Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
Alighting at Victoria Station as usual we crossed to examine another of Manchester's famous Edwardian buildings - the old headquarters of the Co-op. Also outside was a statue of the founder of the co-operative movement Robert Owen. We made our way by foot and bus along the Oxford Road Corridor which is often referred to as “the busiest bus route in Europe” to the Manchester Museum which has recently re-opened after a multi-million pounds transformation. The buildings, like all the older ones of the University (for the Museum belongs to the Univerity) retain their Edwardian grandeur. Jesse and Marianne Haworth were the museum's major benefactors We went first to the 'Golden Mummies of Egypt' Exhibition. Manchester is in fact the only place where you can see these golden mummies, and a very impressive exhibition it is too, of the museum's world-class collection of Egyptian artefacts. The Guardian raved about the exhibition ...... "Flinders Petrie dug in the Faiyum Oasis south of Cairo where perfect conditions miraculously preserved painted mummy masks in encaustic on wood. These are simply some of the most stunning works of art that survive from the ancient world – and this exhibition has a whole gallery of them, women and men, earringed, shaved, bearded, all depicted in perspective depth. They have an eerily calm presence. Here the show’s argument falls apart, beautifully. It insists that mummies are images of the divine and perfect, not preserved individuals. But the people who commissioned painters trained in the Greco-Roman realist style to create these exquisitely individual images obviously did want to think of their deceased loved ones as unique people. This is even more unmistakable when the painting is still attached to a mummy. A thickly bound mummy from the reign of the emperor Hadrian has a portrait over its face of a sensitive beardless young man, looking at you with piercing, energetic eyes as if about to speak: the spooky effect is to grab at heartstrings by opening a window to the beyond." Maybe these portraits of the dead reveal attitudes to mortality and the individual soul at a time when the new sect of Christianity was attracting followers, or maybe they simply prove that ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans – whose worlds meet in this show – shared the same burden of mortality that all human beings face. Can the individual survive death, somehow? These paintings dare to hope so. Few archaeological remains remind you of the frail and universal condition of being alive as touchingly as these miraculously preserved Faiyum portraits." You are first introduced to the various cultures, here an amazingly well-preserved Greek helmet........ and here a Graeco-Egyptian stela with a Greek inscription. a tax document...... and, amongst other things, what is surely a child's toy - perhaps representing the story of the wooden horse at Troy. A mummy shroud of a young girl. Death masks with the suggestion that they might be mass-produced...... A dprecating quote from Flinders.... A mummy cover for a young girl.... Modelled in the form of an adult this young woman appears as a wealthy Roman in her guilded mask and is covered with Egyptian symbols. I hadn't realised quite how multi-cultural Egyptian society was. But of course Egypt was ruled first by a Greek royal family, ending with Queen Cleopatra VII, then by Roman emperors (between 300 BC and 300 AD). Here a man holding a papyrus indicates his status and education The golden mummies were truly astonishing in their detail...... But so were other types of funerary monuments.... Here a double-sided portrait of the Emperor Hadrian's reign Who would dare argue these are not life portraits?! A thin layer of gold highlights this young man's lips. This mummy is very unusual in showing exposed breasts perhaps highlighting the importance of sexuality for re-birth. As I say the exhibition was excellent and we only had a very short time to look at one other of the new displays, the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery which, as per the museum, 'draws from historical and contemporary links between Manchester and China and a wide range of Chinese perspectives. It offers a diverse and dynamic understanding of Chinese culture. The gallery highlights personal stories of migration, friendships and collaboration to inspire empathy and build understanding.' Again a marvellous mix of mediums and ages..... This scroll was particularly spectacular.......22 metres long and showing a glimpse of Beijing life in 1713....... We then had 5 minutes to rush round a display of archaeological finds from the North-West.... before exiting via the obligatory shop... Our walk to find the nearest bus showed a range of Uni buildings... Our next stop was to eat at one of Manchester's newest restaurant openings - Climat, perched on top of an office building and given glowing reviews especially by Jay Rayner. The views were great and included the still gift-wrapped Town Hall. The service was amazing and the food full of flavour and unusual. We just made our concert at the Bridgewater, the main element of which was Mahler's First Symphony which was a blast. I really do think hearing music live exceeds recordings by a factor of ten (at least).
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August 2023
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