One of the great things about living in Philadelphia is that it’s easy to get to New York by Amtrak. And if you book in advance, you can get very cheap fares that land you in the heart of New York City and close to the theater district and a bevy of museums. So it was a simple matter for me to grab my husband and make for the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Divine Egypt exhibit before it closed on January 19.

Ancient Egyptian civilization spanned several thousand years, from 3100 BCE to the Roman conquest by Augustus around 27 CE.

The Divine Egypt exhibit focused on items from around 250 BCE and earlier, and brought together more than 250 religious artifacts from museums around the world. The items on display were representative of Egypt’s relationship with its many gods, its sacred rituals, and its relationship with the afterlife. We don’t always see “religion” when we look at items like those in Divine Egypt, but the Egyptians worshipped more than 1,500 gods over the years and religious practices were woven into their everyday lives in a way that would seem strange to most of us in the modern world.

The religious artifacts were works of art. Religious devotion has produced many great works of art down through the years, something that anyone in the modern world who has toured the Vatican or the Hagia Sophia Mosque can confirm.

Here are pictures of some of my favorites from Divine Egypt.

After we left the Divine Egypt exhibit, we joined a tour for a sampling of the Met’s extensive Egyptian collection, which ended with a view of the Temple of Dendur. The Temple is the real deal, built around 10 BCE.

If the Temple hadn’t been removed from the banks of the Nile river when the Egyptians, built the Aswan Dam, it would be lying today at the bottom of Lake Nasser which was created then they built the Dam to control the Nile’s floods.

So how did the Temple get to the Met? UNESCO launched a campaign to save the treasures that would disappear underwater when the Nile was dammed. ( I remember reading a story in National Geographic when I was a kid about the relocation of Abu Simbel and its huge statue of Ramses II .)

At any rate, when they removed the Temple of Dendur from its Nile location, the Met asked to be considered to house it and their request was granted.

It’s one thing to visit an ancient ruin. It’s quite another thing to visit a complete ancient ruin housed within a massive building. Granted, the Temple of Dendur is considered small. Still, I am impressed.

We’re used to seeing Egyptian statuary and wall art devoid of color. But the ancient Egyptians painted their walls, our guide reminded us. The projection in the photo above is meant to help people envision how the wall art was meant to look.

Another view. The figures above portray Egyptians paying homage to a Roman of high status. Since the Temple dates from 10 BCE, the Roman in question would have been the emperor Augustus, who took Egypt from Cleopatra after the battle of Actium.

If you’re interested in reading more about this temple and others like it, here’s a good article.

After the tour, it was time to head back to the train to Philadelphia. I plan to return to New York this month to do some more museum hopping.

If you missed Divine Egypt and want to see objects from the exhibition, press here.