After school, we trekked to the amazing, ever-entertaining VMFA for their latest blockbuster exhibition, “Mummy: Secrets of the Tomb.” Afterward, this conversation….
He-Twin (age 10) : “When I walked into the waiting area before the film [timed intro to the exhibit], it seemed very Egyptian. There were symbols all around the walls, and it was decorated to look like a tomb.”
She-Twin (also, conveniently, age 10) : “I didn’t pay much attention, I just wanted the movie to start.”
He-Twin: “I was trying to decipher the hieroglyphics. I recognized the Eye of Horus, Anubis, and Osiris…”
She-Twin: “I thought the lamps were real fire! I actually had to ask.”
Mom: “They looked pretty real, didn’t they?”
He-Twin: “In the movie, I expected to see more about how they did the process of mummying.”
She-Twin: “It’s not ‘mummy-ing’, it’s mummify-ing. I was thinking we’d see brains get pulled out of the nose.”
He-Twin: “We didn’t see that. The images of the dead mummy [in the film] were a little gross…”
Mom: “How so?”
He-Twin: “It showed the flesh and the privates.”
Mom: “So was the featured mummy a man or a woman?”
He-Twin: “It was a man. I liked the part where they showed how [the mummy] Nesperrenub (pronounced Ness-PAIR-en-oob) would look in real life and what he did. He was a priest.”
She-Twin: “I liked it when we travelled through his backbone.”
He-Twin: “The 3-D was very realistic.”
Mom: “I liked how the hieroglyphs flew out at us…and how some of the items buried with Nesperrenub flew toward us. We all tried to grab them! What about once we got into the exhibit?”
She-Twin: “I enjoyed the cat mummy; it was so cute!”
Mom: “It looked like it was very hard to wrap it like that to me.”
He-Twin: “I liked walking into the exhibit from the movie and seeing Nesperrenub in real-life, because I could match the images from the movie with the real thing.”
Mom: “The name of the exhibit is ‘Mummy: Secrets of the Tomb’. What ‘secrets’ stood out to you?”
She-Twin: “The mummies had glass eyeballs to see in the afterlife.”
He-Twin: “I thought the strangest secret was when they buried Nesperrenub with a mistake. I’m not going to tell you the mistake, I don’t want to spoil it!
She-Twin: “I thought that Nesperrenub was a girl at first…based on his name. But then we saw he wasn’t because of his preserved penis.”
Mom: “All right, enough about that. If you had to give the exhibit a grade, what would you honestly give it and why?”
He-Twin: “I would give the exhibit a 98—-I took off two points because you couldn’t see the mummified body. (Actually I didn’t want to see it, but some people might have.) For the movie, I would give it an 89. I marked off 11 because I didn’t like seeing all the flesh and parts. Overall, the whole grade would be an A-.”
She-Twin: “The movie’s grade in my opinion was a 98, because it was a little long, and the flesh was kind of nasty—how it appeared to peel off. The exhibit’s grade would be a 86, because you couldn’t see the actual body without the cloth and coffin….and I was really hoping to see the real body. The overall grade would be an A-, because after the movie, my mind saw more than my eyes did once I got in the exhibit.”
Mom: “Would you recommend it to other kids?”
He-Twin: “Yes. 7 and up.”
She-Twin: “Yes, for 8 and up—think younger kids might get grossed out and scared.”
He-Twin: “Nah, I think 7 years old and up can handle it.”
Mom: “I’d definitely recommend it, too. It’s a fantastic ‘get the family out’ opportunity (especially since they are open on and during the holidays) to see something you’d typically need to go to the British Museum to see. The film is a great introduction—the exhibit well designed, and the Egyptian-specific shop has something for everyone. Even if you don’t elect to maxi-mummy-ize the shop, you still get your Egyptian-eyes 3-D glasses to keep as a souvenir!
For details on hours and ticket prices and availabilities, visit the VMFA website. Free for VMFA members, children 6 and under, and active-duty military personnel and their immediate families. $15 for adults.
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