TEACHING ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT: A NEW POEM...

I Can’t Get In…

The images recur in hasty dreams:

I am late, I believe,

To teach just one more class

In Birmingham’s Museum, a favour

Asked by a teacher, it seems;

Yet an entrance to the building I cannot achieve.

My panic is palpable, my predicament crass,

For those ancient Egyptian artefacts once more to savour…

A suitcase is opened, objects lifted,

Pupils packed inside a tiny room;

Faience, alabaster and bronze to reveal

But the mummified remains are sadly not there.

Desperately searching, through artefacts sifted

But my heart is sinking with a feeling of doom: Where are they? To my inner self I appeal, 

Yet merely exasperation and consciousness I am soon aware…

Pete Ray

September 2017

I used to teach about ancient Egypt in Birmingham’s Museum and the pupils were able to handle genuine artefacts.

This dream recurs…

I can’t get inside the Museum.

The teaching room is too small and crammed with kids.

I cannot find the exciting mummy’s head, the mummified half-skull and mummified foot…

And then I wake up.

SKULL...

HALF SKULL & FOOT, WITH FINE ACHILLES TENDON...

OFTEN MY DAY JOB...

WITH A DEATH MASK & COFFIN CASING...

DEMONSTRATING A SHADUF, FOR LIFTING WATER FROM THE RIVER NILE AT, ER, SAREHOLE MILL...