don sees the world: At The British Museum

13 November 2010

At The British Museum

It has been a busy and, generally ugly week. The weather has been cold and rainy, but then, that is what you expect from London in the autumn! The winds kicked up about Monday afternoon and the rains have been more-or-less constant since.

Today, it was fairly nice out but chilly and overcast. So one of my colleagues and I decided to take the tube down to Russell Square and headed over to the British Museum. It was lovely! We saw the Rosetta Stone, a lovely display of artifacts from Islamic countries, the pottery and crockery were so intricate and lovely! There were lovely glass mosque lamps that had intricately painted verses on them, and some very ornate tile work.

We went to the Chinese room, to look at the artifacts there, and I spent some time studying the map of the museum layout. There were only a few things I really wanted to see; I wanted to make sure to hit them before I was defeated. The floors of the museum are that hard concrete type that made walking after a while a bit painful.

A helpful Canadian volunteer from the museum staff came over and helped me decipher the map (which had no discernible pattern to the numbering/labeling. We made it to the rooms dedicated to Egypt and Mesopotamia. There were a number of interesting artifacts there. I really wanted to take a picture of this tiny golden dog from the Egypt room, it had the bearing and shape of a Canaan Dog, and being that it is approximately the right part of the world, I assumed this may have been modeled on one of Saga's fore-bearers. Unfortunately, a combination of the tiny size of the figurine, and the motion of the people behind it, my camera could not determine what it was I was asking it to focus on. Oh well!

My day at the museum ended with the Rosetta Stone and the adjoining gallery of statuary. It ended for me there. My feet and knees could no longer take the pounding that the hard concrete were giving them.

A quick trip back to the hotel for a swim, and a nap and I was ready for a trip to a place I know over in Islington. It was a good evening. Due to planned engineering works on a number the tube lines, however, the trip back to the hotel took much longer than I expected. So it was a take-away curry and a beer in the hotel room for diner while looking at the pictures I'd taken yesterday. All in all, it was a lovely day!