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American Museum of Natural History’s New Gilder Center is LightYears Forward in Immersing, Engaging Understanding of the Secrets of Life

“Invisible Worlds” at the American Museum of Natural History’s new Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation puts you inside the body’s nerve system © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

As I walk through a corridor lined with interactive displays on my way into seeing “Invisible Worlds” in the American Museum of Natural History’s new Gilder Center for Science, Education, Innovation, these are the lessons I learn:

All life is related through DNA.

All life is connected with an ecosystem.

All life is connected through food nets – the sun’s energy is in every bite.

Life requires energy.

All of life’s dramas play out in ecosystems as individuals cooperate and compete to survive.

In Nature, nothing exists alone.

And as you go through the iconic American Museum of Natural History, and especially the newly opened Gilder Center, what strikes you is this:  the differences among all living creatures are intriguing but the similarities are even more edifying.

The new Gilder Center which opened in May, goes further than anything before in this iconic institution to engage, immerse, create interactions that make the transfer of knowledge, the act of active learning, the probing and understanding of the Secrets of Life absolutely thrilling.

The presentations are genius in the way they appeal to all ages and levels of understanding. From the dramatic architecture and physical space, to the state-of-the-art delivery to maximize immersion and engagement, to how smartly complex ideas are presented in simple terms without pandering, getting down to the essence, then inviting you to go deeper as you choose.

Why do we study? Why do we collect? What do we learn? These are some of the questions posed as you peer into the innovative displays of the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core, an innovation of the new Gilder Center © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

For the first time, we have access to see so much more of the Museum’s collections with the innovative displays of the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core, posing these basic questions:

Why do we study? Why do we collect? What do we learn? Why is it important? What can New York rocks tell us about the history of our continent? What can we learn from a pot? What can a footprint tell us that fossilized dinosaur bones cannot?

I watch as people are transfixed gazing into the spectacular displays, featuring more than 3,000 objects on three levels, representing every area of the Museum’s collections: vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, paleontology, geology, anthropology, and archaeology, with materials ranging from dinosaur tracks to astronomical instruments, and from antlers to pottery.

Why do we study? Why do we collect? What do we learn? These are some of the questions posed as you peer into the innovative displays of the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core, an innovation of the new Gilder Center © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

A series of digital exhibits feature stories about how scientists analyze various types of collections and introduce Museum researchers, while the glass-paneled exhibits, including those in the Macaulay Family Foundation Collection Galleries on the first and second floors, let us glimpse into working collections areas situated behind the displays. Together with the collections stored in the new Lepidoptera facility, which is also visible to visitors (located next to the Collections Core on the second floor), the Gilder Center houses more than 4 million scientific specimens

The “pre-show” to “Invisible Worlds” makes these points: All life on earth is related. All life is connected. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Gilder Center is where you can see the astounding “Invisible Worlds,” an extraordinary 360-degree immersive science-and-art experience that represents the next generation in scientific visualization with interactive, immersive elements, stunning photography, graphics, sound and narration. It is visually exciting (you are flushed with the lights, the floor reacts to your movements) – highly instagrammable as you are bathed in color and pattern.

“Invisible Worlds” at the American Museum of Natural History’s new Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation puts you inside the body’s nerve system © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

As you walk into “Invisible Worlds” (clever in that it is on a repeating 12-minute loop so you flow in and out on your own time, and don’t have to wait for start times and audiences to empty and fill an auditorium – I watched it twice), you first go through the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Gallery, where you engage at stations that pose questions you get to choose an answer and learn from the correct answer. (This requires a separate admission ticket.) They make learning so incredibly exciting – I am even fascinated to review the list of acknowledgements of the scientists and institutions that contributed to creating “Invisible Worlds” posted as you exit. The experience was designed by the Berlin-based Tamschick Media+Space with the Seville-based Boris Micka Associates, who worked closely with data visualization specialists and scientists from the Museum and researchers from around the world.

Find yourself in the Pacific Peoples’ exhibit, where you can see an Easter Island Moai ancestor statue © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The 230,000-square-foot $465 million, seven-story Gilder Center is brilliantly situated to create 33 connections among 10 Museum buildings, linking the entire campus. I go through one hall and find myself among Pacific Peoples (the Moai ancestor statue from Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, is a BIG hit). Through another doorway and into the Hall of Vertebrate Origins (how fossils explain evolution and show a family tree of life of who we are related to full of surprises).

Take a turn from the Gilder Center and find yourself in the Pacific Peoples’ exhibit, © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

On the main floor, I find myself walking through an incomparable photo exhibit of mural-sized insects that are endangered or near instinct (photographer Levon Biss, took 1000 images of insects from AMNH’s collection under a microscope to achieve such extraordinary detail) with fascinating descriptions about the animals, then, go down a ramp into the Big Bang (I still can’t wrap my head around the concept that from the size of an atom, the universe burst out within seconds). From here, I walk along the ramp, where every step is 450 million years, through 13 billion years of the formation of the universe, expanding, expanding, expanding; then find myself in the Hall of Earth (still can’t fathom how the moon was formed in just 24 hours), then back in the Gilder Center in the new Insectarium, where you can conduct an insect orchestra, go inside a bee hive, and, as I find myself doing, watch two gigantic grasshoppers mating (fascinating).

My goodness! Witnesses two grasshoppers mating in the Gilder Center’s new insectorium© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“Pay attention to insects. Many pollinate plants. Some recycle plants and animal matter into the soil. They are food for countless other things – and even on another, often keeping pest populations in check. Whether beetles, bees or butterflies, insects help natural ecosystems stay healthy.”

For someone who doesn’t (didn’t) particularly care for insects, I have never been so delighted and fascinated to be amid them. The displays are INCREDIBLE.

The display of ants, coming from their nests, each hauling their leaf, traveling, down, up, across metal tubes above the walkway, then down and through a huge enclosure, then up, down, up, down a series of tubes – they work hard!

In the Gilder Center insectariums, follow ants from their nest on one wall, through a bridge above the walkway, and down into a huge tank, up and down tubes to appreciate their work ethic © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The key message: insects are not “pests” but vital as the basis of the ecosystem that sustains all life.

Altogether, the exhibits show these critical themes: all life is connected. All life is related. There are very real threats to survival, to extinction and when you go through the Dinosaur exhibits, you appreciate just how real that is. The notion of extinction also becomes very real when you go through another favorite section, the Hall of Human Evolution (check out how many hominid species have already gone extinct before we homo sapiens came to be dominant).

People of all ages are engaged by the various exhibits and interactive displays in the new Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I love the reaction of the children, from the youngest toddlers, to the various experiences. And couples on a date (this is very date-worthy place).

The Gilder Center also houses a now-permanent Butterfly Vivarium (separate ticket required).  The year-round, 2,500-square-foot Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium is where you can mingle with up to 1,000 free-flying butterflies  (as many as 80 species) in various micro-environments along a meandering route. The Vivarium let’s you closely observe one of nature’s vital environmental barometers as well as a view into the pupae incubator, where you can learn about the butterfly life cycle and observe chrysalises (perhaps even see a butterfly emerge!). Staff also helps you view butterflies through a digital microscope.

The imaginative architecture of the new Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History sets the tone for the experience that awaits within © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The 230,000-square-foot $465 million, seven-story Gilder Center creates 33 connections among 10 Museum buildings to link the entire campus, with a new entrance on the Museum’s west side, at Columbus Avenue and 79th Street from the Theodore Roosevelt Park.

The Gilder Center’s undulating façade, with its inviting expanses of bird-safe fritted glass, is clad in Milford pink granite, the same stone used on the Central Park West entrance. The diagonal pattern of the stone panels evokes both the phenomenon of geological layering and the design of the richly textured, coursing surface of the masonry on the Museum’s 77th Street side.

The imaginative architecture of the new Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History sets the tone for the experience that awaits within © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Gilder Center architecture – it was designed by Studio Gang, the international architecture and urban design practice led by Jeanne Gang – evokes the habitats of its subjects. Is this what an ant’s habitat would be like? Or where our cave dwelling ancestors would live? The shapes, patterns are so exciting, it invites instagrammable photos and selfies, as we saw. And so do the exhibits, especially Invisible Worlds, where the lights, lines, shapes wash over you and the entire room, getting everyone snapping and clicking.

The Gilder Center’s exciting design invites photos © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Upon entering the Gilder Center, you find yourself in the five-story Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium, a grand space illuminated with natural light admitted through large-scale skylights. The building’s design is informed by the ways in which wind and water carve out landscapes that are exciting to explore, as well as the forms that hot water etches in blocks of ice.

The Gilder Center’s exciting design invites photos © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The texture, color, and flowing forms of the Griffin Atrium were inspired by canyons in the southwestern U.S. and animate the Gilder Center’s grand entrance, evoking awe, excitement, and discovery. Its striking structure was created by spraying concrete directly onto rebar without traditional formwork in a technique known as “shotcrete,” invented in the early 1900s by Museum naturalist and taxidermy artist Carl Akeley. The bridges and openings in the hand-finished shotcrete connect visitors physically and visually to multiple levels housing new exhibition galleries, designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates with the Museum’s Exhibition Department, education spaces, and collections facilities, creating welcoming sightlines that encourage movement into and throughout the building. The verticality of the Griffin Atrium also acts as a key sustainability feature, providing natural light and air circulation to the heart of the building’s interior.

The grand staircase in the Gilder Center’s atrium © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

A broad, grand staircase on the east side of the Griffin Atrium, on axis with the entrance, is designed with one side as seating steps, featuring deep, walnut-covered treads and high risers that is popular for visitors to gather for rest and conversation and programs.

