Jumping in only a few months late....
The "no flash" rule seems to be to protect objects that are light-sensitive. I suppose the "annoyance" thing applies, too, but I've never heard it articulated.
Tripods are another issue - I'm sure they're afraid that somebody will show up with a "field" tip on his or her tripod and muck up the floor, but there are also issues with rubber tips, and people swinging a four to six foot stick around while walking among glass cases.
IMHO, high speed films or a digital camera set to a high ASA (some of 'em are pretty worthless at those settings) can do a fairly good job, even hand-held. 'Course, you have to be ready for it. People tend not to buy f1.8 (or faster) lenses these days, in favor of a medium-range zoom ('round f3) - those don't work as well indoors....
I switched to a slightly faster zoom on a Nikon about 16 years ago, and lately to a D60 with a rather slow zoom. But it's high-ASA capabilities aren't too bad. My daughter's got the Nikon, but likes to bring me the film.... (Which I take to the camera shop
.) She, meantime, wants my D60.... I sleep with one eye open....
What I really can't see is the "no photography at all" thing, unless you're deep into selling pictures in the gift shop. 'Course, these rules could date to a time when a tripod was pretty much a requirement....
On topic, the fluted columns seem to be an Egyptian standard, and I expect that they continued the motif when they started working in stone. Why not?
(It is a lot more work, but cheap labor was always available.)
Also, we really don't know what sort of wood (and wood techniques) were used. While the conventional wisdom says that the Egyptians used stone and mud brick for everything, they probably had sources for other materials, and may have used them in ways we're not aware of. Keeping the wood motif in their columns may have been more "integrated" than we think.
Regards,
Stu.
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