Egyptian Artifacts at The Louvre: Paris, France

The Most Extensive Collection I Have Seen

About a year ago I posted many of these photographs from our trip to the Louvre in Paris, but I don't think a lot of people got a chance to see them based on the votes. I thought I'd share them again with a fresh mind and perspective.

Whenever we travel to the UK to visit Amanda's family, we always try to take a trip somewhere in Europe to get our culture on. Since I had never been to France before, she thought it would be a great idea spend a couple of days touring the Louvre. She was right, as far as I am concerned.

I have always been a huge fan of Egyptian art and historical artifacts. The Louvre has the largest, most incredible collection of items that I have ever seen amassed into one collection.

I've had a sort of obsession with ancient Egypt since as far back as I can remember. I used to love drawing the eye of Ra on the edges of my school work when I was supposed to be doing math problems. There is just something so mysterious about this particular culture to me.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I may have lived in this culture in a past life. Not as anyone special, but just some run of the mill poor person.

Unusual Recurring Dreams

One of my earliest memories is of a very vivid dream that was set in ancient Egypt. I used to draw pictures of it all the time and people thought it was quite clever.

In the dream, I would see a traditional grey alien standing in front of large construction site where the pyramids were built. There were huge spaceships using levitation to lower large sections into place. The alien was wearing full on Egyptian eye makeup and jewelry and carried an ornate staff.

In the background there were thousands of peasants and workers wearing cheap versions of the alien's makeup and dressed in rags. The spaceship had Egyptian hieroglyphics printed on its panels. I had this dream constantly and never really understood what it meant.

Many of you are looking oddly at the screen right now thinking to yourself,

"Isn't this the plot to the movie Stargate?"

Well, yeah pretty much. But I can assure you that I was having these dreams years before that movie was released. I still remember in 1996 when I went to see Stargate at the movies I nearly had a panic attack as the story unfolded. My heart was beating hard in my chest.

It felt as if someone had reached into my mind and stole my very thoughts and memories. But what was even more strange was the sense that, 'hey, what if this is true?'

Of course a dream is just a dream.... Isn't it?

Somewhere in the back of my mind when I look at all of this stuff I just think to myself that all of this grandiose artwork and sculpture was simply designed to keep the locals in line. I mean, just look at it. Can you imagine living in this era and seeing some of this stuff?

This was a world where technology was quite rudimentary, relatively speaking. It would not have been very difficult to get people to believe in almost anything. The stories of the gods combined with the menacing statues and intimidating artwork must have been enough to keep the masses quite docile.

All that being said, it is still quite fun to imagine a primitive world where extra-terrestrials visited with the intention of being gods. Think about all the free labor. The people were just intelligent enough to follow instructions but not so much that they were capable of questioning your superiority.

I suppose this is really the way the world has been working on some level for the entire modern history of humans. But I digress!

Lots and Lots of Sarcophagi

The one thing that the ancients in this culture were famous for were their amazing preservation of the dead, and incredibly elaborate final resting places.

The amount of preparation and work that must have gone into these amazing pieces. Can you imagine in today's day and age anyone putting the amount of time in required to create these works of art?

These days everything is created on a computer, molded or sculpted in clay beforehand. These guys carved things right out of cold hard stone.

I think that humanity is beginning to lose its ability to do things right and well, simply because there is no longer a need. Will there come a time when there is no longer a person left on Earth who do painstaking, precision work?

That is another thing to think about when we are getting caught up in the idea that such and such thing was impossible for an ancient society to do - since we can't even do it now. You hear this sort of thing all the time when people talk about ancient unexplained technology.

People are under the impression that if we can't do it now, then they could not have done it in the past. If you contemplate it just a little bit, this really is not a valid argument. If anything, we have lost an almost unfathomable amount of basic skills to history. Think about just basic everyday skills.

Although I am pretty good with a computer, I can't do practically anything that my great grandfather was highly skilled at. It was very likely the same for him as modern day conveniences had rendered those skills obsolete.

Is there any reason to believe that ancient people didn't have superior knowledge in a lot of areas?

This was a civilization that had to do everything without power tools. Of course they would have had incredible problem solving skills when it came to building structures. These building skills were likely vastly superior to our own.

Sadly, so much has been lost to time that we may never know many of the things that they knew. My theory is that we reach a certain threshold of technology, then mostly destroy ourselves and have to start over. Of course this is just my mind making up nonsense, but it is fun to imagine, isn't it?

Mummies and More!

These guys certainly do give me the creeps, but they are also a solemn reminder of the impermanent nature of our existence.

Sometimes I wonder what these folks would have thought if they could see themselves on display like this thousands of years in the future. Would they be appalled or would they be okay with it?

I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing that would freak someone out who believed that their body was important for their continued existence in the afterlife. I guess they are lucky that they'll never know!

I would hazard to guess that wherever they are out there, they really don't give a shit. Something tells me that if there is an afterlife, the concerns of this one are not really... concerns.

I loved these monkey jars by the way. I remember reading that when a leader would die, they would mummify everyone and every animal that resided with them. Seems pretty shitty, but that is what happens in a world where you are under a selfish dictator who sees him/herself as being the center of the universe.

Not that this could ever happen in today's day and age, of course. We certainly live in the era of enlightenment and benevolence. But I digress, once again.

If these jars actually do have monkey remains in them, it's a little bit messed up that they put smiles on their faces.

Because, well, you know I don't think they went very happily toward this ending. Perhaps they thought that whatever expression was engraved into the tomb would be their eternal mood? Nice sentiment, I guess.

I wonder if the ceramic monkey is pissed that his buddy got to be made of fancy stone. Okay, fine - that was the last thing on his mind...

The ancient Egyptians were really into cats as well. There were lots and lots of these cat statues as well as mummified felines.

I wonder if the guys who spent all day mummifying everything enjoyed their work. Can you imagine spending your days preserving dead people and animals all day? How would that effect someone psychologically?

I have met a few people who actually work in, or want to work with dead people. I don't know how that is a normal desire, but I think people are into a whole lot of interesting things that I just can't imagine.

When you think about it, us modern people have a really unhealthy relationship with the dead. Perhaps the ancients were much more in tune with the natural cycle of life because it was always right there in your face. In our culture, the dead and sick are kind of hidden away.

When someone gets sick, we tend to sugar coat it or pretend that it isn't happening. I remember when I spent a couple of years in Oaxaca Mexico, I saw dead people all the time and it was definitely a change in perspective.

Whenever a family member would pass away, The entire village would get together and the body would be carried down the street all across town. Of course they also have the Day of the Dead festival where they go and hang out in the cemetery and have parties and picnics for a week.

Check out that fancy boomerang. Something tells me that no one was throwing this thing around. I don't think there were any Australians hanging out in Egypt either.

I am realizing that this has become one of my classic epic long posts so I have decided to break it out into a part two. Check back tomorrow for the rest of the images! I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them.