You are invited to visit the Museum’s David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center, which houses one of the largest and most important natural history libraries in the world. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I discover the Museum’s David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center, which houses one of the largest and most important natural history libraries in the world. An elegant new Reading Room on the fourth floor of the Gilder Center, with sweeping views to the west, is an oasis of tranquility with comfortable sofas, sitting areas and reading areas. With dedicated spaces for researchers and small meetings, as well as an alcove gallery for rotating exhibits, this new learning center serves as an intellectual hub for research, education, and convening, connecting visitors to its resources as never before. As part of expanded access to the Gottesman Library’s collections for visitors, the alcove gallery showcases materials from the Rare Book Collection and other holdings. The inaugural exhibit, What’s in a Name?, explores scientific nomenclature through rare books, art, and current research on insects.

“The Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation is a glorious new facility that fulfills a critical need at a critical time: to help visitors to understand the natural world more deeply, to appreciate that all life is interdependent, to trust science, and to be inspired to protect our precious planet and its myriad life forms,” said Ellen Futter, President Emerita of the American Museum of Natural History. “This opening represents a milestone moment for the Museum in its ongoing efforts to improve science literacy while highlighting for our visitors everything the Museum has to offer, and sparking wonder and curiosity.” 

“The Gilder Center is designed to invite exploration and discovery that is not only emblematic of science, but also such a big part of being human. It aims to draw everyone in—all ages, backgrounds, and abilities—to share the excitement of learning about the natural world,” said Jeanne Gang, founding principal and partner of Studio Gang. “Stepping inside the large day-lit atrium, you are offered glimpses of the different exhibits on multiple levels. You can let your curiosity lead you. And with the many new connections that the architecture creates between buildings, it also improves your ability to navigate the Museum’s campus as a whole.”

Among its 33 connections, the Gilder Center links to some of the Museum’s most iconic Halls, including to the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals, connected on the first floor through the dazzling Yurman Family Crystalline Pass, and to the Hall of Vertebrate Origins on the fourth floor.

The Gilder Center’s exciting design invites photos © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The fifth and sixth floors of the Gilder Center house the Department of Ichthyology, including research spaces and specialized laboratories. These facilities complement the building’s new collections storage which houses the Museum’s ichthyology collection with more than 2.5 million research specimens, one of the world’s largest. The Museum’s Education Department is also located on these floors. (Its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum offers two of the only free-standing, degree-granting programs of their kind at any museum in the U.S.: the Ph.D. program in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Earth Science residency program.)

You can spend eons roaming about here, so it is good that there is also a new table-service restaurant within the Gilder serving contemporary American cuisine with regional and global influences, as well as beverages showcasing local breweries and vineyards (the main museum also has the lower level cafeteria). There are also two sensational gift shops in the Center.

For anyone who hasn’t been to a museum of the quality like AMNH in awhile and expect static, boring displays with complex notes, this is leaps, bounds and lightyears beyond. Even the iconic dinosaur displays have interactive, engaging elements and make key points that are most relevant to our lives. You really feel you are having a conversation with sheer genius. “State of the art” doesn’t begin to describe it.

The development of the Gilder Center facilities and exhibitions involved nearly every department in the Museum, from operations and exhibition to education and science. The core project team also includes Arup, Atelier Ten, Bergen Street Studio, BuroHappold Engineering, Davis Brody Bond (executive architect), Design & Production Museum Studio, Event Network, Hadley Exhibits, Langan Engineering, Ralph Applebaum Associates, Reed Hilderbrand, Tamschick Media+Space, AECOM Tishman, Venable LLP, and Zubatkin Owner Representation.

And when you think about it, what is so remarkable about AMNH is how what is contained here spans the entirety of history, culture, life,  the natural world, the planet and even the known universe. And you get to explore it all.

All admission to the Museum is by timed entry and must be reserved online. Open daily, 10 am–5:30 pm. New York and New Jersey residents pay a suggested amount (all the attractions though are separately priced); standard pricing is Adults: $28 for general admission, $34 plus one, $39 plus all the attractions; Seniors and students are $22, $27, $31; Child 3-012 is $16, $20, $24.

The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869 with a dual mission of scientific research and science education, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls, galleries for temporary exhibitions, the Rose Center for Earth and Space including the Hayden Planetarium, and the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class permanent collection of more than 34 million specimens and artifacts, some of which are billions of years old, and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world.

American Museum of Natural History,200 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024, 212-769-5606. Visit amnh.org for more information.

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© 2023 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Visit instagram.com/going_places_far_and_near and instagram.com/bigbackpacktraveler/ Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/KarenBRubin 

Immersive World of Harry Potter Exhibition Enchants New York But Only for Limited Time

Fans and superfans alike will be ecstatic to be immersed in the newly opened Harry Potter: The Exhibition, the most comprehensive touring exhibition ever presented on Harry Potter and the entire Wizarding World, is on view in Herald Square in midtown Manhattan but only for a limited time © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Fans and superfans alike will be ecstatic to be immersed in the newly opened Harry Potter: The Exhibition, the most comprehensive touring exhibition ever presented on Harry Potter and the entire Wizarding World, is on view in Herald Square in midtown Manhattan but only for a limited time.

To call it an “exhibition” is an understatement. On every level – from the actual costumes, wands, props (the Sorting Hat! The Sword of Gryffindor! The Elder Wand! The Resurrection Stone!) from all the Harry Potter plus Fantastic Beasts™ movies and Broadway’s Tony-award winning Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – to the opportunity to compete for points for your House by casting a spell, preparing a potion, trying your hand at Quidditch, summoning your Patronus– you feel you are part of this magical world. The experience is completely personalized, individualized for you as you take this journey through magnificently crafted, magical environments with the aid of remarkable design and technology. It is truly immersive, truly interactive, truly experiential, truly enchanting.

Our visit starts with choosing a Hogwarts House (a photo is snapped of you in the sorting hat), a wand, a Patronus, all encoded in an RFID wristband that you use to log in at various stations to capture interactions and deliver an absolutely personalized experience, designed to not merely put you in the story, but put you into the films’ creation.

We are ushered into the From Page to Screen Gallery where a first edition of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is ensconced in a Gringotts-inspired vault. We are surrounded by inspirational video and literary quotes and enthusiastic guides introduce us “first years” to the exhibition – we feel the same sense of wonder and being new to Hogwarts as Harry, Ron and Hermione would have felt as first years. 

Find out how the paintings that line the walls of the Great Hall Gallery were created © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

We next move into the Hogwarts Castle Gallery featuring an immersive multimedia experience with the castle as a backdrop for iconic elements like the Whomping Willow and Dementors and see ourselves on the Marauder’s Map. 

Walking through the Great Hall Gallery we get to see the same paintings as the students would see going into their House, and learn that filmmakers lined the walls with more than 200 paintings, some based on real art and some on subjects that included members of the film crew and their families. Production designer Stuart Craig, producer David Heyman, and property master Barry Wilkinson all are represented on the wall. Original pieces by studio artists often painted “in the style” of famous artists, representing the history of painting from Egypt to the Renaissance to the 20th century.

Walking through the Great Hall Gallery we get to see the same paintings as the students would see going into their House, © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Hogwarts Houses gallery allows us personalized moments with the Hogwarts house we selected during our registration (I selected Gryffindor) but we still get to experience noteworthy tidbits about all the Hogwarts houses and their important characters. The celebratory hall feature an iconic Sorting Hat (perfect for photo ops) and Sword of Gryffindor, and house crests on meticulously created stained glass windows. The notes give the history of the houses and important biographical notes, and we get to see costumes and artifacts from each of the houses, with backstory about the particular film or scene they appeared. I love learning about the costume designer’s thinking, the choices that were made, and how the actors reacted to their costume.

Hogwarts’ Sorting Hat is on view in Harry Potter™: The Exhibition  © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

In a room devoted to the wands (Harry’s!), we learn that in the first film, they were very basic in construction but by the third film, the art designers personalized each one to the character, choosing special woods and carvings, but then the versions used for filming were made of resin for everyday and rubber for stunts (because they would break; Harry broke 50 of his wands). About the Elder Wand, the designers had no idea how important it would be when they fashioned it, so were grateful they had designed it with a distinctive appearance.

Sit at a table in The Great Hall © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Great Hall has some tables where we can sit, with the backdrop from the movie, and learn that the set designer made the floor of York stones that lasted through 10 years of onscreen Hogwarts students walking, running, dancing; there were four 100 ft custom-made tables that were distressed to suggest their longevity and the actors were encouraged to write and draw on the tables. In the first film, real candles were suspended from the ceiling but there were safety concerns, so they switched to digital and had five sizes of CGI candles coded for six varied flames so no two were the same.

Mix your own potion in the Potions Classroom© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Hogwarts Classrooms are filled with iconic props, creatures, and costumes. We get to interact with magical lessons and games through digital touchscreens to reveal behind-the-scenes secrets about iconic classroom moments. We even get to brew potions in the Potions Classroom (there’s a recipe book), predict the future in Divination, pot a mandrake in the Herbology Greenhouse, and use their digital wand to defeat a boggart in Defense Against the Dark Arts – all earning points for our House.

Mix your own potion in the Potions Classroom© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Hagrid’s Hut and The Forbidden Forest offer an interactive Patronus charm experience (I get to conjure up mine, a terrier). We then uncover iconic creatures, such as centaurs and Acromantula, hidden in the forest. Exploring inside a re-creation of Hagrid’s Hut, I find it interesting that to film Hagrid’s Hut scenes, they made two sets – one with furniture and all the furnishings to be in scale with half the Giant’s size, but everything oversized when seeing Harry, Ron and Hermione in the shot – and filmed each scene twice.

In the Tri Wizard tournament section, we learn that 35 costumes were created just for Harry (these included the before and after and costumes for doubles and stunt doubles) – we see the costume that was distressed to look like Harry had already fought the dragon and then get to see the enormous dragon (selfie! – in fact, so many Instagrammable scenes throughout).

