The England Odyssey Part Two: Two Hours in the British Museum

The British Museum is their Smithsonian, but under one gigantic roof. Like idiots, we showed up around three o’clock and it closes at five. Can you do the Smithsonian in two hours? Like I said—idiots. But I did enjoy our frantic rush through what we could get through, which was mostly the Egyptian rooms.

The museum opened in 1759 and the first phases of this building was finished in 1852. Click pix for larger view

The original museum opened in 1759 as the nation museum of Britain. Lemme see: 1759. How many national museums did we have at that time? Oh, wait! We weren’t a nation yet. In fact, being British subjects, the British Museum was OUR museum too. So, it has been a functioning museum longer than we’ve been a functioning nation. You see a lot of that kind of thing in Britain.
 
They got heavy into Egyptology in 1802, at which point, none of us had had been to the West Coast yet. Makes us sound as if we’re still in diapers doesn’t it?
 
We blasted through and I fired off a few frames, some of which I have no information on but all of which I found fascinating. I also liked the way everything was presented and the feeling of the building: rather than being tightly packed cases where they showed as much of what they had, everything was well spread out with lots of space and arranged in chronologies so it all told a story and made sense. Also, most of the galleries had lots of natural lighting flowing through big windows or sky lights, which did away with the dark, vaguely scary feel you expect when hearing the term "The British Museum."
 
If you want to see the Museum, plan on an entire day. They have a nice café and there are even nicer ones in the immediate area (a great one in a little park a block away) so you don’t have to pack a lunch, but wear sensible shoes.
 
Enjoy.

CLICK TO VIEW LARGER VERSION

Uncropped panoramic view of the circular "reading room" in the glassed-over central court. Dates from 1852. Click Here.

The earliest known rock group statuary (get it, "rock" group?) : John, Paul, George and Akmid. Actually, just a tiny part of their huge Egyptian Statuary display. Click Here.	The craftsmanship on everything Egyptian is absolutely mind boggling. However, they spent so much time worrying about the after life, if they spent more time worrying about today, their kingdom might have lasted more than a mere 3,500 years, or so. Click Here
This is a full tomb wall (or public toilet, I'm not sure) and it is difficult to imagine moving it. See the enlargement for cool details. Click Here.	You have to love tourists! I was shooting a pix of Marlene wearing the head for a hat and the woman excused herself for blundering in the way then posed next to her. Click Here.
I'm going to guess this fragment was eight feet tall, so the whole thing was huge. It's hard to believe how much of Egypt's history was destroyed by later so-called "civilizations". Click Here.	This is just a cool picture of my step-niece-by-marriage (I think), Jennifer, and her husband, Tom, in the museum . Click Here.
The thought balloon over the girl's head reads "Oh, look, they named this after that Rosetta Stone software." It was truly humbling to be in the presence of such a historic artifact, although she didn't look that impressed. Click Here.	I love the tone and texture the lighting gives a lot of the displays. Then, l look at things like this and can't imagine how much time it took to knock it out by hand and then remember how many thousands of them they did. Click Here.
I'm a sucker for anything with a skeleton in it. If I could, I'd like to wind up a display like this five thousand years from now. This is a pre-mummy burial (3,000 BC) using one of the first coffins, that isolates them from the drying effect of the sand, so they went to mummification to save the soft flesh. Click Here.	Just another piece of statuary with cool light on it. Click Here.