RIP TTT

Last week I found out about a loss 'in the family'. While at the Milwaukee Public Museum I found out that they closed down the 'Temples, Tells and Tombs' exhibit. Permanently. Poor Djed-hor; homeless again.

Perhaps a side note before I continue: I usually go to the MPM at least a couple times a year. I have a membership. I can tell when things have been moved or changed. I'm a fan. It annoys me that there doesn't appear to be a website dedicated to documenting the general phases and changes of the museum; the sort of thing that would help me better recall my childhood memories of the place. I'd do it but I haven't the documentation. I do have a fuzzy memory but that's not much to go on.

For instance, I remember Djed-hor, our resident mummy (man I hope I'm spelling his name correctly) first residing on the first floor in an area that I believe was called 'The Rise of Civilization'. It was a thin, narrow area that covered thousands of years of history in maybe 100 yards. You started with mummies and by the back of it you were playing with a telephone display. As I recall, it didn't link to anything so, once you reached the end, you had to turn around and walk back the way you came. The area is now the Rain Forest exhibit and connects to the Third World exhibit (pre-history, dinosaurs and glaciers, that sort of thing) so you don't have to turn around like before.

The Third World was assembled in the middle 80's as I recall. The Rain Forest was set-up after that, opening in the early 90's I believe. As construction started on the Rain Forest, the 'Rise' exhibit was reassembled in a generic way on the second floor. I have a distinct memory of being in that area and seeing the humpbacked whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling (the skeleton that currently hangs in the entryway on the first floor, it was covered with lights for the holiday season) so it was being used as a catch-all area at the time. Since nothing else has been changed recently on the second floor, I have to believe that this was the exhibit area that would become 'Temples, Tells and Tombs' as well as an area for touring exhibits.

This would have opened in the early 90's. I have a video tape from a trip to the Museum from December 1992. As I walk into the area, I can clearly hear myself react in surprise, which tells me the exhibit was new to me then. It covered the periods when Egypt, Greece, Rome were world powers as well as having some stuff on the Middle East in general. The exhibit stayed largely unchanged during it's existence so that old tape is still a reasonably accurate document of the exhibit. In October 2007 when I visited the MPM, the exhibit was still open. Last week it was gone to provide more space for the touring exhibits.

Worse yet is that some of the cases from the exhibit are waiting to find permanent homes. The Roman Soldier is in the main entry area on the first floor. Our friend the mummy is sitting in the entryway to the Africa exhibit on the third floor now. There was an empty corner and he was crammed into it. It looks temporary so I can only hope it is. The fellow looks sad and homeless now. He's a squatter.

Tune in next time to more memories of the Milwaukee Public Museum. ;)