Try your hand at Quidditch and see Harry Potter’s uniform © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

In the Quidditch section (there’s an actual Golden Snitch!), we get to throw a Quaffle through a hoop to rack up points. We learn that filming was a grueling experience for the actors who had to straddle the brooms while suspended in air. But in the “Azkaban” film, they finally put foot pedals and bicycle seats on the broom and gave the actors extra padding for their behinds that would be concealed under their uniforms. The cinematographer made an effort to film as a live sport, with multiple moving camera angles and flying camera operator. (Chris Columbus wanted Quidditch to have the same flair and excitement of Muggle sports but needed a crash course in the rules from author J.K. Rowling before filming. Screenwriter Steve Kloves also consulted her and learned Quidditch had been partially inspired by her enjoyment of American basketball. Costume designer Judianna Makovsky wanted to give the Quidditch player uniforms both familiarity and timelessness – she was inspired by 19th century sports and combined fencing, cricket and polo wear.

The Golden Snitch! © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I love learning about how the costumes, wands and such changed over the course of the different films, as the characters grew and matured, as mores changed, how the designers literally weave the character into the costume with subtle touches, textures, lines, and learning the actors’ reactions as well as their input – how Hermione loved to finally be wearing regular clothes and not only school robes by the later films, how Newt Scamander’s coat was inspired by the design for a Muggle coat but with the secret pockets common to magician’s coats, with a color palette of deep peacock, having the vibe of his creatures, in contrast to the brown and gray of the1920s outfits; 12 copies of his coat were created from material that designer Colleen Atwood had  in storage for years.

As a superfan, I am particularly enthralled by the notes that accompany each of the rooms – like chapters in the book or scenes in the movie  – that begin with putting you back into the story, but then adding on the fascinating creative backstory.

Asked by graphic designers to create Sirius Black’s family tree, JK Rowling almost immediately sent five generations of names indicating births, marriages and deaths, plus the family crest and motto for the the Noble 7 Most Ancient House of Black.© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

So we learn that when graphic designers Miraphorn Mina and Eduardo lima were tasked with creating four-walls-worth of a tapestry portraying Sirius Black’s family tree in number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, they knew the names of some of his relatives from the books, but needed many more to fill an entire room. So producer David Heyman called JK Rowling and asked if she could provide further information on the Noble 7 Most Ancient House of Black. Almost immediately, she sent back several pages with five generations of names indicating births, marriages and deaths, plus the family crest and motto.

Importantly, learning the backstory of how the effect was created doesn’t burst the bubble or the delight in the illusion that is film.

Tom Zaller, the CEO of Imagine Exhibitions that created the Harry Potter exhibition in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Themed Entertainment and EMC Presents, knows the importance of preserving the magic – his backstory includes a longtime association with the magician David Copperfield. His company, renowned for creating blockbuster exhibitions (Titanic, Jurassic World, Downtown Abbey, DaVinci), was approached by Warner Bros. to create this exhibition. (Imagine currently has 45 different exhibitions on view around the world, including a second World of Harry Potter Exhibition in Paris with different original elements, for example instead of Professor McGonagall’s robes in the Great Room, Paris has Dumbledore’s). All the original costumes, artifacts and props belong to Warner Bros. – Imagine created the sets, the immersive experiences, and the illuminating notes that explain the exhibits.

The Harry Potter:The Exhibition premiered in Philadelphia a year ago, then went to Atlanta, and has already drawn one million visitors in the two venues, and will continue to tour after leaving New York City.

Tom Zaller, Imagine Exhibitions’ CEO, sits behind Dolores Umbridge’s desk © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

After using the portkey to travel to the Ministry of Magic, I find Zaller sitting behind Dolores Umbridge’s desk. I ask how the notes were made – they have so much information yet are so concise; they put you into the story, but then give you the creative backstory. He tells me they worked closely with Warner Bros. and the people who worked on the film, the play and the themepark. “We went behind the scenes to learn why choices were made.”

Zaller, who has been producing block buster exhibitions for decades, says, “This is the biggest, baddest, most wonderful… We try to satisfy the fan and the super fan.”

The sword of Gryffindor© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I confess my thrill at seeing the actual Sorting Hat, the actual sword of Gryffindor, the actual Golden Snitch, the actual Elder Wand, the actual Resurrection Stone, mixing a potion, throwing a Quaffle, conjuring up my Patronus (10 points for Gryffindor!), and being in the places in three-dimension, that you either imagine in your mind from the books, or see on film.

The exhibit is well set up for the numbers of people who will be coming through – many stations for photos, wands, spells, divination, potions, repotting the howling mandrakes (which turns out to have been a real thing that jk Rowling incorporated, among the other real spells and magic traditions, like the Sorcerer’s stone).

Clever use of video (film), sound effects, even smells, and thank goodness the musical score of the films is so marvelous, because musical segments provide the soundtrack in each of the areas (and smartly the sound tracks do not overreach)

Tom Riddle’s diary and the Basilisk fang used to destroy it in “Chamber of Secrets” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

We get to see the Voldemort’s horcruxes – Tom Riddle’s diary and the Basilisk fang used to destroy the diary in “Chamber of Secrets”, Hufflepuff’s Cup, Ravenclaw’s diadem, , the iconic Resurrection stone, …., Deatheater’s cloak, even the invisibility cloak (spoiler alert: it’s invisible), Dumbledore’s Elder Wand,

You even get to fight the final battle of Hogwarts, activating the wands held by Harry and Voldemort (choose who you want to be).

Here’s a challenge: think of something you would most like to see and see if it isn’t in the exhibit.

It is so much fun – during our press preview visit, superfans went through with their Hogwarts robes, really getting into the spirit. And so many selfie and Instagram opportunities!

At the end, you can purchase print and digital photos of your experience and visit the gift shop where you can find an exclusive collection of Harry Potter: The Exhibition merchandise – apparel, jewelry, and edible treats, including fan-favorite Chocolate Frogs and bottled Butterbeer, as well as merchandise not available at any other Wizarding World experience. 

It’s supposed to take 60 to 90 minutes to go through, but I love reading the notes and studying the objects so much, I spend over two hours.

See it here in New York, then go see it in Paris.

Harry Potter™: The Exhibition has transformed its space at 50 W. 34th Street (34th Street and Broadway), easily accessible from Penn Station, Port Authority and many subway stations. Tickets (for timed entry, but you can stay as long as you want) start at $29 for adults. The exhibition also offers a VIP ticket experiences with a flex schedule, commemorative lanyard, free access to the Harry Potter: The Exhibition Audio Guide and a $10 credit to spend in the retail store. A full schedule of dates and times to visit Harry Potter™: The Exhibition can be found at www.harrypotterexhibition.com.  Fans are encouraged to follow Harry Potter: The Exhibition on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter. #HarryPotterExhibition

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© 2023 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Visit instagram.com/going_places_far_and_near and instagram.com/bigbackpacktraveler/ Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/KarenBRubin 

Feeling Like a Foreigner in my Hometown: Global Scavenger Hunt Ends in New York City

Feeling like a foreigner in my own hometown, I undertake my last scavenge of the 2019 Global Scavenger Hunt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, to uncover art from five of the countries we visited on our 23-day around-the-world mystery tour © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

by Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Global Scavenger Hunt teams arrive in New York City for the last leg of the Global Scavenger Hunt, a mystery tour that has taken us to 10 countries in 23 days.

Bill Chalmers, the ringmaster and Chief Experience Officer of this around-the-world mystery tour, has designed the rules, challenges and scavenges to get us out of our comfort zone and immerse us in a culture, fine-tune our skills as world travelers, and most significantly, “trust in the kindness of strangers.”

Back in New York, he is delighted all 10 teams circumnavigated the world “in one piece” without dramatic incident, in this, the 15th annual Global Scavenger Hunt competition.

There is one more challenge in New York (an easy urban Par 1), and even though, based on points and placement, the winners of the 15th annual, 2019 edition of the Global Scavenger Hunt have been determined, still the teams go out and give it their all. The four teams still in contention must complete at least one of the scavenges in New York, and complete their time sheet and hand in by the 4 pm deadline.

Paying tribute to John Lennon at Strawberry Fields, in Central Park, one of the New York City scavenges on the Global Scavenger Hunt (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Examples of the scavenges: take in a Yankees game or a Broadway show (actually difficult because of the deadline of 4 pm); have one of each of following: a New York bagel, a New York hot dog, a New York deli sandwich, a slice of New York pizza, New York cheesecake, a New York egg cream, or an old-fashion Manhattan; locate five pieces from five of the nations you just visited in the Met; visit Strawberry Fields to pay John Lennon tribute; do one scavenge in each of the five boroughs of New York City.

A native New Yorker, this is really my turf, though there is the oddest sensation of feeling like I am in a foreign place, reminding myself of what is familiar and not having to think twice about things like language, currency, drinking water from the tap, eating raw vegetable, the street grid).

In fact, that is the genius of the way the Global Scavenger Hunt is designed – we are supposed to feel off-balance, disoriented because that’s when you focus most, the experiences are more intense, you are out of your comfort zone and need to rely on the kindness of strangers, as opposed to the style of travel where you stay long enough to become familiar, comfortable in a place so it (and you) no longer feels foreign.

On the hunt for an object from Morocco, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I elect to take up the challenge of going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to seek out objects from five of the countries we visited (Canada, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Greece, Morocco, Gibraltar, Portugal, Spain). Greece will be easy, of course, but Morocco and Jordan (Petra), Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma) are trickier. It is Chalmers’ way of making us experience things on a different level, and for me, it brings together so much of what we’ve seen, learned and experienced along the way. I have a context in which to appreciate the artifacts, dare I say a personal connection. Indeed, the Metropolitan Museum of Art enables you to travel around the world, be transported over millennia, within the confines of its walls.

I first join a docent-led Highlights Tour, knowing from past experience that these always lead me to parts of the museum I am unfamiliar with, and enlighten me about aspects of art and culture with the in-depth discussion of the pieces the docents select to discuss.

