So goes Ed Snow’s journey at the Michael C. Carlos Museum. His interest in the ancient treasures of the world runs as deep as his investment in the future of the Museum.

Ed has described his time with the Carlos Museum “not as a mere visitor, but as a patron or priest in a temple” – a sense of the transcendental and quiet reflection accompanies his meanderings through its galleries; the almost reverential respect evoked by the weight and expanse of ancient history, and its great significance in our lives, shines through when he speaks.

Growing up Ed loved and studied religion and ancient art. For a brief period he enrolled part-time in a master’s program in ecumenical studies at St. Mary's Ecumenical Institute in Baltimore while practicing law. The more he ventured into the world of religion and ancient art the more he felt connected to the lives of archaeologists and scholars on the topic, more so than in theology. Although the realities of the practice of law, marriage, and family soon forced Ed to discontinue his formal studies, he still follows ancient history and religious studies, considering the act of study itself as a form of worship.

Ed’s own “Walking the Bible”
Ed's first visit to the Museum was in 2003 after hearing about Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur, a major exhibition organized by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and presented in Atlanta by the Carlos Museum. On view were rare and exquisite Sumerian artifacts from the renowned 4,500-year-old royal cemetery at Ur – the biblical home of the patriarch Abraham – located in modern-day Iraq.

Ed was already familiar with the "ram-in-the-thicket" artifact that was part of the Ur exhibition, an object discovered lying in the “Great Death Pit,” one of the graves in the royal cemetery at Ur, by archaeologist Leonard Woolley in 1928. While Ed had heard of the Carlos Museum as a wonderful venue for children, he was astonished at what he found – a hidden jewel for all ages. He enjoyed the Ur exhibition and discovered, to his surprise, the Museum's magnificent permanent collection of antiquities. After reading Bruce Feiler’s “Walking the Bible,” Ed realized that Museum visitors could replicate a tour of the Holy Land through the halls of the Museum, the Museum itself constituting an "illustrated" Bible. One Sunday he organized two church van-loads of his colleagues and friends and conducted an unofficial “Walking the Bible” tour through the Museum after contacting Bonnie Speed, Director, and Elizabeth Hornor, Director of Education for the Carlos Museum. After guiding over 150 people on such tours, the rest is history. He called his tours a form of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. “I just wish I could replicate myself to invite people beyond my own circles of influence,” he says ruefully. And so do we.

Ed's favorite objects in the Carlos Museum galleries are:

• The Jericho pottery, part of Kathleen Kenyon’s extraordinary excavations in that ancient city.

• A statuette of Baal – a Canaanite deity who appears in the Hebrew Bible as competition for the God of Israel, specifically in the story of Elijah.

• The Statue of the Nubian King Taharka, also referred to in the Bible as the "King of Kush," who lived in 701 BC and came to the rescue of King Hezekiah of Judah in an alliance against Sennacherib of Assyria.

Ed’s interest in Scripture for the Eyes and educational programs
The exhibition, Scripture for the Eyes: Bible Illustration in Netherlandish Prints of the Sixteenth Century is another compelling way to approach the Bible. Ed notes that the average person, with some basic familiarity with Bible stories and parables, will enjoy an immediate and intimate experience with the works of art in this exhibition.

Ed is very clear about the purpose and importance of the Carlos Museum to Emory and to the general community. Elizabeth Hornor notes, “Ed has the excitement of a child about the types of programs we have here at the Carlos Museum. From Boy Scout Archaeology Day to lectures by renowned scholars, authors, and public intellectuals – Ed understands that all of these programs serve our larger mission.” Ed describes the Museum as a practical tool for students and scholars looking to antiquity for answers and clues to the great questions in history, anthropology, theology, philosophy, and political science. “It is a world class institution and deserves support and frequent visits,” says Ed, “I want my children to think of the Museum as they would their own home; a familiar place, one they can return to again and again, and consider a meaningful part of their lives.”

Ed Snow is a partner in the Atlanta office of the law firm Burr & Forman LLP and chair of its firm wide banking and real estate practice. He has been listed in Chambers USA America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and The Best Lawyers in America. An author and frequent lecturer on business loans, finance transactions, law and religion, and other topics, Ed is also active in the Business Law section of the Georgia State Bar Association as an Executive Committee member and its current Chair. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Michael C. Carlos Museum.