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Posted by J. Christian Adams Bio ↓ on Aug 24th, 2012
National Geographic Explorer’s Hall in Washington D.C. has hosted some of the most prestigious exhibits in America. Previous exhibits have included the Chinese terracotta warriors, as well as the James Caird, the lifeboat Sir Ernest Shackleton miraculously sailed from Antarctica to South Georgia Island in 1916. Currently it is hosting a curious exhibit through February 2013 entitled “1001 Inventions: Discover the Golden Age of Muslim Civilization.” This high tech, slickly produced exhibit explicitly seeks to debunk the “myth” that the dark ages were dark.
The exhibit purports to provide examples of innovations from Muslim civilization, and some of the claims may come as a surprise to those familiar with the Wright Brothers or Yuri Gagarin.
I recently visited “1001 Inventions” which was housed on the same floor as a fantastic Titanic exhibit. I purchased entry to the museum at a ticket booth staffed by Rebecca Head, a National Geographic employee. Perhaps assuming I was heading to see the Titanic exhibit, Head pushed attendance at 1001 Inventions – “There is a really great exhibit on Muslim inventions you should see.”
The exhibit begins with star power – a short movie starring Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley. Kingsley plays a librarian who faces a trio of young uniformed (presumably British) students seeking information about “the dark ages.”
Kingsley’s character bristles at the children’s characterization, critical of those “filling your head with such nonsense and ripping down the good of former civilizations.”