the British Museum

Last Friday Pat took the day off and we headed down to London for the day. We had tickets for the Terracotta Warrior Exhibit and felt lucky to have them. When I bought the tickets a couple of months ago, all of the weekends were already gone for the entire duration of the show and the weekdays were starting to go fast. We learned that tickets are all but sold out now and they are now keeping the exhibit open until midnight due to the demand.

There are a couple of reasons this show is so special. As the Times Online states, after "...years of diplomacy and planning, this exhibition represents the biggest display of terracotta warriors yet to be lent outside China." I think that the British Museum display is particularly good because you can get so close. It's also dramatically lit to draw out all of the incredible surface detail. In China, you view the warriors in mass from the top of the excavation pits and are never really able to appreciate the details. Besides, I'm not really interested in ever trekking to the middle of China. A two-hour train ride and a walk in the rain to a museum suits me just fine.

The exhibit consisted of a sampling of Generals, Archers, Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Chariots and Charioteers, Calvary, Horses, a Stable Boy, Civil Officials, Acrobats, a Strong Man, Musicians and Birds. They were once vividly painted and you can see traces of color on some. Now the good stuff. There was a strict no photography policy so these are scanned from a souvenir book.

Heavy Infantryman


Detail of a General


Detail of an Archer's Shoe Tread


Detail of one of many intricate hair styles


After touring the exhibit, we headed out into the rest of the museum. I'm not sure how I feel about the British Museum. Pat and I have had a discussion or two. I feel that they have stolen things around the world as part of their conquests and brought them home. Pat feels that they were protecting valuable cultural aspects in a way that the countries themselves could not. I agree, but why don't they give it back now? Many of those countries are more than capable of taking care of their own stuff now. Either way, it's a free museum with a whole lot of the world's stuff that just happens to be convenient for us to visit. So we did.

Ironically we've been to some of these places before, but had to come to the British Museum to see the real thing.

An extensive and impressive Egyptian collection


...including lots of mummies


The Rosetta Stone


Sculptures from the Athenian Parthenon pediment and frieze shown in a room the same size as the real building


The Assyrian Gates


Scary throwing knives from Africa


An inlaid Aztec double-headed serpent


A Samurai suit of armor


A statue from Easter Island


In the small "Americas" section, they even had a case with a display about the Hopewell Indians in Ohio featuring some artifacts and a picture of Serpent Mound.

Whew. Complete information overload and officially the longest time we have ever spent in a museum together. We ended the night with a photo-op next to a piece of modern history.

Platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame at London King's Cross Train Station