The Three Graces, a Roman marble statue from 2nd C AD copying a Greek theme from the 2nd C BC, is repeated throughout Western civilization, on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The docent, Alan, begins in the Greco-Roman exhibit with a stunning marble sculpture of the Three Graces, showing how this theme – essentially copied from the Greek bronzes (which no longer exist because the bronze was valuable and melted down for military use) – was repeated over the eons, into the Renaissance and even beyond. Greece. One down.

Obviously, finding an object from Greece would be easy, and I hope to find objects from Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand in the Asia wing where there is a massive collection of Buddhist art (it proves just a tad more difficult, but I succeed).

An object from Burma (Myanmar), at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Morocco and Jordan (Petra) prove trickier than I expected, but bring me to an astonishing, landmark exhibit, “The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East,” with an extraordinary focus on the territories and trading networks of the Middle East that were contested between the Roman and Parthian Empires (ca. 100 BC and AD 250) “yet across the region life was not defined by these two superpowers alone. Local cultural and religious traditions flourished and sculptures, wall paintings, jewelry and other objects reveal how ancient identities were expressed through art.”

This is a goldmine for my hunt. Featuring 190 works from museums in the Middle East, Europe and the United States, the exhibition follows the great incense and silk routes that connected cities in southwestern Arabia, Nabataea, Judea, Syria and Mesopotamia, that made the region a center of global trade along with spreading ideas, spurring innovations (such as in water control), and spawning art and culture. It is a treasure trove for my scavenger hunt.

It is the most incredible feeling to come upon the objects from Petra, having visited the site (was it only 10 days ago?) and having a context for seeing these isolated objects on display. I recall seeing their counterparts in the newly opened Archaeological Museum at Petra.

The Greek sun god Helios, from Petra, 1st C BC – 1st C AD, found at Qint al-Bint temple in Petra, visited on the Global Scavenger Hunt © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The World Between Empires

The landmark exhibition The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East (unfortunately it is only on view through June 23, 2019), focuses on the remarkable cultural, religious and commercial exchange that took place in cities including Petra, Baalbek, Palmyra and Hatra between 100 B.C. and A.D. 250. “During this transformative period, the Middle East was the center of global commerce and the meeting point of two powerful empires—Parthian Iran in the east and Rome in the west—that struggled for regional control.”

The Magdala Stone, 1st Century, Migdal, Synagogue, on the Sea of Galilee. The stone, whose exact function is uncertain, dates to a time when the temple in Jerusalem still stood. One short side features a 7-branched menorah – the earliest such image known in a synagogue – flanked by amphorae and columns. The Migdal synagogue would have been in use during the lifetime of Jesus, whom the Gospels describe as preaching in synagogues throughout Galilee © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Among the highlights is a Nabataean religious shrine, reconstructed from architectural elements in collections in the United States and Jordan; the unique Magdala Stone, discovered in a first-century synagogue at Migdal (ancient Magdala) with imagery that refers to the Temple in Jerusalem; and wall paintings from a church in Dura-Europos that are the earliest securely dated images of Jesus.

Sculptures from Baalbek illuminate religious traditions at one of the greatest sanctuaries in the ancient Middle East, and funerary portraits from Palmyra bring visitors face to face with ancient people. The exhibition also examines important contemporary issues—above all, the deliberate destruction and looting of sites including Palmyra, Dura-Europos, and Hatra.

Wall Painting of Christ Healing the Paralytic/Wall Painting of Christ Walking on Water, ca 232, Dura-Europos, Christian building, considered the world’s oldest surviving church. The paintings include images of Jesus Christ performing miracles, and are the earliest securely dated representations of him © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“The compelling works of art in this exhibition offer a view into how people in the ancient Middle East sought to define themselves during a time of tremendous religious, creative, and political activity, revealing aspects of their lives and communities that resonate some two millennia later,” stated Max Hollein, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a video that accompanies the exhibit.  “Further, in focusing on an area of the world that has been deeply affected by recent conflicts and the destruction of sites, monuments, and objects, this show also engages with complex questions about the preservation of cultural heritage.”

The exhibition evokes a journey along ancient trade routes, beginning in the southwestern Arabian kingdoms that grew rich from the caravan trade in frankincense and myrrh harvested there and used throughout the ancient world. Camel caravans crossed the desert to the Nabataean kingdom, with its spectacular capital city of Petra, which I have just visited, walking through very much as the caravan travelers would have.

From here, goods traveled west to the Mediterranean and north and east through regions including Judaea and the Phoenician coast and across the Syrian desert, where the oasis city of Palmyra controlled trade routes that connected the Mediterranean world to Mesopotamia and Iran and ultimately China. In Mesopotamia, merchants transported cargoes down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf, where they joined maritime trade routes to India. These connections transcended the borders of empires, forming networks that linked cities and individuals over vast distances.

3rd C biblical wall paintings discovered in the Dura-Europos synagogue were exceptional because they demonstrated that early Jewish art included figural scenes. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnews.com

“Across the entire region, diverse local political and religious identities were expressed in art. Artifacts from Judaea give a powerful sense of ancient Jewish identity during a critical period of struggle with Roman rule. Architectural sculptures from the colossal sanctuary at Baalbek and statuettes of its deities reveal the intertwined nature of Roman and ancient Middle Eastern religious practices. Funerary portraits from Palmyra represent the elite of an important hub of global trade. Wall paintings and sculptures from Dura-Europos on the River Euphrates illustrate the striking religious diversity of a settlement at the imperial frontier. And in Mesopotamia, texts from the last Babylonian cuneiform libraries show how ancient temple institutions waned and finally disappeared during this transformative period.”

From my visits in Athens and Petra, particularly, I appreciate this synergy between trade, migration, environmental sustainability and technology (in Petra’s Archaeology Museum, you learn how the ability to control water supply was key to the city’s development) and the links to economic prosperity and political power, and the rise of art, culture, and community. (I recall the notes from the National Archaeology Museum in Athens that made this very point.)

The docent’s “Highlights Tour” brings us to Assyria at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

It is rare (if ever) for the Metropolitan Museum to venture into the political, but a key topic within the exhibition is the impact of recent armed conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen on archaeological sites, monuments, and museums, including deliberate destruction and looting. Some of the most iconic sites affected—Palmyra, Hatra, and Dura-Europos—are featured in the exhibition, which discusses this damage and raises questions regarding current and future responses to the destruction of heritage. Should the sites be restored or will they now only exist “on paper”? How much money and resources should go to restoring or excavation when villages and homes for people to live in also need to be rebuilt?

There is a fascinating, if frantic, presentation of three archaeologist/historians speaking about what the destruction by ISIS and Islamic fundamentalists of Palmyra, Eura-Europos and Hatra – what it means to destroy a people’s heritage, their cultural identity. “It may seem frivolous to focus on [archaeological sites] when people are enslaved, killed…but to wipe out, destroy culture is a way of destroying people.”

Happening upon this exhibit made the travel experiences we had to these extraordinary places all the more precious.

It is a humbling experience, to be sure, to go to the origins of the great civilizations, fast forward to today. How did they become great? How did they fall? Greatness is not inevitable or forever.  Empires rise and fall. Rulers use religion, art and monuments to establish their credibility and credentials to rule; successors blot out the culture and re-write history.

Central Park, NYC. Experiencing my hometown like a tourist. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I peek out from the American Café windows to Central Park and see sun and the early spring blossoms on the trees, and dash out to walk through my other favorite New York City place. There is nothing more beautiful than New York City in the spring – brides are out in force taking photos; there are musicians and entertainers. There is a festive atmosphere as I walk through the park toward the Palace Hotel in time for our 4:30 pm meeting.

Plan your visit and get information on current exhibits, www.metmuseum.org.

Plan your visit to New York City, www.nycgo.com.

15th Annual Global Scavenger Hunt Winners Crowned

And now, drumroll please, Chalmers announces the winner of the 2019 Global Scavenger Hunt: “Only one team wins. The competition was fierce.”

Third place winners of the 2019 Global Scavenger Hunt third place is Order & Chaos, Sal  Iaquinta & Vivian Reyes with Bill Chalmers © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

In third place is Order & Chaos, Sal  Iaquinta & Vivian Reyes, doctors from San Francisco.

Second place winners of the 2019 Global Scavenger Hunt, Lazy Monday, Eric & Kathryn Verwillow with Bill Chalmers © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

In second place, Lazy Monday, Eric & Kathryn Verwillow, computer networking and think tank professional of Palo Alto, California “I am in awe of how hard working, beginning to end – embracing the spirit,” Chalmers says.

2019 Global Scavenger Hunt “World’s Greatest Travelers,” Lawyers Without Borders, Zoe Littlepage and Rainey Booth © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

And the World’s Greatest Travelers of 2019: Lawyers Without Borders, Rainey Booth and Zoe Littlepage of Houston, who have competed in the Global Scavenger Hunt 12 times, and win it for their 6th time. “You embody the spirit of the event, to go out of your comfort zone.” (You can follow Zoe’s blog of her experience to get a sense of how strenuous, outrageous, and determined the team was in accumulating their points: https://zoeandraineygreatescape.blogspot.com/2019/05/gsh-2019)

We celebrate at a final bon voyage dinner.

The Global Scavenger Hunt is the brainchild of Bill and Pamela Chalmers, who in addition to forging understanding and bonds among travelers and the people in the destinations visited, use the program to raise money for the GreatEscape Foundation and promote voluntourism – one of the scavenges in Yangon, Myanmar is to volunteer at an orphanage or school; past GSH travelers visited and helped out at Tibetan refugee camps in Nepal, orphanages in Laos, hospitals in Cambodia, homeless schools in India, hospices in Manila, disabled facilities in Sri Lanka, Ethiopian schools, the slums of Nairobi.

