This is inspired by a post in a Facebook group I'm in: someone was asking for gift suggestions for his wife.  I realized Museum gift shops would be the place to look. I have to apologize for the American centricness of the list.  If you have some suggestions, please include them in the comments.   My primary criteria is specifically a Museum shop with LOTS of Ancient Egyptian themed merchandise. Two exceptions: the Metropolitan Opera, thanks to their productions of Akhnaten and Aida, and what I can only imagine is the distributor to most of the American museums- but I suggest trying the actual museums first as they derive a lot of their funding from sales. Here we go: The Metropolitan Museum  in New York City The Getty Museum in Los Angeles The Field Museum in Chicago The de Young Museum in San Francisco The Louvre in Paris The British Museum in London The Egyptian Museum in Turin The Metropolitan Opera Shop for Akhnaten  and Aida The Museum Store Also- the links are pre-sor

 Well this week, watching Rage of the Mummy, I managed to make it to EIGHT minutes.   The opening credits aren't bad.  It makes the transition from credits to story using a comic book as a framing device and that's probably where the budget went.  Dunno. The Mummy's tomb has been plundered by a group of evil occultism called The Pharaohs of Darkness.  They're auctioning off the artifacts among their members, "but first let's go around the room and introduce ourselves." That was when I had to stop. It might have gotten better but I wasn't going to risk it. My advice: pass on this one, too.

I love free stuff. Educational free stuff? Even better.  Links below to several of my favorite libraries online.  Make some tea, grab some munchies, settle in and go wild.  You'll be down the rabbit hole for hours. This was prepared with the assistance of Marvin cat. (All links have been set to direct to Egyptological content for simplicity's sake.) Sidestone Press: "Open Science is central to our publishing philosophy: we believe that scientific information should be freely available to all. Through our own digital e-book library we guarantee that scientific information published through Sidestone Press is immediately freely available around the world. Our authors always retain the copyright of their research and are free to share  PDF s of their work."  Here The British Museum:  "The British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES) is a peer-reviewed, academic publication. BMSAES is dedicated to presenting research on aspects of ancient Egypt and Suda

 After watching the NBC The Curse of King Tut's Tomb, I thought I could give the Casper Van Dien movie a try. I stopped at five minutes, forty-five seconds. I did try.  Really.   Despite being skeptical because it was a Hallmark production... the opening segment was... promising. CGI Ancient Egypt, with Tutankhamun there... Ok... And he was sent by Ra to defend the world from evil.   By evil, they mean CGI Set and his minions. By defend, they mean Tut has a buff bod and golden steampunk angel wings and flies out to slay the minions with his sword.   This is all under expository narration by Caspar (Omega Code*) Van Dien.   So Tut smashes the Emerald Tablet, forcing Set to return to his nether dimension and... Cut to dogsled in the Arctic.  Ol' Casper is an Indiana Jones class archeologist searching for the pieces of the Emerald Tablet, two previous pieces having been stolen from him by the Hellfire Council.  They show up as he's freed a third from some ice in a glacier cave

  I've been waiting for this one: The Mummy's Curse!  So quick recap: Egypt, 30 years later, Massachusetts Massachusetts and now... 25 years later in Louisiana. Yes, as Kharis and his love Ananka somehow entered the swamp im Massachusetts and emerge in Bayou contry. Really.   And the Priests of Arkam are back. Fourth film in the series and it's gloriously bad.  Opening with a Cajun musical number, it makes very little sense relative to the previous movies. But that's ok, because (for the most part) Mummy movies are like pizza, even the bad ones are good. It's currently (October 2022) streaming on Peacock and available in the Mummy Legacy Collection DVD set from Universal, available from Amazon. (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The House of Bast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program, which provides a means for participants to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.com)

After last weeks post, I rented The Curse of King Tut's Tomb .. and I can see why nine year old me found it fascinating. Unfortunately, I am not nine anymore. There's a lot to unpack here, both good and bad. I watched the 2016 Miniseries Tutankhamun and that covered the same ground, but because of technology and budget was a superior production.  This has it's retro- charm though. Productiin: Location! Exteriors were filmed partially in Egypt.  And and and! Because it was Lord Carnarvon, they filmed scenes at Highclaire Cstle.  Like the weirdest episode of Downtown Abbey. A seance in the saloon (yes, that's whats it's called- think Christmas tree at Downton Abbey).  The library.  In fact, because we've watched entirely too much Downton Abbey, Perry was able to identify a piece of furniture. (Reuphoistered since this was filmed). Cast: Howard Carter was played by Robin Ellis, lead in the 70s Poldatk, but the first billed was Eva Marie Sait, playing a fictional jo

 Tonight's movie was The Mummy's Ghost.   After the two previous movies, Kharis, and the audience, finally meet his lost love, Princess Ananka.   Following up after The Mummy's Tomb, Smalltown USA is still talking about the events of the movie, as is the nearby Collegetown, USA... even including discussing it in the Egyptology class. BMOC Tom Hervey has an Egyptian girlfriend, Amina, working at the college library.  She doesn't like talking about Egypt, there's something that haunts her... Turns out she's the reincarnation of Ananka.  Kharis survived the fire in TMT and the priests of Karnak, now called Arkam, are pulling his strings.   George Zucco is back as the high priest with John Carradine as junior priest. SPOILERS FOR A 78 YEAR OLD MOVIE TMG ends on an unexpected note: Kharis and Ananka, together!  Kharis takes Amina into a swamp, where they're consumed in it's depths. But it's not forever- there's still one more movie in the series! The