The British Museum

Yesterday I had my first visit to the British Museum. I say first because it will certainly not be my last. The monumental structure is packed to brimming with items of historical significance, primarily ancient art and artifacts, and it's one of the best museums in the world as far as archeology is concerned.

It's packed to the brim with Ancient Egyptian artifacts (including actual mummies, and some of the first ones ever discovered, as most of Petrie's artifacts reside at the British Museum, also including the Rosetta Stone, among many other things), Greek Artifacts (including portions of the facade that formerly decorated the Parthenon), Ancient British and European (including King Arthur's sword and wooden teeth; just kidding), Etruscan, Chinese, etc. Basically, whatever ancient artifact you can name, you can find at the British Museum. One can spend hours there, perusing the wonders of the ancient world (or simply trying to get out, as it is quite a large and confusing place). If one is not a perusing sort of person, however, one can always take himself across the street for a pint, as one usually can, regardless of where they are in London.

The British Museum is also home to that wonder of wonders, the relic which so many museums can call their own, and that is a population of small and embittered children. The species inhabiting the British Museum will usually be arrayed in various school uniforms, all sitting rather grumpily, tugging at ties and sweater-vests, merely wishing for the comforting presence of a television. I find that while most museums contain such a population, the British Museum is the only one at which it is nearly unavoidable to encounter such a denizen. They do get rather angry if you try to photograph them. They start crying to their teachers about strangers and such, so I wouldn't recommend it (petting them doesn't come recommended either, and they don't like carrots).

In particular, we took a tour of the Ancient Greek portion of the Museum, where our guide told us about the progression of Greek sculpture (the men were always naked, but it took the women quite a long time to lose those robes) and pottery (first they painted black pictures on red terra-cotta, but then, realizing that they could get more detail the other way around, they painted reddish onto black-glazed terra cotta). The kindly, elderly woman who was our guide kept smiling and speaking to us as though we did not understand English. I took some slight offence at this, as I perfectly understand English, and then sheepishly realized that half of our group was made up of Japanese tourists who, in fact, did not.

In any case, it is a beautiful building and a museum well worth getting lost in. I intend to devote many hours of my own time to exploring it in the future, and, in seeing it, have realized that it is only a fifteen minutes walk from campus. Even if it weren't fifteen minutes away, it is well worth whatever hike you have to make to see it, if you have any interest in history at all.