What You Learn from Looking at Hieroglyphics

          That the ancient Egyptians had a thing for slugs.
          Seriously.
          Once you start looking, you see them everywhere. The British Museum is littered with big, heiroglyphics-covered stones that are littered with slugs. The Louvre is similarly encumbered with slug-engraved Egyptian stonework. I'm sure there's a practical reason that the slug was an important part of the Egyptian alphabet (obviously it was an important part of the Egyptian landscape), but I just love the whimsy of it—that the lowly slug would be engraved over and over onto stone that has outlived the centuries and now resides in museums for our continued edification and delight.
          Gives you new perspective on What's Really Important.

See it there? With the little slug eye-stalks? Absolutely too cool for school.
©Nancy E. Banks

          And speaking of Egyptians, they really knew how to mummify a cat:

They even got the worried stare right.
©Nancy E. Banks

Patterns! The one in back must be a calico.
©Nancy E. Banks

I like that its tail curls around its feet in
the afterlife, too.
©Nancy E. Banks