I’ll be traveling to Montreal in a few weeks, and welcome recommendations of places to see, things to do, restaurants to try. Quirky and off the tourist path preferred. I will be staying in the Plateau district, and won’t be renting a car, so accessibility by foot or Metro is key. 

This antique postcard (1902) of the Notre-Dame Basilica is from the New York Public Library Digital Collections. 

I’ll be traveling to Montreal in a few weeks, and welcome recommendations of places to see, things to do, restaurants to try. Quirky and off the tourist path preferred. I will be staying in the Plateau district, and won’t be renting a car, so accessibility by foot or Metro is key. 

This antique postcard (1902) of the Notre-Dame Basilica is from the New York Public Library Digital Collections. 

Light as a feather.

This 19th Dynasty Egyptian papyrus fragment shows the judgement in the afterlife of the scribe Hunefer. From left to right, he is led by Anubis to a scale where his heart is weighed. The counterweight is an ostrich feather from the headdress of Ma’at, the goddess and personification of truth and order and harmony. Hearts that are heavy with the impurities of folly, sin, and error fail the test, and are eaten by Ammit the Devourer of the Dead, the half-lion, half-crocodile goddess who sits next to the scales, waiting. Ibis-headed Thoth records the outcome. Happy Hunefer passes the test, and is presented by the sky-god Horus (depicted with the head of a falcon) to Osiris and his attendants Isis and Nephthys, where he is welcomed to immortality in the afterlife. 

Please click through for an enlarged view. 

Papyrus from The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, ca 1300 BCE, in the collections of the British Museum. This image is adapted from a digital version in the public domain via Wikipedia.