Photo Essay: British Museum Part 1: The Building and its environs

Having decided as a new year resolution to finally start taking a look at what’s under my nose, i.e. London, rather than running around the world, I decided to start with the museums. You might have seen the previous posts on the Victoria and Albert Museum and after taking a look at them, decided to go for the British Museum. It has a long fascinating history stretching back to 1753 and the wiki entry is a good overview of the background and details of the museum. Having spent a good part of the day in there, I have decided to write this in five parts, the buildings, the Egyptians, the Minoans, the Assyrians and the Greeks. There is, of course, much more in there, but then, that has to wait for the next time. It was also a very cloudy miserable day so the dark light really didn't show up this lovely museum properly

This is the statue of Francis, the Duke of Bedford, who was a pretty big dude in terms of support of the arts, supporting the setting up of buildings and stuff. He also is supporting a pigeon on his head as we speak.


This is a shop on the corner as you turn into the street where the British Museum is. Its all Greek. Nice name, lol. Reminds me of that joke. I can speak all languages except Greek. Really? Tell me what this means..!”£*&!”£)!”£()*!”$!”£  !”)(£!”)(£. Erm, dont know, its all Greek to me. I know, I know, lame joke.


Good heavens, a Doctor with a since of humour? give him a stereoscope as a prize!. Do you think they bring the mummies in here when they catch a dry? (ok, so bad pun!).


The wide imposing Grecian facade of the new classical building. It is huge as you can see from the sizes of the people.


On the left, you can see a plaque which shows the names of the Museum employees who have been killed in the Great War. Pretty evocative. Nobody ever see’s these and one walks past. But some decades ago, a person with that name worked in one of the galleries here, touched one or more of the exhibits and then went off to fight and his bones might be mouldering on some battle grave somewhere in Malaya, North Africa, Europe or perhaps buried under thousands of feet of water in a cold icy rusting steel ship which was torpedoed by the Germans. No harm in giving them a quiet salute. On the right, you can see the tall stone columns with the passageway. See what I mean? Impressive. Reminds me a bit about how Karnak looks. 

 
As you enter, on the left is a whacking big door which is usually kept close and on the right is a big ol’ staircase moving up into the upper galleries. While straight ahead is one of the most imposing sights


That’s the entrance to the central section of the building with an imposing roof. I went into the central reading room (which contained the old British Library reading room) and it was now given over to an exhibition to Montezuma, the Last Aztec King. Damn fellows refused to let us take any photographs, so cant say much other than the fact that it was reasonably good. The weather was bad, but if you ignore that and imagine the scene on a good sunny day, you can imagine how wonderful this would look.


The ring around the reading room contains cafe’s and shops and some statues. This is a statue of a Roman young man on horseback from Rome somewhere around the 1st Century AD. The blurb says that this appears to be a Roman prince of the ruling Julio Claudian Dynasty. This wasn't life sized, it was smaller than I  would have imagined, but generally I found the Roman people to be smaller than I had envisioned.




Now you have an alabaster Stela of the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (884-859 BC) from his capital city of Nimrud in current day Iraq. On the top you can see the symbols of various gods including that of the sun just above his right finger. Rest of the cuneiform text is telling his deeds, achievements, battles he fought and the titles he gathered. Pretty impressive. The cuneiform text is very clear and if you observe closely, you can even make out the marks of the chisel. Imagine that, nearly 3000 years old and still a tiny chisel mark is visible. Heavily muscled and armed and I love the ringlets on his hair and beard. That must have taken much time to arrange. Notice he also wears a necklace with the marks of the gods. One day I have to get myself to Iran.  


Then you have two totem poles from British Columbia, Canada. The village where they stood was abandoned because the white man brought diseases which the native population could not deal with and a catastrophe happened. A Nakhba so to say for the first nations. From the top, you have a chief’s crest, a sea grizzly, a shaman, a whale, another sea grizzly. I always smile whenever I see a totem pole because I am reminded of another joke. This chap comes home depressed because his boss and others dont listen to him, while his wife consoles him by saying, dont worry that nobody listens to you at work, at least at home you are second on the totem pole.


The reverse side of the entrance. There was a chap taking photographs on the top window. All this is brand spanking new so you can see the difference in the marble colouration.


One of the wings on the way out. The full slide show is here. Next is the Egyptian Galleries.