![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Walk Like An Egyptian
Jul. 21st, 2024 05:36 pmThe stories and history of ancient Egypt have a special place in the world's mind. After all, it covers some 5000 years of civilisation and comes with a rich mythology which has, it must be said, been prone to both excellent scholarship and complete nonsense (far too many people, mixing complete speculation with gullibility, lean toward the latter). In the period of late European imperialism, Egypt was subject to plunder that found itself mainly going to the British museum ("Why are the pyramids in Egypt? Because they wouldn't fit in the British Museum"). So it comes with some mixed feelings that I attended the "Pharoah" exhibition at the NGV on Friday night with Erica H., which was quite a spectacular display of around five hundred items from the ancient (i.e., prior to the Roman-Egypt) period. I was quite impressed by the statues of the goddess Sekhmet and Pharaoh Sety II. The exhibition did a reasonable job in the introductory halls at outlining the history, although I had to bite my tongue when later on I overheard someone remarking "That looks Greek!"; well, yes - it was from the Alexandrian period, which leads to Ptolemaic Egypt. In addition, I was also fortunate to run into an old friend, Luna, who I hadn't seen for about twenty years. We used to kick around a lot in the mid to late 1990s, so it really was quite a pleasant surprise to see them.
As is my want, the evening had to be themed and I prepared a late dinner of koshari, a particularly carbohydrate and fibre heavy meal, some date balls (2 part date paste, 1 part crushed walnuts, roll in honey, coat in almond meal) from a recipe from 1600BCE and baklava. According to plan, I had previously purchased some silicon moulds from which I could turn the koshari into a pyramid structure, which I was quite pleased with the results on the 1980s-styled square plates. Adding to the ensemble was Doric-styled glass candle holder, a copy of MacKenzie's " Egyptian Myth and Legend" from 1913, and Yogi cat that decided to add to the aesthetic. We finished the evening with a screening of Sommer's "The Mummy" (1999) which is really quite a fun pulp-era adventure story. The following night with Andrew, Charmaine, and Penny D., all visiting I presented the same dinner again. This time we concluded the evening with a game of "Khan of Khans". Finally, because some people still haven't been exposed to it, "Walk Like An Egyptian", by The Bangles, covered by The Chipmunks and slowed right down to an awesome goth anthem.
As is my want, the evening had to be themed and I prepared a late dinner of koshari, a particularly carbohydrate and fibre heavy meal, some date balls (2 part date paste, 1 part crushed walnuts, roll in honey, coat in almond meal) from a recipe from 1600BCE and baklava. According to plan, I had previously purchased some silicon moulds from which I could turn the koshari into a pyramid structure, which I was quite pleased with the results on the 1980s-styled square plates. Adding to the ensemble was Doric-styled glass candle holder, a copy of MacKenzie's " Egyptian Myth and Legend" from 1913, and Yogi cat that decided to add to the aesthetic. We finished the evening with a screening of Sommer's "The Mummy" (1999) which is really quite a fun pulp-era adventure story. The following night with Andrew, Charmaine, and Penny D., all visiting I presented the same dinner again. This time we concluded the evening with a game of "Khan of Khans". Finally, because some people still haven't been exposed to it, "Walk Like An Egyptian", by The Bangles, covered by The Chipmunks and slowed right down to an awesome goth anthem.
