By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

The trappings are nice, but the human element makes it memorable

There’s no doubt the surroundings, artifacts and technology for the Mobile Exploreum’s latest exhibit are impressive. On loan from the British Museum, “Mummy: The inside story” is the latest in a grand string of offerings, especially remarkable for a market of this size.

Like the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina, last year’s Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit is a high-water mark the Exploreum is unlikely to top easily. More than 200,000 visitors packed into the space at the foot of Government Street during the Scrolls’ 106-day visit.

Exploreum officials feel the current feature is more aptly compared to the China exhibit which brought in 127,000 attendees over a 140-day period. The Mummy exhibit leaves at the end of July and the Exploreum feels they will meet their 100,000-person projections.

Visitors will certainly be awed at what they find right now. The entrance to the exhibit hall has never looked more regal, presently flanked by colonnades that seem to have sprung from Cecil B. DeMille’s wildest dreams. Little would one realize the columns and other trappings were brought to fruition in a Mobile artist’s Midtown backyard and not trucked in from some Hollywood backlot.

Through the columns and then a quick right turn brings visitors into a chamber adorned with facts and timelines tracing Egyptian culture and royalty. Against one wall sits a full-sized replica of the Rosetta Stone, one of only two in existence. For the uninitiated, the Rosetta Stone is an integral artifact without which ancient Egyptian culture and history would be still shrouded in mystery. Its carvings contain a key to translation of hieroglyphics and opened a universe to academicians.

The aforementioned human element came into play when the docent approached and offered an interesting tidbit about the stone’s discovery in 1799, how had it not been for the clumsy footwork of one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers, the stone might have never been uncovered. Bonaparte recognized and read the Greek engraved on the stone and realized the find was unique.

Nowhere in that Exploreum chamber did the Bonaparte story appear. The docent explained her memory of the tale from years past and chalked it up to her natural interest in history. Watching the same woman in front of a touring group of schoolchildren further underscored her love for the subject and her subsequent ability to relate it to others.

Onward to the 3-D theater with an immense wrap-around screen and tiers of benched seating. Everyone donned 3-D glasses and the dulcet tones of Sir Ian McKellan help uncover the inner realms of mummification and the daily life of the particular mummy in question, a priest of the upper class. The three-dimensional presentation elicited “oohs” and “aahs” from the young attendees as an almost-tangible cartonnage, or mummy casing, soared onto screen. The kids gasped as a skull peered from beneath the wrappings, graphics rendered by the combination of magnetic resonance imaging and computer simulation.

The technology is grand but no less fascinating than another human element. As hieroglyphics swung from the screen out over the audience, the youngsters grasped at the symbols, a thicket of arms waving like sea anemones in the current.

Afterward, visitors empty into the exhibit hall to view a variety of artifacts reaching back over four millennia including the cartonnage containing the mummy.

Most entrancing, though, was watching the fervor with which youngsters clamored for the input, enthralled by the exotic education. It was refreshing and nostalgic and hopeful.

Fueling it along were employees who made no bones about loving their jobs, and it showed.

On the second floor, a detailed computer recreation takes viewers through the tomb of Queen Nefertari in the Virtual Journey Theater. The simulation is detailed and vivid.

Being the only person in the theater for that showing allowed me to converse a bit with the presenter. She admitted she had used the virtual tour in her spare time, meticulously interpreting the tomb’s hieroglyphics for herself. The revelations of not only her academic specialization but also her acting background explained the effectiveness of her presentation.

Yet again, technology was enough but the human element was the catalyst.

Someone once told me, “If discovery is essential to who we are, then to foster it is to bless someone.” Mobile should count her blessings, then, for the people at the foot of Government Street.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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