“The foundation is one of main reasons we do the event,” Chalmers says at our final meeting before going out for a celebration dinner. The foundation has raised money to build 12 schools (1 each in Niger, Haiti, Ecuador, India & Ethiopia; 2 each in Sri Lanka & Sierra Leone, and 3 in Kenya), helped build the Tamensa Medical Clinic in Niger for migrating Tuareg nomads which serves as a midwives & nurse training center too. “We know that we saved lives and bettered the lives of hundreds. We have helped over 2400 families in more than 60 countries (mostly women entrepreneurs) with our interest and fee free micro-loans (96% of which have gone to women with a 99% repayment).”

Through the event this and last year, the foundation will build 2 more co-ed elementary schools , in Ethiopia and Haiti.

2020 Global Scavenger Hunt Set for April 17-May 9

Chalmers has just set the dates for the 23-day 2020 Global Scavenger Hunt: April 17-May 9, 2020. Entry applications are now being accepted.

Eager Indiana Jones-types of adventurers and curious travelers wanting to test their travel IQ against other travelers in an extraordinary around-the-world travel adventure competition that crowns The World’s Greatest Travelers, can apply at GlobalScavengerHunt.com

The 2020 event will pit savvy international travelers against each other by taking them on A Blind Date with the World, visiting ten secret destinations without any prior preparation, and then have them unravel a constant blitz of highly authentic, participatory and challenging culturally-oriented scavenges along the way, like: meditating with monks, training elephants, taking flamenco lessons, cooking local dishes with local chefs, searching out Lost Cities, cracking sacred temple mysteries, joining in local celebrations, and learning local languages enough to decipher their scavenger hunt clues. Trusting strangers in strange lands will be their focus as they circle the globe for three weeks. Over the past 15 years, the event has touched foot in 85 countries.

The title of The World’s Greatest Travelers and free trip around the world to defend their titles in the 2021 event await the travelers worthy enough to win the 16th edition of the world travel championship.    

Event participation is open but limited; the $25,000 per team entry fee includes all international airfare, First Class hotels, 40% of meals, and special event travel gear. All travelers are interviewed for suitability and single travelers are welcome to apply. For additional information visit GlobalScavengerHunt.com, or contact GreatEscape Adventures Inc. at 310-281-7809.

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Spy v Spy in New York City: New KGB Spy Museum is Window into How Spies Impact World Affairs

 

Sergey, a KGB Spy Museum guide, describes the conditions that political prisoners would have suffered in a society where opposition was suppressed by fear © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

If you really want to be freaked out by the KGB Spy Museum that opened just a few months ago in Manhattan, do what I did: come directly from Spyscape, where you learn about the whole business of being a spy, and be in the middle of reading a book like “The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West,” by Malcolm Vance.

The KGB Museum would be scarier if it were not laid out somewhat like an antique shop (but aren’t all spy centers sequestered behind something innocuous like a tailor shop?). Row by row, there are some 3500 artifacts, all of them real, many on view publicly for the first time. They date from 1910 until 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union when the KGB was replaced by the FSB. But these mundane objects – a lipstick, an umbrella, a pen – were lethal weapons; a tie pin and belt buckle were cameras; a heart reader could seek out a live person hiding even in a refrigerator. Another important tool? A thermometer to determine if a person were truly dead. And if a master key couldn’t unlock an apartment to install a bug? No matter, a transmitter could be aimed at the window from a huge distance to decipher the sound vibrations and eavesdrop anyway. There is even a letter remover which could take out a letter from its envelope, read its contents and replace it back in the envelope, without leaving a mark.

The Patient Chair, used for interrogation, one of some 3500 artifacts on view at the KGB Spy Museum © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

And then there is the “patient chair,” used in a psychiatric hospital, with scary restraints, that were used for interrogations under truth serum or other means.

It turns out that those fantastical gadgets from the James Bond movies, and even the Get Smart spy spoof, were actually based on the real thing. It seems that there is nothing too absurd in the spy world.

The KGB story is really scary though. KGB (КГБ in Cyrillic) stands for “Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti,” which can be translated as the Committee for State Security. The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union, and during the Cold War the KGB was in direct competition with the CIA and other state security agencies around the world for cultural, economic, and military dominance.

Some 3,500 artifacts from the KGB, from 1910 to 1991, many seen publicly for the first time, are on view at the newly opened KGB Spy Museum in Manhattan © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

The KGB was born in the Russian Revolution – one of the artifacts is the carpet memorializing Lenin (not his real last name, it turns out) and the beginning of the Revolution in 1917 – and was initially designed to ferret out counter-revolutionaries, or enemies of the Communist state.

One of the world’s largest and most sophisticated intelligence operations, the KGB served a multifaceted role as both a spy agency outside of Soviet Union and a force of secret police within it.

You realize how pervasive and ruthless the KGB was (is), and sense the constant terror that the people must have lived under, as that term “enemies of the state” was broadened to mean any one who criticized or opposed the ruling party, the leadership or policies.

There are real doors from jail cells, and you look through at real video of real prisoners. Those who were placed in solitary were allowed nothing to wear but their underwear; they could sleep only four hours, when the bed would be closed up, and fed only bread and water for 5 to 15 days.

Sergey demonstrates robot hands used to handle dangerousmaterials in a lab © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

One of the world’s largest and most sophisticated intelligence operations, the KGB served a multifaceted role as both a spy agency outside of Soviet Union and a force of secret police within it.

Some of the best engineering and scientific minds were employed to devise gadgets and gizmos – miniaturizing cameras, maximizing surveillance and detection, inventing new ways of transmitting.

“Virtually undetectable, the agency used its state-of-the-art tools and ruthless methods to seamlessly monitor the citizens’ lives and keep them in constant fear of repercussions for any subversive behavior. The investment in the spy technology had a devastating toll on the country’s economy yet it was deemed the most effective and necessary way to keep the state isolated from the rest of the world and keep the Western world out.”

With spies operating in countries all over the world, the KGB had a vast influence on world affairs, which reached its peak during the Cold War. KGB Spy Museum presents a never-before-seen collection of items used in the missions of prominent KGB agents, illuminating the strategies and methods that underlay many of history’s top-secret espionage operations.

In addition to perusing artifacts and learning about the history of the notorious agency, you can read and listen to real stories from spies, witnesses and journalists as well as explore and interact with authentic objects, such as telephone switchboards (most of the operators who connected the calls and then listened in on conversations were KGB), encryption machines, an interrogation chair, designed to extract information from suspects and enemies.

he KGB managed to hide a listening device in this wooden replica of the Great Seal, which hung over the US Ambassador’s desk in Moscow for 7 years before being detected. It took another 1 ½ years to figure out how it worked. The inventor won a Stalin Prize. © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

One of the most interesting stories surrounds a wooden Great Seal in one of the cabinets, that was also one of the KGB’s greatest triumphs, that arose out of the famous summit in the Crimea of Stalin, Churchill and FDR. The head of the KGB, Lavrenty Beria, had a replica of the Great Seal made as a gift for Ambassador Averell Harriman, presented most charmingly by cherubic Young Pioneers (like boy scouts) as a “gesture of friendship.” But inside was an ingenious bug that used electromagnetic energy instead of an external power supply. It hung above the Ambassador’s desk in Moscow for seven years before it was exposed in 1952. “The Americans couldn’t figure out how it worked for a year and a half,” my guide, Sergey, says. (The original is in the NSA’s Cryptology Museum in Washington.)

The inventor of the Zlatoust/Receiver LOSS, Lev Sergeyevich Termen, was a physicist and a musician, who began his career by developing previously unseen electronic musical instruments. In 1947 he won the Stalin Prize for Inventions of Listening Devices.

One of the objects that is literally one-of-a-kind, is a record player made expressly for Stalin; there is also a safe, made by the Bernstein company in Berlin, that came from KGB HQ, still containing the currency that would have been enough to buy 30 cars. Both indications of the privilege along with the power amassed by the Communist leadership despite their calls for a equal society.

The one-of-a-kind record player made especially for Stalin © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Among the rarest objects, which are a point of pride, also seem mundane but were “mechanical masterpieces”:

Tool set КАРОЕД/KAROED (Bark beetle): This is a manual set of special drills and instruments for drilling very narrow holes less than 0.04 inches without any sound in the tree or plastic. Holes were needed to listen to secret conversations with a help of secret microphones. These sharp and pointed drills are specially machined from the very hard metal. The set includes drill extensions, which can be used to drill holes in 3.3 ft and even thicker walls or wooden floors. A special hand-held drill holder had a stopper to drill holes of a certain depth to protect the drill from coming out across the wall by making only a small, hardly visible hole. A special container collects shavings in order not to leave any suspicious marks.

Also very rare: KGB secret drill ИГЛА/IGLA (needle): “It is a unique mechanical masterpiece – the drill IGLA. This very complicated drill reflects the name ‘needle’, because it drills a very thin hole through the concrete. It drills with the help of air compressor with abrasive dust to avoid the sound and vibration. Even the drilling sound was designed by the constructors to simulate that era washing machine Малютка/Maliutka. The person at home thought that a neighbor was probably doing the laundry. The Igla drill had a hole through which the air pressure was inflated according to the manometer readings, and when the drill approached the outside of concrete wall, the air pressure dropped in the drill as the air went out and the drill automatically shut off. The hole was 0.04 inches in size. If the walls were painted or lined with ceramic tiles, the eye did not even see the hole or dust outside. With this drill, the abrasive powder and concrete dust were absorbed by air. Agents who were very patient, slow and responsible were chosen to drill such a hole. In order to drill a 4 inches concrete wall took about 4 hours, and with the preparation – the whole day. Agents, through drilled miniature holes, installed listening or photo devices. After the operation, they applied a hole with the cement mixture and no suspicious marks were left.”

Mundane objects like a belt buckle hid miniature cameras © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

There’s an old fashioned phone where you can “dial” a selection of officials. My guide, Sergey, dials Putin and hands me the phone so I can hear Putin talking (it’s like listening to the LBJ telephone tapes at the LBJ Presidential Museum in Austin). There are also actual phones on display from KGB offices that would have features to disguise the voice at the push of a button.

