Ancient East and West

Over the last couple weeks I've slowly been working my way through the entire British Museum. The last two exhibits I went to were the sections on Egypt and Asia.

Although the Egypt exhibit is world renowned, I wasn't expecting a whole lot since it's usually swamped with tourists; I was pleasantly surprised though! The whole place had a feel of classic archaeological adventure -- you could totally imagine Indiana Jones or some pith-helmeted English explorer excavating the incredible artifacts now on display.

As with the rest of the museum, the sheer mass and quantity of items on display in the Egyptian collection was completely overwhelming. Everywhere you look, huge statues, tombs, replicas, and display cases tower overhead with artifacts so ancient it is completely mindblowing that they've survived this long.

One such object is the beard of the Great Sphinx of Giza, above. This hunk of rock is about half as tall as I am, and is still only a fraction of the entire piece.

Another highlight of the exhibit is the famous Rosetta Stone. I was really excited to see this, but unfortunately so were about 3 dozen other people all crowding around to take pictures. It was still absolutely amazing to realize I was standing in front of one of the most important archeological finds in history.

These are some actual hieroglyphs.

A statue of Rameses

A stone coffin

Close-up of the hieroglyphs on the coffin.

I hadn't realized this before, but apparently Cleopatra is on display in the British Museum. Kind of fun to see!

One of the most interesting sections was on the animal mummifications. I had always heard about the Egyptians mummifying their cats and dogs, but at the museum they also had mummified bulls, crocodiles, an ibis, and even a falcon.

A few days later, I went back to visit the Far East exhibit. This one is less popular than the Egypt section, but I also didn't find it quite as engaging. Although it definitely had some worldclass artifacts, I think I enjoyed the Asian exhibit at the British Library a few months ago a little more enjoyable.

Nonetheless, it was certainly a lot of fun. This was one of three statues of Buddha in different forms. There were mostly just a lot of display cases with small items telling pretty much the entire history of all the dynasties of China, across the room from similar displays on the history of India and Hinduism.

I thought this little statuette was particularly interesting, as I am very fond of the Ramayana story. It is a sculpture of Ravana, the evil 10-headed, 10-armed dude from the legend. I remember laughing when I first read the story and trying to imagine what he would look like... well, that's what he looks like!

This little cat also made me laugh for some reason. It looks terrified!

I have a lot more pictures from the galleries, but I also have a lot more to do today so I think I'll stop there. At this point I've seen most of the exhibits I was interested in seeing at the British Museum, although I may go back one more time to look at the Enlightenment gallery and a couple others. Right now though, I just need to focus on getting through this last week before I come home next Saturday. Can't wait!