Indy Blogger Day at the King Tut Exhibit

Happened to see a tweet earlier this week from @TutIndy about a Indy Blogger Day for the King Tut Exhibit at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. I got details and spread the word to other fellow Indianapolis bloggers and made plans for Friday!

We met up with Jessie from Incidental Indy and ran into quite a few other blogger pals as well! (It was good bumping into you - Joanna, Ann and Quatro Mama!)



The whole museum is decked out for this great exhibit. We're were a little lost at first, not having been to the museum since their recent remodel - got just a tad turned around! :) But love the new open space!



Here is a view of entrance of the exhibit. No pics inside, so this is what you get. :) They gather you up in small groups and have you wait in this little room, dimly lit by flickering faux torches on the walls - where you watch a little intro video - very dramatic! And then you;re ushered in to the exhibit itself, which twists and turns into various rooms and feels a little like you're exploring a tomb yourself!

Didn't see the handy map that was in our "press kit" until I got home - should have looked at it before hand, because I was getting all worried when 5 rooms into the exhibit we still hadn't seen any actual King Tut artifacts - only items from other pharaohs. It all makes sense now, looking at the maps of the exhibit - first you go through a little history of pharaohs, then pharaoh family and private life - including a royal toilet seat! , their court, their gold - beautiful!, religion and finally you enter another little room called "Discovery of a Pharaoh" with a plasma screen that plays a very dramatic prelude about how the tomb was found and then you enter on to the final 7 rooms full of artifacts from King Tut's tomb.

I loved how we were able to take our time, being so late in the evening and having much of the exhibit to ourselves except for a few other people. I was able to read, reread and walk around all the way around the pieces and see every detail without worrying about holding up the crowd. The exhibit is well spaced so even if there were more people, they can control how many go in at a time with the Introductory Theater. And there are so many rooms to go through that you can't possibly get bunched up.

Also, enjoyed how close up you could really get to everything. The glass cases were kept impeccably clean - could hardly tell there was a pane between you and the artifacts.

The exhibit was very informative - even for adults. I learned quite a few new things - especially about Tut and had to go later and read into the items in my press kit to answer a few questions - and will probably go on a Google hunt for more info. I was also impressed at the large artifacts. This exhibit is not just limited to small, intricate pieces of exquisite jewelry behind panes of glass - there were colossal statues as well.

One thing I really liked was how the walls of the Tut exhibit had large photos of how tomb looked when it was first discovered - all untouched - and you could see the item on display in its original place amongst the rest of the tomb's treasure.



I never mean to actually take shadow pics like this - but love how they turn out! :)



This exhibit goes on until October 25 - so you still have a little time to get out and catch this great exhibit before it leaves Indy! I definitely recommend it!