The two spy experiences – Spyscape and the KGB Museum – have completely different approaches and perspectives, but they complement each other so well, especially when visited one after the other.

Spyscape is modern, state of the art, interactive, pulse-pounding, engaging, immersive experience. KGB is old-school but so relevant today, with the Russian actively hacking elections and using social media to impact US and other elections, policy, and political discourse.

“The KGB Spy Museum aims to present espionage and intelligence operations in an educational and interesting way, emphasizing the importance of human intelligence and setting out a frame of reference for the public to appreciate the great extent to which spies have always influenced world events. The Museum has a policy of presenting the history of espionage without political bias, thus offering visitors a factual and balanced view of the subject. “

The Museum is open daily 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tickets are available online or in the museum. You need about 1 ½ hours to visit. Tickets are adults (18-64)/$25; Children 7-17, seniors, students, $20; a guided visit, minimum 3 people is $43.99.

KGB Museum, 245 W 14th Street, NY 10011, kgbespionagemuseum.org.

See also: Spy v Spy Has New Addresses in NYC: At Spyscape Find Your Place in World of Espionage

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Spy v Spy Has New Addresses in NYC: At Spyscape Find Your Place in World of Espionage

The most chilling part of Spyscape, New York’s new spy experience, is the up-to-the-minute, torn from the headlines stuff: Here, Anonymous, as seen from two sides © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Are you Bond or Bourne? Once you leave Spyscape, you will learn there are many more roles to play in the complex and ever more ubiquitous world of intelligence. After going through eight “tests” and many stations which do their best to insert you into the realm of espionage and profile you to figure out what job you are best suited to, I would make a sorry spy. I knew from the start I wasn’t either Bond or Bourne. But I found a new calling.

I was expecting a museum, even as museums have become more interactive and engaging and multimedia. But Spyscape, one of the newest attractions in New York City, is not a museum. It is an interactive experience more than anything else, designed to inform you, yes, about the world of espionage and surveillance which, it turns out, is ubiquitous today, but put you in the picture so that you see yourself in the complex enterprise that is intelligence.

Spyscape is modern, state of the art, interactive, pulse-pounding, engaging, immersive experience that lets you peek into the world of espionage, spycraft, intelligence and counterintelligence today from the inside.

You don’t just get taken on a journey through the history of espionage from World War II and on, but become immersed in up-to-the-minute, ripped from the headlines events. Edward Snowdon. Wikileaks. Stuxnet. Black hat hackers.  Anonymous. “You might be persuaded not to vote.”

Pandora has truly been let out of her box.

There is a feeling of intensity from the moment you arrive – intended to give you that sense of tension and excitement that must be omnipresent in espionage, and visitors will enjoy as much as the adrenaline rush of skiing down a double-black trail. But is there a place for me?

I am risk adverse. I’m not a gamer. I don’t do puzzles. I’m frightened of going into small dark rooms when I don’t know what is there. I frighten easily.

As you arrive, you are given a bracelet that identifies you at scanning machines that basically track your progress as you go about the exhibit – you complete a series of tasks and quizzes and at the end, are assessed as to what role you might play in the spy apparatus – it turns out there are many, many different functions.

Your entrée into the world of spycraft is the largest passenger elevator in New York City,  escorted by a very professional person with a clipboard – it turns out that the ride up is also a multi-media orientation (think “Mission Impossible”).

Your mission: What kind of spy will you be? Or put another way: Where do you fit in the pantheon that is the world of espionage.

The experience is constructed as if a job interview, to immerse you and personalize what would otherwise be technical machines and bios. But it turns out that not all spies work for governments – corporations engage in some of the same techniques, so do journalists, and so do hackers and criminals. And it turns out that the profile you wind up with at the end of all the tasks and quizzes is authentic and serious – not tongue-in-cheek or hokey. I can see some young people seeing new career paths in intelligence (most of the CIA are analysts, not cloak-and-dagger operatives) or even outside, since, as is noted, the skills of a spy are broadly applicable.

The layout (Spyscape takes up a massive amount of space) is purposefully cold, grey, institutional, with constant pulsing sounds – sometimes electronic music, sometimes sound effects, sometimes narration.

I am quite unprepared for the experience, expecting a more conventional exhibit, so am put off stride when all of a sudden confronted with quizzes and tasks. It would have been completely different if I were primed and in a game mode.

One of the tasks I find more engaging (once I got the hang of it), was in the room about coding/decoding, the German’s Enigma machine and the Bombe that British mathematician Alan Turing and colleagues at Benchley developed to break the Enigma code. Here the task is to organize a spy’s escape, but you only have 3 minutes before the Germans will cut off communication to her, and you have to convert a message to code and then decode the response. I do this for the “Limping Lady”, who turns out to be a real person (I later realize she is the spy Virginia Hall) and this was a real scenario.

See what it would be like to code a message on a repiclica of the German Enigma that so confounded the Allies in World War II © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

You get personal insights into Alan Turing, the mathematician who developed a program to break the German “Enigma” machine code. (A fascinating artifact is a copy of Turing’s notes, as a teenager, summarizing Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as a gift for his mother). There is also a brief bio of Joan Clark, one of the Enigma codebreakers who rose to become Deputy Head of the Hut eight. You get to type code on a replica Enigma machine.

After one “test”, in which I fail to figure out patterns, I am given these words of encouragement: “You didn’t do too well today, but you are obviously better in other things.”

Another that is sure to delight is a room of laser beams where the timed task is to shut off lights without piercing the beams – very Oceans 11. (This task gauges your agility.)

All through, the exhibits personalize the serious issue being raised – the history, technology, impact on society – with real people, real events and real artifacts. This is serious business after all with real life and death consequences. Double agents have been exposed and executed; moles have exposed agents who were executed. Wars declared or averted, extended or curtailed, won or lost.

As you weave through, taking your own quizzes and tasks, the exhibits tell stories about real spies, double agents, like Robert Hansen and how he was discovered. Hansen’s treachery led to the unmasking of three soviets who spied for the US, two of whom were executed. – how he was discovered and trapped. Would you have detected Hansen’s deceit?

I have all sorts of trepidation about going into a small dark room which turned out to be the test of how well I could detect Deception (I think I do well at that one, probably by accident).

“Gadgets of defiance” describes the devices that British and American operatives used to carry out perilous missions in Nazi-occupied Europe – forged documents to support their cover identifies; one-time encryption pads and miniature radios to communicate with handlers. They supplied downed Allied pilots with escape maps and compasses and targeted the enemy with weapons and explosives.

I learn about Virginia Hall, an American special operations officer who, as a girl, had dreamed of joining the US foreign service and became fluent in foreign languages, but after she lost part of her left leg in an accident, her dream was cut off as well. When Hitler invaded Paris in 1940, Hall was working for a French ambulance service. She made her way to Britain and joined British special operations. She worked as a journalist for the New York Post in occupied France, and the Germans nicknamed Artemis;the Gestapo  considered her “the most dangerous of all Allied spies”. Virginia Hall was the “Limping Lady” of the code scenario.

A spy plane camera from the Cuban Missile Crisis © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

I learn about Oleg Penkovsky, known as “HERO” who was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel who was responsible for informing the United Kingdom about Soviet installing missiles in Cuba. The information he provided helped Kennedy through the Cuban Missile Crisis because he realized that a naval blockade could force the Soviet Union to stand down. Penkovsky, the highest ranking Soviet official to provide intelligence for the UK up until that time, is credited with altering the course of the Cold War. He was executed six months after being arrested.

I learn about the British couple, Ruari and Janet Chisholm, who were his handlers in Moscow. Ruari was Moscow Station Chief for M16, the British secret intelligence service. Janet collected much of Pankovsky’s intelligence. During one “brush contact” he walked casually over to her in a park and offered her children a tin of Vitamin C pills. Janet quickly swapped the tin which contained military secrets for another identical one hidden in her baby stroller. The thought of exposing children like that was chilling. (There’s a photo of Janet with her children on a park bench.)

We meet the real life “Q” gadget wizard, Charles Fraser Smith, who was Ian Fleming’s inspiration for the character he used in James Bond. The new multi-sensory James Bond experience explores the creative process behind the 007 movies while revealing the secrets of James Bond’s iconic Aston Martin DB5. You get to peek at gadgets in Q’s lab, examine original concept art in Oscar®-winning Production Designer Sir Ken Adam’s studio and look behind the scenes of Skyfall’s explosive finale.

Surveillance. It’s all around you. © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

At another section, you go through a dark curtain and find yourself in this dark round room, illuminated only by giant screens,that give you some sense of the state of surveillance (it is all around). This area showcases whistleblower Edward Snowden who exposed the NSA’s surveillance programs and the reporters who have unmasked government secrets – Laura Poitras  and Glenn Greenwald, the journalists who exposed modern day slavery(old school pad and pen, videocamera and computer are the weapons of choice).

This is where you see the message blazing out of a giant screen: “You might be persuaded not to vote.” This is the brave new world of intelligence – not extracting secrets, but in distorting and implanting messages to shape, disrupt or derail society.

Anonymous, the new face of intelligence/counterintelligence; governments no longer have a monopoly..© Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

One of the last stations is actually the most chilling: Hacktivism discusses hacking, hackers – by anarchists, profiteers as well as nation states. Stuxnet, which was used to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program (a centrifuge is on view). After Iran realized what had been done, it called for the hackers to join in an army.

We learn that Stuxnet is now open source, sold on the blck market, and could be used by any number of actors to shut down electric grids, water systems or air traffic control or remotely give instructions to launch a nuclear attack. And no one knows who has it.

Whistleblower Edward Snowdown, at Spyscape © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

And now, I am really to go into my “debrief – encryption, deception, surveillance, special ops, brainpower (7/18), which comes up with my spy role: Agent Handler (I suspect they give that one to all those who don’t measure up as real spies).

