Day 10: November 19, 2016, #122

Reading the Room

Male heads of hard limestone; small sculpture glass vessel; cosmetic and toilette articles; faience and terracotta spoons; finger rings; necklace elements; jewelry, pendants and beads; scarabs, plaques and amulets; faience models of offerings; shawabtis and funerary objects; wooden pectoral; shawabtis and funerary objects; limestone ostraca; limestone and terracotta ostraca; figured limestone and terracotta ostraca; wooden mallets; weapons and projectiles, objects of daily life; tools; bronze vessels; vessels and decorative elements; fragments of glass vessels; fused raw glass; coloring matter; partially fused glass; overfired glass; fragment of glass canes; crucible fragments with remains of glass; glass stag; fragments of crucible supports (?); fragments of glass plaques and inlays.

The closet-sized study gallery was quiet on a Saturday afternoon. “Study” had cleared the room. Faced with glass shelves crawling with objects, wall to wall and floor to ceiling, I had a quick inspiration after entering. What if I let the room describe itself? Label by label, top to bottom shelf, I would work counterclockwise around the room. 

Faience manufacture; strings of amulets and beads; faience amulets and pendants; faience finger rings; games and turning pegs; small sculpture; scarabs and plaques; red container for gold leaf. 

The words piled up and so did the pressure. My clever exercise had turned the clock against me. The race was on. 

Gold and glass earrings. 

My breath grew shallow and I checked my watch. I was only fifteen minutes in.

As my hand began to stiffen and wonder what was up, I flashed back to examination blue books, the fevered regurgitation that characterized so much of my education, more and more and more until the bell sounded.

Jewelry elements; reed basket; flints and sickles; tools and other implements; wooden elements of donkeys’ packsaddles, one piece with ancient rope attached.

I paused for a moment and took a deeper breath.

Craftsmen’s stone tools; bronze bowls; bronze mirror and ivory handle; cosmetic and toilette articles; debris near SAE 320 (case in process of installation); stone and pottery net weights; equipment for hunting and fishing; large bronze harpoon point; weights for looms and fishing nets.

I was reading the labels and no longer seeing.

Seals and other objects; stone mason’s and carpenter’s tools; axe head and stone objects; sharpened sticks and bags of natron and chaff; terracotta vessels, mud dishes, papyrus fiber lids, mud sealings. 

I took another breath to regroup. There were cases full of objects ahead of me. I needed to sprint.

Floral collar; semicircular floral collar; objects from the reign of Queen Twosret; faience with inlay; royal objects of the Ramesside Period; winged uraeus in front of cartouches of Ramesses III; glazed faience tiles from the reign of Ramesses III; royal objects of the latter Ramesses period; objects associated with Ramesses IV; model birds; model hands; scarabs 

30 minutes left. 

Oval plaques; inscribed glass plaques; inscribed plaques; model heads of cattle; model lotus buds; model double rolls 

The thought of having to retype all these words into the computer extended my mental toil into the future. I had no idea how long it would all take. Why was I even thinking this?

Inscribed electrum and bronze plaques.

A girl came in and spoke to her friend, “This is all the rejected stuff. It’s all broken,” she said. 

Model of forelegs of cattle; model of trussed cattle; model of joint of meat; model of water jar and stand; fragments of gold leaf; pair of sandals; model shawabti tools; sarcophagus fragments; funerary equipment of Siptah; funerary equipment of Siptah; sarcophagus fragments found in the tomb of Siptah; sarcophagus fragments found in the tomb of Siptah. 

I had never stopped writing. 

Fragments of Siptah’s canopic chest; fragments of the lid to Siptah’s canopic box; sarcophagus fragments found in the tomb of Siptah.

I was daunted.

Inscribed objects of Merneptah; fragment of linen cloth; magical funerary figure; inscribed objects of Seti II; limestone jar lids; alabaster shawabtis of Siptah; shawabtis and fragmentary shawabtis of Siptah; shawabtis and fragmentary shawabtis of Siptah; fragments of funerary vessels inscribed for Siptah; fragments of Queen Tiye’s canopic box; fragments of Siptah’s canopic chest. 

Six cases were left and only 15 minutes remained. 

Alabaster inlay head of Seti I; objects inscribed with the names of Ramesses; fragments from a relief of a procession; face inlay from a royal or divine figure. 

The resentment caught me off guard even though I was the one to think up the study-the-study stunt. Honestly, only a few days in and already I wanted some novelty to break up my daily routine. I thought this game was it– become a copyist for a day. Check out. I had no idea how much freedom existed in each hour of looking and how I had gotten used to it. 

Objects inscribed with the names of Seti I; objects inscribed with the names of Ramesses II; large glass heart amulet; bronze and silver scarab rings; fragments of two balustrades. 

I listed as I stood up from taking down the labels on the bottommost shelf. 

Wig inlays in relief; fragments from the faience newel posts; floral tiles; representations in relief of the household god Bes; tiles bearing the names and titles of Ramesses; rosettes used for architectural decoration. 

I began to slow down knowing there was no way I would finish.

Rekhyt-birds in relief…

With five minutes to go, I decided to stop. After transcribing all those labels, words had lost their referential grip and I was hazed by my own archeological run-on sentence. Language is so synonymous with consciousness– at least naming is– but it can become a feint as well. It tempts us to think that the discrimination is over when there is much more to notice. Talk, talk, talk. There are agonizing psychoanalytic sessions with so many words, too much rote description. Language traces back to the spell of the sensuous. This is the ecologist and philosopher, David Abram’s thesis. A better summation of the room might have been: clay red, sandy beige, parchment yellow; aquamarine, black, and chalky white. Old, small and shelf-worthy.

What a label can never properly describe is an object’s quiddity– its essence and presence in the world– its specific thing-ness. Crafted by the senses and later tumbled by a visitor’s imagination, any object will always embarrass its label. Ultimately, reverie, more than description, releases an object’s potential because reverie quickens our connection to the material world. Packed to the gills, a registrar’s triumph, this study space could impair someone’s imaginal running room. But the joke was on me.  My study work-around had corrupted my attention. The visual pleasure of abundance, the cache, can make focusing more difficult, but the space for musing is never lost. My temporary fixation on words had ruled out reverie and looking never converts into seeing without it. In the end, I had cheated myself. But, perhaps, in an ersatz way, I have brought this room to life.  Maybe you even have museum fatigue.