The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore’s historic Mount Vernon neighborhood is currently home to a new exhibition entitled “Egypt’s Mysterious Book of the Faiyum.” This exhibition is worth experiencing because it is designed in such a way so as to tell a story and interact with visitors, as opposed to lining artifacts up like soldiers across the walls in a more static and predictable manner.
The story-like manner of the exhibition is appropriate, as it underscores the star of the show, the Book of the Faiyum, which consists of two rolls of ancient papyri that depict many religious aspects of the Faiyum region, including the crocodile god, Sobek.
At the beginning of the journey, just as in the beginning of any formal essay, the visitor is given background information in order to understanding the forthcoming artifacts. It is explained that the Nile valley was not the only fertile region of Egypt. In fact, to the west of this great river lies the Faiyum, whose centerpiece is Lake Moeris, another greatly fertile area of great agricultural significance to Egyptian farmers, even to this day.
Aside from the human inhabitants of the Faiyum, during the Greco-Roman period, namely the time between the late first century BCE and the second century CE that the exhibition zooms in on, the Faiyum was the natural habitat of scores of crocodiles. As an immensely vicious, yet highly powerful and dominating creature, the ancient Egyptians both feared and worshipped the crocodile, which led to the eventual worship of Sobek.
Although the Romans, who ruled Egypt during this time in history, attempted to convert Egyptians to their pagan brand of religion, many Egyptians continued to worship Sobek, who is depicted in the Book of the Faiyum as participating in the sun’s legendary, daily transition between the mortal and underworlds.
Although Sobek and other crocodiles proliferate throughout the Book of the Faiyum, other deities and religious themes appear, many of which are explained before visitors actually arrive at the main room of the exhibition where the Book of the Faiyum is officially on display.
For instance, in order to understand the Book’s references to the god Horus, and how he relates to Sobek and crocodiles in general, it is important to observe an artifact on display called a cippus. A cippus was a type of stela made of stone, whose hieroglyphic inscriptions invoke magical spells protecting the worshipper from animal attacks, such as crocodile bites.
The cippus depicts Horus as a child, standing atop two crocodiles, grasping serpents, antelopes and lions in his fists. This symbolizes Horus’s mythological domination over animals of prey, and would have been used by Faiyum residents for protection. Similarly, small amulets on display explain that these same residents carried around small figurines of Sobek and other related deities in their pockets or wore them as rings or necklaces in order to maintain constant worship or protection from them.
Although the artifacts themselves are fascinating, the most engaging aspects of the exhibition are those that, well, engage. Once again breaking with the monotony that many museum exhibitions fall victim to, “The Book of the Faiyum” harnesses modern technology to make the ancient artwork and papyri more potent.
Take, for instance, the interactive touch screens, whereon patrons can practice writing hieroglyphs that show up in the Book of the Faiyum, or the station where they can sample the aromas of specific herbs and spices commonly used in ancient Egyptian rituals. The really cool part is the iPad-like screens that allow people to flip past and magnify certain key pages of the Book of the Faiyum that might be difficult to observe with the naked eye. This screen is set up directly across the way from another interactive station where people could read the papyrus exactly how the ancients did: sitting down with the roll in their lap, only able to read a lap’s length of text at a time. The contrast between a modern reading technique that many take for granted today and a labor intensive, but rewarding ancient method of reading yields a greater appreciation for the ancients and how immensely they treasured the practices of producing exquisite text and then reading and internalizing it.
In the middle of this room laying on its pedestal in the middle of a large room is the Book of the Faiyum itself, two rolls of papyrus that tell the story of Sobek and his fellow deities in the midst of treasured Faiyum legends, peppered with hieroglyphic captions that further explain in red and black ink the detailed imagery that so permeates the papyri. In fact, detailed is an understatement of the level of intricacy in the images. Each crocodile is not just what we modern people might think of a stick figure drawing. The reptile’s skin is scored with tiny hash marks, while the tail is delicately textured with ridges and scales to give the creature a three-dimensional look. On a similar note, a goddess’s headdress and regalia is ornately decorated with patterns and swirls to give the feeling of real-life fabric and jewelry. The level of artistry, time, and effort on the artist’s part indicates the amount of dedication the people of the Faiyum had for their religion. Having some familiarity with the geography and ritualistic context of the Faiyum, the observer can certainly better appreciate the papyri.
Following along the path of the exhibition, the visitor comes to the grand finale, or the conclusion, an explanation of how the ancients would have worshipped the Book. From the aegis, or collar, that surrounded a statue of Sobek in a temple, to the rattles and musical instruments that were used in daily, religious observance, the artifacts in this room provide the perfect setting in which to make any final conclusions and opinions about the exhibition before sojourning to the rest of the museum.
Experiencing “Egypt’s Mysterious Book of the Faiyum” is a truly rewarding experience, and is a new twist on other Egyptian exhibitions that some people might have grown accustomed to. Hurry, though. This event is happening through Jan. 5, 2014, after which it will be installed at the Roemer-und Pelizaeus-Museum and the Reiss- Engelhorn-Museen in Mannheim, Germany.
