London 7: The British Museum…and other life news

Let’s start with a brief frustrating aside. Jessica and I have COVID. We’re currently isolating in a hotel in Swansea in Wales, an area we had been thoroughly enjoying (more on that when I finish with London) until we got sick. It seems like we got it at a dinner for the Fulbright that we both attended (and at least one other person reported being positive afterwards). Jess tested a few times and was negative, but when we felt even less well a few days later, she tested again with a very slight positive. I haven’t tested because all we can find are FlowFlex tests and we’ve already determined that I ALWAYS show a positive on those, so they’re worthless for me (evidently it’s a thing for a very small percentage of people). The worst part is that Jessica’s family just flew to Paris and we were going to meet them there for a few days. Now, we’re not sure we’ll make it before they leave. Ugh.

That aside aside, I want to get back to where I left off, talking about history in London. Anyone who pays attention to such things may have noticed that I skipped a BIG institution: The British Museum. This place is ridiculously huge, free, and happens to be a few blocks from the office Jessica occasionally used at University College London.

We didn’t go just once. We went five times. I already covered one of those visits, when we saw the special exhibition about “The World of Stonehenge,” but I want to take a minute to talk about some of the just sheer amazingness of this place. First of all, it’s definitely one of the most enormous museums I’ve visited, for sure, especially among history-focused museums. But, probably most importantly, it’s such a clear example of the power and reach of the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, the room shown below is just chock full of amazing bits and pieces–enough to fill a couple of small museums, but it’s just kind of haphazardly organized around themes rather than particular cultures or historical trajectories. In fact, the room is labeled “Imperialism and Collecting,” giving a clear idea of how the various artifacts came to be here, and throughout the room different collections discuss the manners in which they were acquired.

Interestingly, there are other places that this theme is raised throughout the museum. Most notably there’s a fair amount of documentation about this in front of the “Elgin Marbles,” huge chunks of the Parthenon from Greece collected by Lord Elgin. Greece wants them back. Britain says no. There’s a pamphlet that gives some of their reasoning, mostly that it’s world heritage, not just Greek heritage. I’ll give them a few points for that, but by and large it seems like a weak excuse. I’d actually buy a slippery slope argument better: “if we give these back, do we have to return everything and have an empty museum?” Maybe the answer is yes? And then maybe they can come to a more fair system of purchasing or borrowing artifacts? Hard to say. I don’t see Egypt or Greece or anywhere getting ready to invade London to demand the return of these artifacts, so it may be a long time before these sticky questions get resolved.

So, occasionally I felt a little guilty visiting there, but, by and large, it was still really cool to see so much, quite well-presented, history all in one place. Probably my favorite thing in the whole museum though was the case below. It’s full of fake artifacts from the ancient Middle East. There were some great signs explaining all the things they do to identify fakes. For instance, most of these tablets are baked, not air dried as they would have been a few thousand years ago, and oftern the clay is the wrong type. Most are complete rather than broken, and some just have nonsense inscriptions. Most of these were seized when someone tried to import them to Britain to sell them and now they use them for training other curators.

Speaking of that, the first time we went, we zipped through collections from the ancient Middle East and a few newer Middle Eastern artifacts. I’ll admit, I probably would be taken in by the fakes above. I’m an absolute sucker for cuneiform. It’s such a gorgeous writing system, and I love seeing how it’s used on both a micro and macro scale. Some of the writing is soooo tiny, I imagine it was quite a difficult task to learn to read and write well.

It turns out that the British Library is currently cataloging the entire 30,000 volume library of Ashurbanipal, a small chunk of which was on display. There were also mathematical and literary texts among many others. This was also the first place I learned about cylinder seals. There are seals pressed into wax or clay and then rolled to make a continuous image. I later saw those repeated in several other cultural exhibits, all the way up to Middle Ages Europe, where I encountered some old cylinder seals at the Tower of London.

There were also some truly incredible (and incredibly huge) chunks of palaces that had been transported and put up on the walls here. I love the expressiveness and the clear story of some of the stonework ones, as well as the color and detail of the ones made of glazed tiles. Below:

• A panel celebrating Ashurbanipal’s conquest of Egypt.
• One chunk of a much larger panel from Darius’s palace in Persepolis. This shows one group of people after another coming to pay tribute to the Persian Emperor.
• A lion from Nebuchadnezzar II’s throne room in Babylon.
• A guard from Cyrus’s palace in Susa.

When we got to the (much smaller) medieval and modern Middle East collection, I was impressed (as always) by the beauty and mathematical precision of Arabic inscriptions and designs. As always, I found the mathematical instruments fascinating (anyone have a clue how to use an astrolabe?). I also found the last item shown here particularly interesting. It’s a pen box from Iran c. 1250 CE that has both verses from the Qur’an as well as astrological symbols mixed together, showing that in some times and places Muslim beliefs have coexisted with other religious practices, much as some Christians also believe in astrology or other more “pagan” practices. I wish there’d been more to see in this section, but that’ll have to wait for some other museum someday…

The next time we went back, we discovered there was a whole separate Assyrian artifacts section, mostly dedicated to the kind of monumental stuff that wouldn’t have done too well upstairs (I don’t think the floors would collapse, but who knows?) where we had been the previous time. Jessica’s favorite part were the beards. I think she just wants me to bring back my crazy huge pandemic beard (see last summer’s posts).