But it isn’t done flippantly or tongue-in-cheek. The authentic personal spy profile is based on psychologists and a former Head of Training at British Intelligence, and sounds pretty authentic (as were the short tests for which I was totally unprepared):

“Your Spy Profile is your unique (and ever evolving) combination of attributes. When compared to others, it allows us to determine the Spy Role you are best suited to.”

My profile – “empathetic, inquisitive, composed” – turns out to be fairly accurate and also serious, developed with real psychologists.

At Spyscape’s Debriefing, you learn your role in espionage, based on the profile compiled. © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Later in the day, I am sent a comprehensive profile to my email and a Welcome letter. “Your Spy Skills can be valuable in everyday life. We’ve evaluated your Core Attributes and Spy Skills to determine your Spy Profile. Top psychologists and spymasters helped us build our Spy Profile system. We hope the self-knowledge in your Spy Profile will empower you, and inspire you to further develop your Spy Skills.”

The missive gives me more detail about my role as Agent Handler: A manager of agents who provide secret intelligence or operational support, and an insider view from General David Petreus.

In the real life example, I am given the bio of the agent handler for my new spy hero, Oleg Penkovsky (his code name was Hero) and the background that I found so compelling in the exhibit, about his handler, Ruari Chisholm, and an example of a typical operation, procuring cover material for an agent in the Iranian government who wants to provide info on Iran’s potential to develop nuclear weapons.

(This makes me think of important omissions in Spyscape: Valerie Plame, the CIA undercover agent who was infiltrating the Iran nuclear program until Plame’s identity as covert officer of the CIA working in counter proliferation was leaked to the press by members of George W Bush administration and subsequently made public  as retribution for her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s reveal about the false information that led to the US invasion of Iraq; she also had knowledge to disprove Bush’s contention that the aluminum tubes that Iraq had could be used as centrifuges for nuclear material. Also, how Andrew McCabe, the foremost counter-intelligence expert on Russia, was drummed out of the FBI by Trump to short-circuit the investigation into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign and the 2016 election).

Spyscape will excite and thrill as it informs and intrigues. It helps to be prepared in advance for what you will encounter – I think I would have done considerably better and had better attitude.

And like skiing, it is an experience that adults and older children will relish doing together.

There is a continuing relationship – they send you the profile, and follow up with articles, stories, spy challenges, sharing news about factual and fictional worlds of spying and hacking “and helping you develop your own spy skills. We will be adding content from top hackers and spies to spyscape.com/academy so check in regularly to see what’s new.”

I think I’m being groomed. I’m definitely intrigued.

From Spyscape, I walk down to the KGB Museum in Chelsea. It is an interesting Spy v Spy counterpoint that enhances the experience of each one separately.

Visiting:  SPYSCAPE is optimized for adults and teens, but children are welcome. Bringing pre-school-age kids is not recommended. You need about two hours. There is a pleasant café and the gift shop is loaded with spy-related merch.  Open Monday-Friday, 10 am-9 pm and Saturday-Sunday, 9am-9 pm, last entry at 7:30 pm. (Adult, $39; child 3-12 $32).

Spyscape, 928 8th Avenue (entrance on SE corner of 55th Street), 646-585-7012, spyscape.com

Next: Spy v Spy in New York City: New KGB Spy Museum is Window into How Spies Impact World Affairs

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

New ‘Mummies’ Exhibit at American Museum of Natural History Lets You Peer Through Wrappings, Peel Away Layers of Time

Haunting images: the coffin that still harbor the thousands-year old mummified remains of a teenage boy who lived in Ancient Egypt thousands of years ago, and his scanned image reflected in his glass case. © 2017 Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Gilded Lady seems to be resting peacefully, her painted visage staring up to the sky. But inside this container are the remains of a real woman who lived nearly 2000 years ago, and for the first time, the ancient coalesces with 21st century scientific techniques: we actually get to peer inside, probing down layer by layer to her mortal remains, and then, at a digitally reconstructed, 3-D image of her as she lived: this middle-aged woman was beautiful.

She has already traveled from Chicago where she lives at the Field Museum, to Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Denver and now she is reposing here in New York as part of Mummies, an extraordinary exhibit featuring one of the largest collections of mummies housed in North America that just opened at the American Museum of Natural History through January 7, 2018.

The Gilded Lady, the gold-masked coffin of a middle-aged woman who was mummified during the Roman Period (30BC-AD 395) © 2017 Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

The exhibit provides an unparalleled glimpse into the lives and traditions of people from ancient cultures. It puts us face to face, head to head with people who lived their lives thousands of years ago, in Egypt and in Peru – two of the many cultures that practiced mummification. The contrasts and the similarities are striking, and just as their similarities speak to a unity of humanity, this extraordinary way of connecting past to present connects us as human beings. (And to bring about an even broader connection, increasing the span from thousands to 100s of thousands of years ago, be sure to visit the AMNH’s Human Evolution wing.)

Ellen V. Futter, President of the American Museum of Natural History © 2017 Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

“Mummies have long been fascinating, and now the intersection of these ancient relics and cutting-edge technology is revealing new and intriguing secrets,” said Ellen V. Futter, President of the American Museum of Natural History. “For generations, the Museum has studied and presented the diverse cultures of humanity, past and present, to help us better understand one another and ourselves. Today, when such understanding is more important than ever, Mummies invites us all to consider both what may be distinct among cultures and what is universal in the human condition.”

On a special, limited tour from the collections of The Field Museum in Chicago — and presented for the first time on the East Coast (the traveling exhibition has already been on view in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Denver), Mummies showcases the ritually preserved remains of 18 individuals from ancient Egypt and pre-Columbian Peru. The Peruvian mummies that are on display have not been seen since they were exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Significantly, you get to discover how modern imaging techniques have transformed the study of mummification by letting researchers peer inside centuries-old mummies without disturbing or damaging them. Digital touchscreens let you “virtually” peer into Peruvian mummy bundles, layer by layer from the skin to the bones, as well as animal mummies buried as offerings to Egyptian gods. You also get to handle 3D-printed figurines of burial goods that were encased within mummy wrappings for millennia and only recently revealed.

“You may think you know mummies,” Futter said at a press preview, pointing to the most popular representations in horror movies. “That’s not what this show is about. This is serious business that simultaneously offers a window to the past – two different ancient worlds – and into the latest technology and study. You get a glimpse of actual people entombed – who they were, what their lives were like, what they looked like.”

“They are like messages from a different time – they are our sisters and brothers in a shared humanity. It may not be as sensational as a [horror] movie, but more amazing than you would have imagined.”

Scan of a bundle from Peru reveals a woman in her 20s with two children, around six and two years old who died of unknown causes © 2017 Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Indeed, most people – especially  young people – have never actually seen a dead body before. The most profound experience in the exhibit is seeing the remains of a woman who lived 5500 years ago, whose bundled body was left in the Egyptian desert where it naturally mummified.

Indeed, it wasn’t just pharaohs and their spouses and other royal figures who were mummified, though their tombs and the possessions that were left with them reflected their station. This was the common practice – as people were lower and lower down the economic totem pole, the possessions that they would have been buried with were more and more modest.

In Egyptian society, it was also common for animals to be mummified and buried – there is a baboon and a crocodile in the exhibit. Cats were actually popular and David Hurst Thomas, the co-curator of the exhibit, said that archaeologists found cemeteries of a million mummified cats, manufactured  for sale to be entombed with the loved one.

Michael Novacek, Senior Vice President, Provost of Science and Curator, division of Paleontology and David Hurst Thomas, curator of North American archaeology and co-curator of Mummies, American Museum of Natural History © 2017 Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

It is fascinating to have this view to contrast the Peruvian mummies (I’m betting few people have even realized that pre-Colombian Peruvian peoples practiced mummification), with the Egyptian burial practices. The two civilizations never interacted – mummification developed independently, indeed, on every continent but Antarctica, Dr. David Hurst Thomas, curator of North American archaeology, division of Anthropology and co-Curator of the Mummies exhibit, said at a press preview of the exhibit.

In Peru, mummification was intended to enable the living to stay connected with their loved ones. The body was carefully prepared and wrapped and then a mask was placed on top the canvas.

One of the scans of a bundle reveals that it is a woman with two children. The scans also show artifacts that have been buried with the individual.

The ancient Egyptians, in contrast, mummified their dead so that they could live on – their limbs intact – in the next world. The earliest mummies, like the 5500-year old woman, were not buried in elaborate pyramids or tombs, but were put into a pit grave. Over the centuries, the mummification process became more and more elaborate – organs were preserved in canopic jars and bodies placed in magnificently painted coffins with gilded masks.

By using these new technologies – most that have come from medicine – the scientists have been able to see artifacts that were buried with them, how a mother is buried with her two children (how did they die?).

“They have so much to teach us – medical infirmities, migration, interaction of societies,”

The Gilded Lady, for example, is utterly fascinating – you see her in her magnificently decorated coffin, and on the wall are the slides that show how her hair was curled, had a damaged spine, possibly as a result  of tuberculosis. Based on the scan of her skull, they made a 3-D reconstruction using a 3-D printer, and from that, like a forensic scientist, re-created what she likely looked like in life – all of this in one view.

Gilded Lady with the scans that show what she likely looked like © 2017 Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The gilded mask that we see was not meant to illustrate how the woman looked in life, but was an idealized portrait that had a purpose: the Ancient Egyptians believed that in the afterlife, the dead would need their faculties – eyesight, hearing, taste and smell. The masks allowed them to maintain these senses. The golden skin was used to show divinity: after death, the dead would be transformed into the god Osiris, who, like most gods, had skin of gold.

