When I was in the seventh & eighth grades, I was a street crossing guard (student patrol, as it was termed) and responsible for the safety of smaller kids who walked home and left school earlier than I did. At the end of the year, student patrol members at various schools were taken by bus for an overnight stay in Washington DC. The focus of the trip of course was the Capitol and governmental awe but, for me, other than encountering raw fish as a choice in the breakfast line at the hotel, it was the visit to the Smithsonian Institution that I remember so well. The majestic (though sad) bull elephant silently and forever trumpeting in the rotunda, and the scale of collections was inspiring, but scads of visitors gawking about and our own group being led from venue to venue was boring, so once we were on upper levels, I began to intentionally hang back. At just the right moment when no one was looking my way, I veered into another hallway, striking off on my own exploration. I quickly came to double doors blocking public access, but I tried them anyway and found them unlocked. I eased into the next realm of passages that seemed endless and found them totally void of personnel. Corridors with long storage labs each side supplied periodic entry doors with glass panels allowing a peek. As I had an interest in archaeology, especially American Indian and Egyptian, I was fortunate to have stumbled into the ethnology sections for both, which housed the vast bulk of items that were not, if ever, on public display. First, I found the Egyptian area and was amazed at the items on tables around and throughout the room. Gilded wooden coffins and stone sarcophagi, gold, stone, wood, and ceramic implements of various kinds, all swimming in my head as I moved through. Suddenly, there was an actual mummy. Not the movie scripted type with white gauze windings, but an exposed, unwrapped man, presumably a pharaoh. The skin was black and appeared hard like a carapace, and the face was scary to me, bony and toothy. I remember a severed hand that was wrapped, except for the exposed ends of the fingers which looked eaten away to the bone. That moved me out of there. The next big lab was American Indian and I loved the artifacts held there. Lots of very old and worn wooden implements, from bows to combs, baskets, pottery, and various weavings and clothing. Then, I was astounded when I came upon a single mummified head of an indian maiden. She, too, had the darkened skin of desiccation, but the difference was that she was absolutely stunning. Even in death, she was beautiful, so unlike any other preservation, her skin was smooth and refined. I have never forgotten her face, and I know that if I had ever met her in life I would have been smitten. Im glad that I was bold enough to venture outside the reigns of oversight and prudence, and to give her countenance continuance, at least while I can remember.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 02:40:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015