Back from Vacation

I got back from Paris and Vienna yesterday afternoon, so it is time to start sharing some of what I saw.

First, the Egyptian collection at the Louvre has been completely re-installed since I last saw it. The display cases are much more modern and the whole collection is much more attractively displayed. I have photos that I will start posting in a day or so.

Unfortunately I had to rush through the Louvre's Mesopotamian collection and my photos came out bad. I will see if I can use iPhoto to salvage any of them. If so, I will post them as well.

The Paris Exposition Center also had a special exhibit that is worth mentioning. It is called "Tutankhamun, his Tomb and His Treasures" and is running through early September. The exhibit is a display of reproductions of many of the objects from the tomb, including life-size displays of each chamber of the tomb with all of the objects it contained located exactly where they where when Howard Carter opened the tomb. The reproductions are quite good and I would recommend you see the exhibit if you can.

In Vienna I went to see the Egyptian collection in the Kunsthistorishes Museum (http://www.khm.at/en/). The collection of Egyptian Art is quite good and well worth seeing, but the display is old and dark. It is hard to see because it is dark. Photography is difficult because it is dark. Have I mentioned that the museum is dark?