Step back in time to the land of the pharaohs and take a journey through two of New York’s most prestigious cultural institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. Each museum offers a distinct, captivating lens into the world of ancient Egypt. Biblical scholar and historian Gary Rendsburg leads this exploration of ancient Egyptian culture.
The Brooklyn Museum, more intimate in scale, houses a rich, thoughtfully curated Egyptian collection that brings the daily life, religious beliefs, and funerary practices of ancient Egyptians vividly to life. On your guided visit, spend Sunday afternoon immersed in the museum learning about Charles Edwin Wilbour, the American journalist and self-taught Egyptologist whose numerous acquisitions in Egypt, including eight Elephantine papyri, form the core of the Brooklyn Museum collection. Visit the Assyrian collection, which includes 12 huge reliefs from the palace of Ashur-nasir-pal II (883–859 B.C.E.) at Nimrud, excavated by A. H. Layard in the 1840s, during the early years of Near Eastern archaeology.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art boasts the most extensive collection of Egyptian antiquities in North America, featuring monumental sculptures, intricate artifacts, and the awe-inspiring Temple of Dendur, completed by 10 B.C.E. by the Roman emperor Augustus. A full-day visit includes a guided tour through the Lila Acheson Wallace Galleries of Egyptian Art with your study leader, proceeding chronologically from Old Kingdom to Middle Kingdom to New Kingdom and then to the Late Period. Learn how the artifacts illuminate many of the best-known stories in the Bible, especially from the book of Exodus. The visit also includes a docent-led tour of highlights of the museum’s collections and time to view other galleries, including the relatively recently renovated Byzantine and Medieval wing.
Know Before You Go
- Cost includes bus transportation, lodging, all activities, and the following meals: Sunday boxed lunch en route and Monday breakfast and supper.
- Overnight accommodations are at the Hotel Edison.
- Tour departs by bus from the Mayflower Hotel, Connecticut Ave. and DeSales St., NW, with a pickup at the DoubleTree Hilton, 15101 Sweitzer Lane, Laurel, Maryland, at about 8:10 a.m.
- Single-room supplement $120 (factored into the Single Room Member and Single Room Nonmember pricing).
- This tour uses Whisper audio devices.
- Singles registering at the double-room rate are paired (on a nonsmoking basis) if possible, but must pay the single-room supplement otherwise.
- Detailed information is emailed to registrants about four weeks prior to departure.
- Participants are advised to purchase travel insurance for overnight and multi-day tours from a provider of your choice. Travel insurance provides additional coverage against unforeseen incidents that require last-minute cancellations.
General Information
- The tour departs by motorcoach from downtown Washington, DC with a designated secondary pick-up outside the city. Content delivered by the study leader on the way to the destination, after the secondary pick-up, is an integral part of the study tour experience. Meeting the group once the tour is en route is discouraged.
- Smithsonian Associates is a mask-friendly environment. Please feel free to bring and wear a mask at any time during a tour, both for your safety or the safety of others.
- As we aim to move away from single use water bottles, guests are strongly encouraged to get in the habit of bringing their own reusable water bottle on tour.
- For additional tour information:
