Discovery Place - Mummies of the World

On Monday we had to head to Charlotte to pick Grampa up from the airport.  Since the kids were home from school and Dan was home from work, we decided to make an afternoon of it!

We drove through our old neighborhood to see how much it has changed in the last 6 years and we drove past our old house.  We drove through the town down lived in before we got married and were shocked at all the new stores that have been built since we left.  Then we headed to Discovery Place in Uptown Charlotte.

Discovery Place is an awesome science museum for kids with lots of hands-on activities and lots of exhibits and an IMAX theatre.  But we went to see one thing in particular - Mummies of the World.

According to their website, Mummies of the World is the largest exhibition of mummies and related artifacts ever assembled.  This compelling collection, presented with reverence and dignity, includes ancient mummies and important artifacts from Asia, Oceania, South America, Europe, as well as ancient Egypt, dating as far back as 6,500 years.

And I have to say, this exhibit did not disappoint!   I loved this exhibit.  Human mummies from 200 years ago all the way back to 6,500 years ago!  And wow - were some of these mummies ever preserved - teeth, hair, toes, and um, other appendages. 


The exhibit rooms were dark.  The only lights were small lights that were shining on the cases with  the mummies.  As you enter the exhibit, you are asked to be respectful of the mummies as they were once living, breathing, walking, talking  human beings.  They had quiet, eerie music playing and no one was talking.  Any talking that was done was done through whispers. 

At one point, Peter came up to me and whispered, "Is it okay if I have nightmares tonight?"

It said it takes 90 minutes to go through the exhibit but it only took us about 50.  If it was just me and Dan, it probably would have taken that long but the kids didn't want to stand and read all the signs on all of the exhibits, and quite honestly, for them I think after a while it was "ho, hum, you've seen one mummy, you've seen them all!".   Not for me, though.  I could have looked at mummies all afternoon!

When you buy your tickets to this exhibit, you buy them based on a start time.  However, if you have a 2:00 ticket, they will let you go in anytime during the 2:00 hour.  We (and everyone else with a 2:00 ticket) were crammed at the entrance at 2:00.  So the exhibits were jam packed the whole time we were going through.  If we would have gone in at, say, 2:30 or 2:45 with our 2:00 ticket we would have had much more room to view the exhibits as most of the 2:00 people would have been out of the exhibit or at least at the end of it.  And, it did not appear that they were monitoring people.  So, if you did go in at 2:30 with a 2:00 ticket, I don't think they would have kicked you out at 3:00.

I'm glad we went and I know that Peter will probably excitedly be telling his friends about all the cool mummies he saw.  And in case you are wondering, no, he did not have nightmares last night!

A ticket to see the Mummy exhibit also gets you into the rest of the museum.  We had a little bit of time left before we had to head to the airport so we played for a few minutes.

If you are interested in the Mummies of the World exhibit, it's only at Discovery Place until April.  And if you go, make sure you can stay the whole afternoon so that your kids can enjoy the rest of the museum!