Xinjiang mummy Exhibit

Yesterday (12/13) Felicity and I met around 4 pm to head to the National Taiwan History Museum. It didn't start out well because I was about 5 minutes late. The real problem was she got there 15 minutes early and so had to sit for 20 something minutes before I got there. Oops!

We walked from the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall station over to the museum. She and I both wanted to see the exhibit, which is a really rare event since out interests are so different, so we agreed to head over.

The exhibit is called the "Legends of the Silk Road" and is fantastic. I've included the link at the end of the post. They have some pretty amazing stuff from a wide variety of historical periods. The centerpiece is the "beauty" herself. She was between 40 to 45 years old when she died around 3800 years ago. It was remarkable to see her still have eyelashes after so long. There was one very odd thing though. She's not Chinese.

Her features, and the artistic representation of her face, has her looking like a European. They call her Indo-European but I swear she looks French. Either way she was a long way from home.

The mummy was interesting, but I found some of the other stuff far more interesting. They had clothing that was over 2000 years old. Felicity and I were both really surprised because the clothing was huge. I stood next to it and the shirt went from my shoulders down to my knees. The guy who wore it must have been huge. We are talking 200 years ago but this man (it was a male's shirt/jacket) had to be well over 6 foot. That was a rare height for most Chinese men before the last 40 years.

There was also some calligraphy from around 220 AD. Felicity could read and understand it pretty clearly, and I could guess my way through the meaning. I could read Chinese that was written 1800 years ago (about a loan on a winery) but have difficulty reading Shakespeare due to the language change.

I wanted to take pictures but they wouldn't allow it. I didn't purchase anything from the gift shop but I'll have to go back again. They had a book with pictures from all of the exhibits. The exhibit ends on 3/15 so I have some time but not all that much.

In other news, I'm almost done with Anthony's book. I'll finish the Braille this week and then I just need to proof it and format it for printing. I'll be so happy to get it done before Christmas. I'm also flying to Hong Kong to extend my visa for the last 60 days before this one expires. After that I'll have to get a new visa right after Chinese New Year.

I also found out how wonderful Ender's Game is. It's a sci-fi book that has me so hooked I haven't been sleeping. I stayed up well past 2 am the last couple nights just to read a few more pages.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/12/06/2003430422