Virtual Reality and Mummies

By Dawn

My husband and I recently went to a virtual reality show called “Horizon of Khufu,” which allows visitors to “explore the Giza Plateau and the Great Pyramid of Giza as if you were really there.” Upon entering the exhibition space, we stood in line to receive our v.r. goggles and instructions: “Remove the goggles if you feel dizzy” and “if you see a chair, don't sit try to on it because it isn't there.”

With goggles on, we embarked on a walking tour of ancient Egyptian pyramids and tombs, complete with a virtual human guide. Stepping along what appeared to be a narrow, jagged precipice, I felt a frisson of fear, yet quickly remembered that the precipice wasn't real; I was in fact walking on a flat floor. 

After passing through ornate rooms and stunning scenery, we were transported on a boat through time and entered the space where the mummification process was underway. As part of the ritual, we were told, all of the organs were removed except for the heart, believed to be the home of the soul and needed for entry to the afterlife. The body, in this case Pharaoh Khufu’s, was then meticulously wrapped to last. 

Americans are fascinated by mummies. Back in the 1970s, the traveling exhibition of King Tut’s tomb and treasures took the country by storm. I saw the show in Chicago, at the Field Museum. There, as in every city, people queued up for hours to see what had been unearthed. In 2012, I was invited to another “groundbreaking” exhibit at the Field Museum. Using the latest technology, mummies had been scanned to create uncanny (and frankly unnerving) likenesses of bodies and faces as they had been in life, 5000 years ago. 

That all three of these shows were hugely popular is no surprise. It reflects not only an interest in ancient history, but also our impossible desire to preserve the individual. These exhibitions stir feelings of awe, humility, and kinship. They also carry an undercurrent of sorrow, because we understand that in this world, time is unstoppable, and human preservation is ultimately futile. 

The virtual reality show is an illusion, as is the mummy. No self reposes singular and lonely within a shriveled organ inside a cage of bones, no matter how carefully wrapped. Nor are buried gold and jewels of use to the deceased. We recognize the error. Perhaps we feel superior. And then the hard questions arise: How is my own thinking deluded? What am I uselessly hoarding and how am I letting myself be bound?   

Taking off the glasses, leaving the hall for the constantly changing streets of Manhattan, I thought about how easily the senses and mind can be tricked by technology and, more insidiously, by fear and desire. The show was a vivid reminder to look, and dive, deeper.