47 day. Saturday. Although in these few days, especially on Saturday, it seems that more people were out on the streets, perhaps they really withstand any longer staying home the whole day, but I still choose to stay home.
'Eataly' is a well-known chain restaurant that mainly promotes local food. There is a branch on Lagrange Street where you can dine inside or outside the restaurant. The other day when I was in Lagrange street, saw that the tables and chairs for dining outdoor were still there, but of course nobody was occupying any seat.
Normally, on Friday and weekends or holidays, tourist's hot spot like the Eyptian Museum has long queue waiting outside at the entrance. On some particular Friday, when there was reduced price and guided tour, the queue could go up to two blocks long.
Now the museum is temporary closed for visiting, I'm afraid that the mummies and the people will have to spend more time being apart.
After the Eypptian Museum, I headed towards piazza Carignano again, the McDonald next to the piazza was empty, not sure if it still serves take away, but the usual crowd of riders waiting outside to collect their orders wasn't there.
Under the normally very busy and crowded arcades on both sides of the entrance, all shops were closed, and the place was dim and not a single soul around, it looked rather sad and uneasy.
Location : Museo Egizio/piazza carignano/Via Lagrange
The Museo Egizio or Eyptian Museum of Turin
is the world’s oldest Egyptian museum; founded in 1824, it ranks second
only to Cairo. Dedicated exclusively to ancient Egyptian culture and
art, the museum's collection has been the subject of interest for some
of history’s most important scholars, for instance Jean-François Champollion,
decipherer of the Rosetta Stone. To such is attributed the fact that
Turin is considered to be the city where Egyptology began.
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities is composed of objects obtained throughout the centuries, as well as in the Italian Archaeological Mission’s excavation sites between 1900 and 1935.
Collecting
Egyptian antiques was all the rage in the 19th Century: in 1824, King
Charles Felix of Sardinia united the collection of Paduan Egyptologist,
Vitaliano Donati, to the finds owned by the House of Savoy - thus
inaugurating the first Egyptian Museum in the world. Just a few years
before that, and consequent to the Napoleonic Campaigns in Egypt,
Bernardino Drovetti (Piedmontese that served as Consul General of France
during the Egyptian occupation), collected 8,000 items: sarcophagi,
mummies, papyri, jewels and statues. Then, the Museum’s first director, Ernesto Schiaparelli,
led archaeologists in new excavations in Egypt, resulting in the
discovery of 30,000 more pieces (artistic, and domestic quotidian tools)
to add to its collection.
Today the Museum is expanding even
further. Mummies and sacred animals have always been on display, but
ornaments and furnishings are highlighted to capture – with great
precision – the life of both people and Pharaoh. Museum curators and
personnel are leaving no stone unturned in making sure Jean-François
Champollion’s quip, that "the road to Memphis and Thebes passes through
Turin," holds true.
Among the most significant of vestiges found are the intact tomb of Kha and Merit, along with the rupestrian temple of Ellesija. However, perhaps the most important from an historical perspective is the Turin Royal Canon
or Turin King List, one of the most informative sources of Egyptian
royal succession. In Hieratic scripts, it contains the names of the 15th
Dynasty kings and their years of reign. Also highly astounding are the
statues of the gods Isis and Sekhmet, and the statue of Ramses II, found
by Vitaliano Donati in the Temple of Mut in Karnak.
(Quoted from : http://www.italia.it/en/travel-ideas/culture-and-entertainment/the-egyptian-museum-of-turin.html)
The first visit since the museum is renovated and we couldn't finished all the exhibition rooms, will have to go back again some other time.
The Museo Egizio is a museum in Turin, Italy, specialising in Egyptian archaeology and anthropology. It houses the world's second largest collections of Egyptian antiquities after Cairo.
The museum was, in 2013, the eighth of the most visited sites in Italy, with 540,297 visitors and a total income of Euro 1,698,350.50
It is recently renovated and the result is very satisfying, according to the visitors.
This is its impressive entrance ticket office.
The Museo Egizio is a museum in Turin, Italy, specialising in Egyptian archaeology and anthropology. It houses the world's second largest collections of Egyptian antiquities after Cairo.
Currently, seems like a major construction is going on, a temporary entrance is added, extending the original entrance to the pedestrian pavement. It does create inconveniences for people walking along Via Langrange, as the pavement is basically reduced by half its width, not to mention they forbid bicycles from passing through. Furthermore, as like all construction works going on in Italy, they seem to take forever to complete...
At least, the temporary entrance is intriguing, that I can give them the credit.
