Are these designed for kids? Or for the elderly? For teens? Who is meant to buy these? Catholic pilgrims?
Inside the entrance of the Vatican Museums this is what you see in the gift shop. Nutty, vero? The almighty dollar, and poor museum management
The cardboard inserts describe these trinkets as gods and good luck charms and even spirits.
The smoke of satan.....
ReplyDeleteTypical Vatican II Catholic Church.....deny.downgrade your own religion, but praise other religions...even if they are the relics of a religion (Ancient Egyptian) which has not been practiced in nearly 1,700 years and whose last priest who knew the rituals died in the 5th century!
ReplyDeleteIs the director out to lunch?????? http://mv.vatican.va/2_IT/pages/z-Info/MV_Benvenuto.html
ReplyDeleteDirettore dei Musei Vaticani, Antonio Paolucci, dove sei?
ReplyDeleteYou're right: not only should the items be taken off sale, the Church has no business exhibiting the originals; the best thing to do would be to destroy these fetishes.
ReplyDeleteI AM A MEMBER OF THE PATRON OF THE ARTS IN THE VATICAN MUSEUMS. I AM OUTRAGED AT SOMETHING SO DUMB AND WILL CONTACT THE PATRONS DIRECTOR AND ASK THAT THIS BE ADDRESSED.
ReplyDeleteAs wrong as this is to sell pagan statues of gods and good luck charms, it is amazing how similar in some ways, Ancient Egyptian religion was in structure (if not in content and tradition and belief), to Catholicism. There was a High Priest, who was very esteemed and had enormous power across the country. There were a handful of major gods, and dozens of lesser ones. Each god had at least 1 major and sometimes dozens of smaller temples and religious houses throughout the country. Each temple had a compliment of priests (some had hundreds, others a handful). These priests were married and had familes and their own houses and secular jobs, but 3 months out of the year, they left their jobs and families, withdrew into the temple and lived celibate, monastic lives in community. They even wore a religious habit and were distinguished by their dress that they were priests.
ReplyDeletePriests wore white spotless linen long robes, and shaved their heads.
While in the temple, they followed a "rule", and assembled to chant praises of the god every morning and evening. The head priest of each temple (equivalent to an abbot), lead the prayers and ceremonies. Some temples were famous as great schools of learing (equivalent to Medieval universities), others had huge "hospitals" attached where the sick were actually treated and taken care of by communities of priests and lesser ranked "lay brothers".
The Pharoah could transfer priests, suppress temples, and order new ones built. The High Priest carried out these dictates.
There was even a class of "lay brothers", actually priests in the temple who were not as academically gifted, and served as a connection between the secular world, and the cloistered world of the temple. For the most part, the community of priests were (for the time they were in the temple each year), cloistered.
There were few "vocations" to the ancient Egyptian priesthood. It was passed down from father to son....and families "donated" sons to enter the temple to become priests, just like they do in Buddhist temples today....and what was done in Catholic monasteries in the Middle Ages.
There were almost no "priestesses" in Ancient Egypt....and when there were, these few were of very menial and low rank.
There were no corresponding female communities in Angient Egypt who lived in community in temples like the priests did.
Ancient Egyptian religion was a very male establishment.
Reality check for contemporary Savanarolas: The Vatican Museums are full of pagan art which logically should be removed so as to not contaminate visitors if the museums are considered to be the vestibules of St. Peter's. On the other hand if these are instead world class museums then reproductions of artifacts are appropriate as they are in the Louvre or the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In any case, these particular reproductions are primarily made in Islamic Egypt for the tourists and the Vatican merely peddles them to the exact same market. God knows there is already enough Catholic kitsch available in Rome as it is.
ReplyDeleteAn outrage.
ReplyDelete"God knows there is already enough Catholic kitsch available in Rome as it is. "
ReplyDeleteThis is true. We should not be so "outraged" by the sale of cheap trinkets depicting ancient Egyptian gods etc, especially if this a world-class museum which has sections partitioned off representative of many ancient cultures and time periods...like all museums.
If the purpose of the Vatican Museums is to display and highlight only Catholic art, then this photo represents something alittle inappropriate. But if the Vatican Museum highlights all periods (and I know for a fact that it has a very fine collection of pagan Greek and Roman art), then it should not offend.
It's the same as the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, or the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Art & Archeology in Philadelphia.
No big deal. No worries!