Gregory Koger

I’ve long wanted to have the opportunity to visit the Field Museum again. I visited it a few times as a small boy, but that was of course quite a long time ago… I tried to go just after I was released from prison last December, to see an Egyptian exhibition that hadn’t been to American in about 30 years, but unfortunately the circumstances of my house arrest prevented me from being able to see it. Especially since I start college on August 20th, I wanted to get down there in the last remaining free time I’ll have. Since I just renewed my drivers license last Friday, I took the opportunity to drive down there today.

Of course, the restrictions of my house arrest still only gave me a limited amount of time to go down there and see everything, but I managed to at least walk through almost all of the exhibits that didn’t cost extra on top of the $12 general entry fee. I could have got in for half price if my college had issued me a Student ID card, but they don’t issue the Student ID’s until the first week of class… I took a number of photos with my iPhone, but some of them came out shitty due to the glass cases blocking a clear picture or hand movement blurring the picture, but I came away with a good number of decent photos. I spent a considerable amount of time talking to a gentleman in a fully recreated Pawnee earth lodge - you can read a bit about it here. Fascinating discussion of the Pawnee life and culture, as well as many other things. As a matter of fact, I was so into the conversation that I didn’t even take any photos inside! After I left the earth lodge, I realized I should have at least taken one photo, so I took one looking into the earth lodge from just outside the entrance - and unfortunately it came out a little unfocused.

One of the most popular exhibits at the Field Museum is the T-rex skeleton named Sue. You encounter Sue right as you enter the main hall of the Field Museum - yeah, its kind of hard to miss a massive T-rex skeleton posed in such a formidable stance…

Next I went into an exhibit on the indigenous peoples of the Americas. For some reason I can’t get the photo I took of some the famed Clovis spear points to display properly - it always shows it sideways… But here is an atlalt:

Here are some gold artifacts:

Here are some figurines:

Here is a ceremonial leopard skin:

Now here are some Egyptian (Khemetian) artifacts. First are some actual stone blocks with images and hieroglyphics brought from Egypt. I believe the tomb was c. 2500 B.C.E.:

Here are some amulets and jewelry found inside of Egyptian tombs:

Here is an actual mummy they have there at the Field Museum:

Here is a wooden boat model from the Middle Kingdom Period:

Here is some tomb artwork:

Here are a few scenes from the “Book of the Dead” (Coming Forth By Day) created with small model figurines of the Neteru:

Here are some more small figurines and amulets, including Isis and Horus (Aset and Hoor-pa-kraat):

Finally, a number of dinosaur skeletons:

So those are some of the photos I took on my trip to the Field Museum. I have a few other good ones, but for some reason this stupid blogging software always turns them sideways instead of positioning them properly, so unless/until I can straighten the formatting out, they’ll have to remain off my blog. Not that anyone even reads this anyway I’m supposed to go with my cousin Jennifer to the Museum of Science and Industry before I start college too, probably within the next 2 weeks, so I’ll try to take better photos when I go there…