excellent. Some of the notable recent exhibits have included, the photography of Tsarina Alexandria, Viking culture, the Dead Sea Scrolls and many others.

I had been fighting a cold so I slept for most of the trip north while Mary drove. Our membership got us free parking at the museum and we arrived at the exhibit hall shortly before our scheduled 2:15 entry time. We saw only about 10 other guests entering the exhibit at our time. We were pleased that a school bus and a charter bus pulled up to the museum to take guests for departure as we were arriving. Because most people tend to go through a museum much more quickly than us, we had the exhibit to ourselves after we have been in the displays for about an hour. It was nice to be able to spend as much time as we liked looking at each artifact without feeling rushed.

There was a great deal of information presented on life during the early, middle and late kingdoms as well as social structure, technologies and geography. There were a number of interactive displays where visitors could explore hieroglyphics, mummification and other topics. One display that especially interested up was a 360 holographic movie of mummification

We were amazed not only with the number of artifacts but the quality of the items displayed. Many of the display pieces were over 3000 years old yet appeared to be like new. I suppose since the items would have been stowed in a dry desert climate deep in a pyramid or other safe location there is no reason that they should appear other than like new.

We stayed in the Egypt exhibit until nearly 5 pm then took a quick walk through some of the other areas of the museum that have reopened. We didn’t go into the children’s museum but it appeared to have been overhauled. We know that Peter can spend hours in there without ever tiring for something to do. There is a new activity section where guests can blow smoke rings with dry ice, float paper cones up a wind tube, drop a bowling ball to propel a tennis ball up into a net or use low frequency sound to make patterns in sand. 

The Cincinnati history section is still incomplete but the sections that are open are very nice. The city scale model with trains and street cars has been updated and only one car, a 1950 Crosley Hotshot, donated by the grandparents of Otto Warmbier, was on display. We spent a good bit of time in a new exhibit dedicated to Cincinnati’s own Neil Armstrong on the 50^th anniversary of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon walk. The 360 degree footage of the lunar landing and walks on the surface were thrilling to relive. The display was interesting and informative. We took a quick walk through the newly displayed dinosaur fossils then made our way to the exit. On our way out we noticed that the tile mosaics in the large entry had been nicely cleaned and restored.

Although we left the museum at the peak of rush hour, the traffic on I75 south wasn’t as bad as we expected. We made it back home to Georgetown in a little over an hour. We always enjoy our visits to the Cincinnati Museum Center and can’t wait to see what will be coming after the Egypt exhibit leaves in August.