British Museum - Finally!

Russell Square

So today I took the day off and finally made it to the British Museum.  Ruben and family are over from the states and we all made the trip into London.  Initially we had discussed going to the Tower of London, as Cassandra highly recommended it for the Crown Jewels alone.  Once the day arrived though, it was raining, and not knowing how much of the Tower is outside we decided to go to the museum instead.

When I visited Ruben in the past we have gone on some history explorations ourselves so I knew he would enjoy it.  We got off the Tube at the Russell Square station and made a quick walk through the square to the museum.  It was absolutely pouring and being from Oregon I of course did not have an umbrella.  I got a few strange looks as we walked through the rain.

The museum was pretty crowded because of the rain.  It is very impressive.  The center courtyard has been entirely covered and there are more then 100 rooms inside, some the size of other museums just in themselves.  I know I have stated it in the past, but the history here is almost overwhelming.  The British Empire spanned the globe and this museum is where they store many of the treasures brought back from around the world.

We started in the Egyptian room.  First thing through the door is the Rosetta Stone which unlocked our understanding of ancient Egyptian life.  In addition complete statues, tomb false doors, art work, mummies from as far back as 2800BC.  Think about that, over 4800 YEARS ago.  From Egypt we moved into Assyria.

They have reconstructed the gates to the palace of Balawat from the remains of the bronze hinges.  It stood 30 feet high and 12 feet across.  When I think about how impressive that would have been for visiting people from other regions and how intimidating.  Olga noticed an interesting feature of the Assyrian Mosaics.  Nearly all the guardian figures were carrying HANDBAGS.  It was true though, if you go keep an eye out for that.  She also pointed out the detailed scroll work on the shoes.  One of my favorite exhibits was a full Lycian Tomb.  I had never heard of the Lycian's before.  Located in the mountains of Turkey you can see the ancient Greece influence.

After lunch we returned to the Museum and went through the mummies and the Greece/Roman rooms.  I'm still in awe of the level of technology the Romans's achieved more then 2000 years ago.  In one display was an ancient two chamber piston water pump.  Sometimes I try to image how much farther we would be today without the Dark Ages.  So much was lost and had to be reinvented.

Watching Vincent as we went through the Museum provided some entertainment.  He is old enough to appreciate it, but young enough to be impatient.  I was reminded of visiting museums with my parents when I was younger.  I would race ahead, read something and then go back and tell them about it, hoping it would speed them up.  As I have gotten older I try to imagine the life represented by the artifacts, or I'm just slower at reading then I used to be!

Around 3:00pm we decided to leave the museum and go see some other sights.  We had only got through about 40% of the museum so I will be heading back at some later date, maybe I'll take Dana when she visits.   I took them to the little church in Mayfair and then we headed over to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.  After sitting and resting for a bit we decided to head down to the Palace as they had not seen that yet.

Lykian Tomb

After the Palace we headed out of London.  It was after 7:00 and had been a very full day.  Ruben estimated we walked 5+ miles.  They took me to dinner at Zizzi's in St. Albans where I had a pizza baked in a brick over.  It was very, very good.   Definitely a good day!