At the British Museum

We arrived in London late in the morning and headed straight for the British Museum. In preparation for the visit, I made myself a short list of iconic things I really wanted to see: the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Marbles, the Hoa Hakananai’a Moai, the Benin Bronzes, the double-headed Aztec serpent, the Sutton Hoo Helmet, and of course an obligatory mummy. We managed to see all of them, taking a short break for lunch and returning once more because of the museum’s sheer vastness.

Of the welcome surprises, I was perhaps most struck by the Egyptian collection, which I did not expect to be so numerous. The Mexican room was also quite interestingly conceived, presenting pre-Columbian cultures on a continuum from the most ancient to the last. The stone serpent, carved from both above and below, shows the amazing attention to detail of Aztec stoneworkers.

Since the British Museum closes at five, we still had some time to kill before having dinner. We walked down to Trafalgar Square, from which we continued to the Thames with its striking views of Parliament and the London Eye. We tried waiting for the Houses of Parliament to light up, but in vain. They were not lit up even after we returned from our dinner in Chinatown.

The Saint Pancras Renaissance London Hotel 
The great court and reading room of the British Museum
Quartzite statue of Amenhotep III (14th century BCE)
A bust of Amenhotep III
Bust of Ahmose-Meritamun, elder sister and wife of Amenhotep I (late 16th century BCE)
A bust of the goddess Hathor, mother of the pharaohs 
The bust of Ramesses II, also called "the Great" (13th century BCE)
The same, with a sarcophagus in the foreground
The Mesopotamian protective deity Lamassu
A Middle Eastern bas relief 
Another head of Amenhotep III
Statues of Sekhmet, goddess of war and healing
The same
Another Lamassu
The Nereid Monument, a sculpted tomb from modern-day Turkey
The famous Parthenon Marbles
These belonged to the eastern pediment of the Parthenon
More of the same
A horse head
A metope depicting a Centaur fighting a Lapith, originally above the temple columns 
The remnants of the eastern pediment once more
A statue of a young man on horseback
Hoa Hakananai'a
More art at the living and dying exhibition
A head, one of the famous Benin Bronzes
A Benin Bronze leopard
Benin Bronze plaques of warriors
An entire wall of these plaques
More of the same
A throne from Zanzibar
An Aztec stone snake
A Meso-American bas relief
A Meso-American jade head
Another bas-relief
More of the same
A stone bust of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent
Statues of Eagle Warriors
A fire-serpent (Xiucoatl)
Mictlantecutli, Aztec god of the dead 
More Meso-American statues
I could not find the entry for the North American costume on the British Museum site
A crystal skull
Another view of the reading room
The famous Sutton Hoo Helmet
An astrolabe
A drinking vessel made of a sea shell
One of the upper-floor rooms
A marble bust
More marble heads
A Roman tomb effigy
Egyptian canopic jars
A Babylonian lion
A sphinx
The Enlightenment Gallery
The Thomas Becket Reliquary
The same
Saint Martin in the Fields
The London Coliseum
The Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament
The Elizabeth Tower of the Houses of Parliament
Whitehall
Elizabeth Tower
London Eye
Houses of Parliament

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ireland: Day 8 – County Louth

Image
My plans for my last day in Ireland came together in a very ad hoc fashion. Having seen everything I wanted to see, I searched for interesting sights close to the highway between Dublin and Belfast. These did not include – though I found it the most interesting sight of all – the modest highway sign saying “Welcome to Northern Ireland” painted over with several streaks of dark red paint.
Read more

Southern Delhi and Other Bits and Pieces

Image
On my last day in Delhi, I managed to cross off the last few items on my sightseeing list. I began by packing my luggage, all the while congratulating myself on having remembered to ask the hotel to do my laundry in advance. That finished, I ordered an Uber to Akshardham, a massive Hindu temple east of the Yamuna River. The opening hours of the temple are not well advertised, and when I arrived by the front gate, I learned it was still closed. For a few minutes, I took pictures of the temple from afar, when suddenly an autorickshaw driver approached me. He reasoned with me that since the temple would not open until ten, I had better come with him and see other sights. I had to admit the soundness of his reasoning and gave him my next address.
Read more

Vietnam North to South – Day 1: Alone in Hanoi

Image
My redeye from Delhi arrived close to five in the morning, and I did not catch a jot of sleep. Once I got to my hotel, however, I did not feel particularly drowsy, and instead of napping for a few hours, I started sorting through my photos from India. This exercise lasted for as long as it stayed cloudy outside – that is to say – until around eleven, when I grew bored of the very mechanical editing process and decided to go out.
Read more