London Day Seven
How on earth did they get all that stuff? That’s the question I kept (and keep) asking myself while we were at The British Museum. We started with a quick breakfast at McD’s and then sped off to the museum with the intention of spending most of the day wandering around.
Karin and I both wanted to see the mummies, but we stayed our pace and slowly winded our way through the museum. We began with Egyptian and Greek artifacts, slowly tracing through time as we moved among the cases. Row after row of artifacts, beautifully preserved and documented, in quantities that amazed me.
How did they come to have such a big collection?
At the end of the first floor galleries, you arrive in a reconstruction of the Acropolis. Sort of. There are marble carved paintings displayed around the entire interior of the rooms. I kept thinking “Why aren’t these in Greece?”
Don’t get me wrong, I was fascinated to see them. But I don’t understand why they are here.
By this time we were ready for lunch, so we set out to the small square opposite the museum and ducked into a tiny café for quiche, salad, and slices of apple tart with rich hot coffee. All completely satisfying and energizing for the rest of the day ahead.
We returned to the museum. Making our way up the stairs, we moved into the thickest crowds. You could hear cameras beeping and see flash bulbs popping off here and there. Ignorant fools. You shouldn’t use flash bulbs on three thousand year old artifacts. Thankfully everything is encased in glass, so some of the harm is mitigated.
Of course, we were in the section of Egyptian artifacts where mummies and sarcophagi are on display. Many of them were breathtaking in both color and size. But I had a nagging feeling that it just seemed plain wrong that they were here and not back in Egypt. Did they get here by legal means? Were they gifts? Why, why, why? I couldn’t shake a small twinge of guilt.
We moved on to some extraordinary collections of jade artifacts which led us into the Chinese exhibit. Beautiful, priceless, but the same feeling of guilt.
I understand paintings. I understand that there are auctions and bidding wars and secret contracts to move the art around from museum to museum. But paintings in general aren’t three-thousand year old artifacts.
What I don’t understand is how things like the ancient Chinese, Greek, and Egyptian art, presumably national treasures, aren’t returned to their native lands. It’s a little shocking.
We saw Japanese art:
and Korean, plus more works from other far flung lands. Five hours later, as we were leaving, I was pleased to have seen the collections. But still, I can’t shake the odd feeling of seeing so much of the world in such large quantities stored here in London. Just an odd feeling.
For some reason, we decided to head to Harrods. There were throngs of people outside protesting fur, but we made our way through and into the shop. It was madness, including the Diana memorial. Here are the pictures…
By now we’d been on our feet nearly seven hours. We decided to call it an early night and find some food close to the hotel. We settled on a place called Nandos for grilled chicken. After inhaling a half-chicken with chips and cole slaw, I was ready for bed and an early Sunday in the office.