The giant panels with incredibly detailed etchings and inscriptions of “protective spirits” from Nimrud (9th cent. BCE) were pretty spectacular as well.

But, I particularly loved the stellae that had insciptions in cuneiform covering every inch, layering over the larger images. Here’s close ups of two examples from the reign of Ashurnasipal II (9th cent. BCE). I love how one of them includes a translation of the beginning of the inscription: “I am important, I am magnificent,” before going on to discuss some bloody conquest.

There were also a bazillion panels dedicated to the lion hunt. Evidently this was an important pastime of Assyrian leaders, who used it to show their people that they could protect the kingdom. However, it turns out most of these “hunts” were in controlled environments with previously captured lions. So, they were controlling the lion population, but mostly by having their soldiers round them up for the slaughter. This example is from Nineveh (7th cent. BCE).

I also loved all the levels of detail in panels like this one from Nineveh about a conquest in Southern Iraq (7th cent. BCE).

But Jessica was sad. As we got further on in Assyrian history we found more and more unbearded soldiers. So disappointing, but I guess styles might change over a few centuries. (This particular image is from the same panel sequence above.)

There was only a small section (three little rooms) with artifacts from African cultures, but there was still quite a number of fascinating things there. There were some gorgeous statues, wooden carvings, a wall of scary looking knives, and more. Probably the most beautiful thing were the Caribbean “Moke Jumbie” costumes meant to be worn on stilts for a Trinidadian Carnival. I also particularly loved the story behind the cloth shown on the right. It was made in the 18th century from imported Chinese silk by Jewish weavers in Yemen on a special comission by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church. That’s some serious cross-cultural exchange.

Of course, it’s the British Museum, so we can’t ignore controversies there. One set of particularly questionable artifacts are the “Benin Bronzes.” These were created around 1600 for the palace in Benin and the largest collection of them was taken by Britain when they invaded Benin City in 1897. Some of these have been returned from other institutions recently (like Jesus College in Cambridge), but the British Museum steadfastly refuses to do so. Ugh.

Regardless of the controversy, though, I do have to say that they were absolutely gorgeous. There’s a huge wall of them, with each one displaying individualized characters. In that way, they reminded me of Chin Shihuagdi’s Terracottat Warriors in Xi’an. Like there, many of the figures on the Benin Bronzes are soldiers, but some of them seem to have their families with them, which is unique. It makes me curious if there’s any records of what went into the choices of what was displayed on them.

Another day, another visit to the museum (often on rainy days). We decided we had time to try to make it through the Greek collection. It’s pretty vast. There was some pretty interesting historical tidbits scattered about, but probably the most eye-catching bits at the beginning was the wide variety of pottery. I’ve always loved the red figure and black figure pottery of ancient Greece, but there were some pretty unique and uncusual bits here as well.

Elsewhere, we were overwhelmed by the size of some of the pieces that had been taken from Greece, like these two: The frieze from the Temple of Apollo at Bassae, and The Nereid Monument from Xanthos, both c. 400 BCE.

But, of course, the biggest and most controversial part is the huge chunks taken from the Parthenon. It’s too much to show here, but here’s a small taste. To give you a sense of scale, Jess posed next to the capital of a column, and the room shown is only half the room that contains the “Elgin Marbles.” It’s a lot.

Finally, on our last trip, we visited probably the most famous collection: artifacts from Egypt. The highlight was undoubtedly the Rosetta Stone. It’s just such a fascinating object, and as I said earlier, ancient inscriptions are something I’m always drawn to.

Elsewhere, there was tons of hieroglyphics on tombs, stellae, sarcophagi, papyrus, and more. Love it!

I also love me some cats. This one is pretty punk rock. It’s made of Bronze with silver jewelery. It’s not terribly old though–only from about 600 BCE.

There were, of course, some truly gigantic statues, like this one of Amenhotep III, and another of giant scarab beetle, also erected under Amenhotep III’s reign in Thebes (14th cent. BCE).

When we got upstairs, where the smaller artifacts are kept, we were met with the usual–a ton of sarcophagi, papyrus scrolls, canopic jars, and a ton of other tomb artifacts. One of the most interesting bits that stood out was some art rescured from the wall of a tomb of a minor official named Nebamun. Probably my favorite panels here show Nebamun viewing his geese and cattle. Gotta keep track of what you own, right?

Elsewhere, there was a gorgeous display of blue-glazed shabtis from Deir el-Bahri (c. 1000 BCE)…

…and a fascinating “snake game,” mehen, that I’d never heard of. Evidently it’s some sort of race, but I have no idea of the rules. This example comes from a first dynasty tomb, so it’s about 5000 years old.

So, yeah, controversies aside, the British Museum was a great place to spend an afternoon or five. But, it is worth considering if there’s a better way for Europeans (in particular, but North Americans and others as well) to relate with the people who these artifacts originally belonged to. I know it’s not a problem I can solve–I’m working on climate change, world peace, overthrowing the capitalist system, and establishing guaranteed minimum cat allowance for all Americans–but it is worth thinking about.