Detroit Institute of the Arts

We had just a smidgen of time between when Lucky Fin Project Weekend was over, and when Bessy had to be back at the rental lot.  I managed to stuff one more educational/cultural activity in:  Detroit Institute of the Arts.  

Obligatory museum sign picture

I loved these rainbow glasses in the gift shop.  They'd make a great Christmas present for someone I know, but I didn't think I could get them home with us.  Seeing that they're online, I may end up buying them later.  

Naked statues

New vocabulary word of the day:  Triptych.  They probably don't remember it, but I try to toss out a fun one every now and then.  It is a bit obscure, I suppose.  

 

Hannah was a little disappointed we didn't have time to check out more arms & armor.  

This tapestry was massive.  It takes up the whole wall.

Having been personally learning more about the split between England and Rome, it was neat to see statues of some of the popes.  

As an aside, it literally just dawned on me this week that England's complicated religious history influenced how they destroyed India on the way out.  See, India was home to Muslims and Hindus.  But when England pulled out, they decided that they couldn't live peacefully with each other as they had for many, many years.  All the Muslims had to move to two areas, and all the Hindus in those areas had to move out to the Hindu area.  This is how we ended up with India and West Pakistan and East Pakistan.  Only, West and East Pakistan were too far away from each other to be really unified, so East Pakistan eventually became Bangladesh.  This forced migration killed over a million people.  

I suppose after Henry, "I don't want to listen to the pope," and Edward, "Catholics are bad; we're properly Protestant now," and Bloody Mary, "Let's kill the Protestants," and Elizabeth, "We're Protestant again," the British couldn't understand how people of different faiths could peacefully coexist in harmony.  

We weren't quite running through the halls, but we did go at a speedy clip, hitting the highlights only.  

I could absolutely go back and spend a couple of days soaking it all in.

This was another massive, wall sized painting.  We had a good conversation here about "white Jesus."  

Hands down the biggest candle I've ever seen.

This was a belt!

Apparently, Texas size belt buckles were a thing even in the Assyrian empire, long before Texas was a thing.  

DIA has an Egypt section.  A respectful, reasonable Egypt section.  A set of canopic jars (a favorite of mine),

One (count them, one) mummy

And a few sarcophagus samples.  

Not a staggering amount of plunder.  

This is much more comfortable, and no less fascinating.  

The Egyptian cats always make me smile.

Hey, look!  It's Horus!  I don't remember seeing him in London.  

Sigh.  Oh, the weird times we're living through.  

All too soon, it was time to dash out, cross the street to the parking lot, and point Bessy the rental car back to the airport.  

We had a noon car return and a 5 pm flight, so that was poor planning on my part.  I learned a lot on this trip!  1) no red eye flights, 2) the girls are at a fabulous age to travel, 3) Plan, then run through the whole thing over again and make sure every bit of it makes sense and fits well, 4) I will always want more time in any museum...