The British Museum

The Durhams have been nagging us to go to the British Museum since before we had even contemplated moving to London. In fact, it was before we had even thought of leaving Australia that they started harping on about it. Come to think of it, I think the very first thing that David said to me when we first met was, “Hi, have you been to the British Museum?”. They’re just that into it.

However, me having a general disdain for large crowds of people in enclosed spaces, I’ve always stayed away from the place, figuring the only real time I could get there would be on a weekend, when crowds would hit a peak. Well, not any longer! Julian (a long time fan) and I took advantage of a vacant Monday and trundled along there yesterday afternoon.

Holy pants, the booty they have in that place is impressive! As Julian put it so well (he’s such a good writer, you know):

The British are the greatest preservers (thieves) of world culture in history, and this is where they keep all their artefacts (loot): The British Museum.

Take this for example; possible one of the most significant finds ever, in the history of human-kind – The Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone! Sitting right there, in the middle of a hall full of other Egyptian crap items that the Poms picked up on a five finger discount sale! It’s all yours for the viewing, and it’s all for free!

It’s also massive; there was no way that we would have been able to see everything in one afternoon (not that that was ever a danger; my brain can’t absorb more than about 2 hours of museum information at at time). They currently have an exhibition called, “The History of the World in 100 objects”, so we endeavoured to see as many of those as we could. We got through about 20 of them.

This is one of the objects which impressed us the most. It’s a carving of two swimming reindeer, and it’s a mere thirteen thousand years old. How on earth they managed to carve out that level of detail with no doubt fairly primitive tools, is well beyond me. Did I mention it was thirteen thousand years old?

So now I can see why the Durhams are such big fans. It definitely warrants another visit.