The Gilded Lady lays across the room from another mummy, named Minirdis according to the hieroglyphs on the coffin. The coffin was opened for the first time in a century for this exhibition. In examining the remains, researchers discovered the teenaged boy inside was mummified around 250 BC, or 200 years after the coffin was made, construction of the coffin, indicating that the mummified individual wasn’t Minirdis after all, and confirming that coffins were occasionally recycled (though might not the inscription have been added when the boy was buried?)

The hieroglyphs on the coffin say the name of the mummy who is supposed to go inside it – Minirdis, son of a priest. Preserving the person’s name was essential for their soul to reach the afterlife. Minirdis means “Min is the one who gave him,” and Min was a god of fertility. The inscription also says that Minirdis’ father, Inaros was a priest, in charge of purifying and clothing the god’s statue. The only problem was that the boy inside was mummified around 250 BC, or 200 years after the coffin was made, indicating that the mummified individual wasn’t Minirdis after all, but also confirming that coffins were occasionally recycled.

The scans of the body show that the coffin was too large for the body inside and the bones hadn’t fused, indicating that the body was a teenage boy.

Ancient culture meets Modern science: A mummy as it would go through the CT scanner, on view at the American Museum of Natural History © 2017 Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The CT scans enabled scientists to generate 3D-printed skull reconstructions of both the “Gilded Lady” and Minirdis. Then, artist Elisabeth Daynès studied the replicas and built facial muscles and skin layer by layer. The hyper-realistic portraits in 3D. we meet at the end of the exhibit let us come face-to-face with these ancient people, seeing them as they may have looked in life —while their mummified remains sleep peacefully.

Peruvian Mummies On View for the First Time in a Century

We are much more familiar with Egyptian mummies, particularly with the sensational exhibits of King Tut and the artifacts uncovered from his tomb in the Valley of Kings, as well as the scientific analysis of his mummified remains. But this exhibit goes much further in its exploration of the cultural significance of the burial practice.

The first part of the exhibit focuses on the collection of Peruvian Mummies, which had not been seen in public since they were on display in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

People living along the Pacific coast of South America in what is now Peru began to mummify their dead more than 5,000 years ago. Scholars think that the Chinchorro culture (5,000–2,000 BC)—the world’s first practitioners of mummification—prepared the bodies of their loved ones personally, removing the deceased’s skin, de-fleshing the bones, and removing the organs before reinforcing the skeleton with reeds and clay and reattaching the skin. The mummy was then painted black or red and given a wig and an individualized clay portrait of the deceased.

In addition to the Chinchorro, dozens of societies in the region mummified their dead to remember and remain connected with the departed.

As we walk through the  Mummies exhibit, we encounter a number of Peruvian mummy bundles, including the mummified remains of three children from the Chancay culture (AD 1000–1400), which placed their dead into a sitting position and wrapped them in layers of cloth.

The exhibit is very much hands-on, interactive, if you can believe it, because you get to do what scientists do, in penetrating the layers of scans to reveal the body contained in the wrappings, through the skin layer, to the bones.

There are digital touchscreens, where you can examine composite CT scans of these mummies and virtually “unwrap” them to reveal figurines and other burial offerings that are contained within, becoming surprised as surely the scientists were, when a scan reveals a mother with two children bundled together, or seeing the objects that were personal or prized which reveal so much about who they were in life.

A life-sized diorama of a Chancay pit burial demonstrates the common practice of interring members of an extended family together © 2017 Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

A life-sized diorama of a Chancay pit burial demonstrates the common practice of interring members of an extended family together. These burial pits were accessible to living family members, allowing relatives to bring food or drink to their loved ones’ graves, or even to remove mummies to take them to festivals or other special events. We see examples of real burial offerings such as chicha (corn beer) pots.

Jim Phillips, curator of The Field Museum, tells me that the Peruvian mummies were uncovered on expeditions in the 1880s and 1890. This means they would have been recent finds – the most modern discoveries – when they were displayed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Jim Phillips, curator of The Field Museum, with the Gilded Lady and the scan that shows how imaging techniques helped reconstruct her face © 2017 Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Egyptian Mummies of the Nile Valley 

Unlike people in Peru, ancient Egyptians believed the dead could live on in the next world if provided with a physical home, preferably within the body itself. This belief made it essential to preserve the corpse, and Egyptians used an elaborate process of mummification to halt the natural process of decay. Scholars posit that natural mummification—an example of which can be seen in the remains of a woman whose preservation occurred naturally in the hot, dry sand about 5,500 years ago—gave Egyptians the idea for artificial mummification.

Mummies invites visitors to compare and contrast burial practices of Egypt (statue of Osiris on left) and Peru © 2017 Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Within centuries, ritual burial in Egypt evolved into a complex practice that included elaborate embalming, brilliantly decorated sarcophagi, and grandiose tombs designed to deter grave-robbers (we see magnificent limestone busts from sarcophagi that were an added layer of security to those who could afford this extra protection and would have weighed thousands of pounds). Organs that would hasten decay—the liver, lungs, intestines, and stomach—were removed, preserved, wrapped, and housed in separate containers. The heart—thought to be the source of emotion and intellect—often stayed in place, since it would be necessary in the afterlife, while the brain, thought to have no use, was removed through the nose. Forty days in salt desiccated the body, and embalmers then used resins, oils, and padding to restore its appearance before wrapping it in linen. Artifacts on view include a Ptolemaic Period mummy (332-30 BC) along with canopic jars containing the person’s organs. Here, there are stations where you can handle 3D-printed burial figurines that depict ancient Egyptian gods provide visitors with an opportunity to explore the hidden artifacts within its wrappings.

Students get to discover burial practices of ancient peoples. The exhibit is designed to be “family friendly”; the notes that accompany the exhibit are easy to understand © 2017 Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The objects found in Egyptian tombs were meant to provide for the deceased in the afterlife. Burials of wealthy Egyptians include their servants, represented by figurines called shawabti; ideally there would be 365 of these, one for each day of the year, with 36 overseers, one for each week in the Egyptian calendar. Even mummified animals were included in tombs, and archaeologists have uncovered cemeteries containing millions of animal mummies, including cats, baboons, gazelles, birds and even crocodiles, some of which are on view. Grave-robbing was rampant in ancient Egypt, and an Egyptian tomb diorama represents a type of crypt that Egyptians with rank or wealth constructed to guard against such thefts. Within the tomb, a plain stone sarcophagus contains a smaller stone sarcophagus and a wooden coffin from the Late Period (525-343 BC) covered in hieroglyphs. Most of the imagery on the coffin was inspired by scenes in The Book of the Dead, a collection of funerary texts believed to assist a person’s journey into the afterlife.

Dr. Thomas says the Gilded Lady steals the show, and indeed she does. She was mummified during the Roman Period (30 BC-AD 395), a period when we see in the exhibit the most magnificently painted coffins. There is one of a woman whose coffin is a stunning piece of artwork – it has a magnificent gilded mask and the body had pronounced breasts. Why? The anthropologists could not say, showing that there is still so much more to be learned.

Magnificently decorated coffin from Egypt’s Roman Period (30 BC-AD 395) © 2017 Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Mummies is on view in New York through January 7, 2018. The exhibition is co-curated at the American Museum of Natural History by David Hurst Thomas, Curator of North American Archaeology in the Division of Anthropology, and John J. Flynn, Frick Curator of Fossil Mammals in the Division of Paleontology. 

Mummies was developed by The Field Museum, Chicago, and will go back there for an exhibition after its New York showing.

Explorer

Mummies is featured in the Museum’s recently re-launched Explorer app, developed with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which lets visitors think like an explorer by personalizing their onsite experience using cutting-edge location-aware technology that provides unique journeys through the Museum’s 45 permanent halls.

More information about the exhibit is available at amnh.org/mummies.

A Major Scientific Research Institution

When we see these fantastic exhibits, we don’t necessarily see behind them, to the fact that the American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions, whose research has contributed not only to their discovery, but to the understanding of what is displayed.

Indeed, the press tour takes us behind the scenes to the institution’s Microscopy and Imaging Facility – the technology that would have been used to scan the mummies. The equipment is shared by all five departments of the institution, whether AMNH scientists are studying fossils, cultural artifacts, planets or solar systems, the cutting-edge imaging technologies in the facility make it possible to examine details that were previously unobservable. While earlier studies often required unwrapping mummies – which could have damaged them – tools like high-resolution computerized tomography (CT) scanner provide scientists with non-invasive methods to examine them. MIF technician Morgan Hill walked us through the process, along with Zachary Calamari, a Ph.D. student in comparative biology program at the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, who showed us how the scans help in research of two naturally-mummified newborn wooly mammoths – one who was mummified by being frozen and the other who was “pickled.”

Zachary Calamari, Ph.D. student at the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, shows scan of a naturally mummified newborn wooley mammoth © 2017 Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com.

During our visit, the CT scanner is doing an image of a rabbit. It is this ability to understand the internal aspects of dinosaurs and fossils that have led scientists to rejigger Evolution’s schema, to redefine who is related to who and what is connected to what.

The Museum’s five active research divisions and three cross-disciplinary centers support approximately 200 scientists, whose work draws on a world-class permanent collection of more than 33 million specimens and artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, and one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, it is the only American museum authorized to grant the Ph.D. degree and the Master of Arts in Teaching degree.

The Museum encompasses 45 permanent exhibition halls, including the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. It is home to the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, New York State’s official memorial to its 33rd governor and the nation’s 26th president, and a tribute to Roosevelt’s enduring legacy of conservation.

The museum gets 5 million visitors a year and the Museum’s exhibitions and Space Shows can be seen in venues on five continents. The Museum’s website and apps for mobile devices extend its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions more beyond its walls.

American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, 212-769-5100. Open daily from 10 am-5:45 pm except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Visit amnh.org for more information. 

Become a fan of the American Museum of Natural History on Facebook at facebook.com/naturalhistory, follow us on Instagram at @AMNH, Tumblr at amnhnyc, or Twitter at twitter.com/AMNH

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© 2017 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.comwww.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin , and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures