web analytics

I want one!

So we went into London to visit the British Museum on Friday. Friday is their late opening day; you can wander the galleries until 8:30. We hadn’t been in so long, this was our first chance to see the new atrium — a big ol’ glassed in Great Court that opened in 2000 (wow, has it really been that long?).

Uncle B is particularly fond of the Assyrian and Egyptian parts. The BM’s collection is outstanding and many of the exhibits are like old friends. Also, his awesome new camera. Me, I tend to head to the Viking and Anglo Saxon section, because racism.

We declined their special exhibit on the Ming Dynasty (£16.50). But I would’ve liked to have spent some time in the Far Eastern galleries. They’ve got a very good print of Under the Wave I’d like to see in person. Truth is, late hours or not, we just ran out of steam.

Do you ever get Museum Brain?

Oh, the sinister object in the picture was one of the best things I don’t remember seeing before. It’s big and iron and surely must be very heavy. The label on it says:

This iron rod from a woman’s grave in Norway may have been used in pagan magical practices. It resembles similar rods found in burials of women who may have been sorceresses (völur in Old Norse). The rituals involving such staffs are mysterious, but they may have included divination and the control of others. This staff was deliberately bent before burial, an act perhaps thought to remove its power.

Cooool.

Comments


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: September 29, 2014, 9:27 pm

Oh I can imagine several stories to go with that Iron Rod. Why couldn’t they have left a note?

Just exactly where was this artifact found? Oh my, I hear the rustling of a Lovecraft story; seems to be coming from the basement.

Let me go check


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: September 29, 2014, 10:09 pm

Oh, SO MANY POLITICIANS ASSES i would like to stick that into. RED HOT..


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 29, 2014, 10:14 pm

I kept thinking of the seller of lightning rods…


Comment from Feynmangroupie
Time: September 29, 2014, 11:54 pm

I have an old cardboard cover print with black & white photos of the Assyrian collection at the British Museum. I absolutely love the Assyrians and Babylonians. It kills me that those precious remains of past civilizations are threatened by the current flavor of barbarism. I’ve met a couple of Iranian immigrants and we always bond over our mutual admiration for their ancient ancestors.


Comment from Armybrat
Time: September 30, 2014, 12:13 am

Hubby and I spent 2 days wandering the British Museum when we were in London a couple of years ago. I could sped weeks more there! I remember going when I was a kid..fantastic way to spend a rainy day!


Comment from Frit
Time: September 30, 2014, 1:01 am

Went to the Smithsonian Museum a few times when I lived in Maryland. Would usually take in the Space, Natural History, and Geology buildings….then had to leave. As a friend put it the one time he got to go with me; “I’ve overloaded on awe and wonder. God himself could show up and I wouldn’t be impressed right now.”
🙂


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: September 30, 2014, 2:39 am

It kills me that those precious remains of past civilizations are threatened by the current flavor of barbarism.

Not threatened, so much as being actively destroyed.

Also, I think those archaeologists are over-thinking things. It’s more likely she was a simple farm wife who bent that over one of her intractable children’s heads. It was kept as a warning to other stubborn little shits, but by tradition had to be buried with the hero.


Comment from mojo
Time: September 30, 2014, 3:40 am

Ah, the Attitude Alignment Tool!


Comment from Nina
Time: September 30, 2014, 5:18 am

It looks like a rapier-type sword to me.


Comment from Raspberry Ketone Max Reviews
Time: September 30, 2014, 8:06 am

This is the right blog for anyone who hopes to find out about this topic.
You understand a whole lot its almost tough to argue with you (not that I actually would want
to…HaHa). You certainly put a brand new spin on a topic
that’s been written about for many years. Wonderful stuff, just excellent!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2014, 7:04 pm

Silly spammer, I have shorn thee of thy links. For I too am a sorceress!

Frit, in my twenties, I did the Smithsonian every year for several years. Drive down, get a cheap motel room (shit, that could be scary in DC) and spend my days wandering museums until my brain throbbed and my feet couldn’t take anymore.

It was wonderful.


Comment from Bikeboy
Time: September 30, 2014, 8:49 pm

Having visited the British Museum once, in a previous century, I can TOTALLY understand how a visitor could get “museum brain”! We were limited to 3 hours or so when we visited, and I left feeling we had barely scratched the surface… almost literally running through some of the galleries so as to “see it all.” I’d like to go back and spend 3 days, or maybe 3 weeks, pacing myself to avoid Museum Brain.


Comment from Frit
Time: October 1, 2014, 2:09 am

Stoaty, I envy you! I was only in MD for a few years, and had to take the metro to-n-from the Smithsonian. (I was also in my 20s at the time – around 1985-ish.) I dearly loved the times I was able to go! 🙂

Write a comment

(as if I cared)

(yeah. I'm going to write)

(oooo! you have a website?)


Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.


<< carry me back to ol' virginny