The British Museum, Part 1

this morning I woke up feeling a lot better after a pretty solid nights sleep (despite a hilariously terrible dinner at Garfunkels). We had our first real class session today. It was a real class in the respect that we are actually discussing and learning things instead of simply setting up the syllabus for the course. But more importantly than that, we had our first museum visit for our Museum Theory class. We specifically sought out three objects with Professor Coyle and were then set loose on the museum to see whatever we would like for as long as we would like. Liz and I decided to head up to the third floor of the museum to check out a nice sampling of Egypt, Greece, Rome and Western Europe.

Entrance to the British Museum

On the Stairs of the Great Room in the Museum

There is so much to see in the museum that it would literally be impossible to even write about everything I saw today, which was only about 1/6 of the whole museum. Some highlights were the Greek and Roman statues on the third floor.

I love his beard

My New boyfriend Gaius Caesar

Augustus looking concerned

Having a dace off with cupid

I also really enjoyed all of the Viking and Irish artifacts. There was a large display of celtic jewelry, weapons and other every day objects. It was really cool to see these things in person, since I have always been an avid fan of British and Irish history and have read about them so often before.

An Early Catholic Crucifix

Tiles depicting the story of Tristan and Isolde

Irish Brooches worn by Celtic leaders

After finishing off the third floor of the museum we wandered into the special exhibit, The Egyptian book of the dead. the exhibit displays pages from several books of the dead, a book in ancient Egypt containing spells that were used before and after death in order to help the soul navigate the after life. It was a very cool exhibit, but unfortunately you were not allowed to take pictures because of all the ancient papyrus that was on display. We will definitely go back to explore the rest of the museum. We have yet to look at the larger Egyptian, Roman and Greek artifacts, such as the statue of Ramses and the Parthenon casts. I couldn't resist taking a quick side trip into the Egyptian room to get a picture of the Rosetta Stone before we left. It was the one object I was most excited to see in the museum.

A blurry picture of the Rosetta stone

Tomorrow we plan on doing all of the classic tourist stops: The Tower of London, Big Ben and the Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, The London Eye, Harrods, etc. I am seriously lacking in traditional London tourist photos. For this reason I couldn't resist taking a picture with the cheesy cut out located outside of the museum! Plenty more of them tomorrow!

Liz as a palace guard, myself as Paddington Bear