British Museum: Near Eastern and Egyptian Day

The British Museum

London's reputation for rain did not let us down today. I experienced this first-hand quite early in the morning. As an-almost-52-year-old battling to keep later middle age at bay, I am somewhat of a compulsive exerciser. Of course I am rather compulsive generally, this is just one of those rare examples of my trying to use my powers for good. Early morning runs are a good way of battling jet lag, and, besides, I find it a good way to cover a lot of ground, seeing a lot of the city on foot.

Of course, today I had another motivation: I knew that later that morning I would be leading 24 students pied-piper fashion on a 25-minute forced walk from our hostel to the British Museum. And there are few things more humiliating than letting down a group of students who think you know everything by making a wrong turn.

This picture reveals that my assistant, Jake Inman, arrived...just 5 minutes after breakfast started and not much more than a half hour before we left for the museum.

 So after our morning breakfast in the dungeon of our hostel (more on that later), we set out on our parade of ducklings through the wet streets of London. Oh, apparently I walk a little fast for such a parade.

I was tempted to have them sing, "I'm singing in the rain," as we marched, but I resisted---too much jet lag and too early in the trip.

In the Great Victoria Court

As soon as we entered at the back, group entrance, I gave the students some orientation, explaining how our museum groups would work and how to complete their artifact checklists. We then went into the now-covered Great Victoria Court, where we took this picture in front of the Lion of Knidos.


Near Eastern and Egyptian Galleries
 
Here we also met my colleague, Kerry Muhlestein, who was in town and happy to give them some additional background on the Egyptian exhibit. We then broke into our groups and spent the next three and a half hours in the Near Eastern (Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian) galleries and the Egyptian galleries, which are marked dark blue and red in the map below.

I will not even attempt to include even more than a fraction of the artifacts that we saw and discussed today. What follows is simply a representative selection.

Sumeria

Public domain image. Wikimedia Commons.

Sumerian jewelry. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Headdress of a queen or her attendant. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Jewelry and scalp (!). Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Sumerian musical instruments. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Assyria

 

Public domain image. Wikimedia Commons.

  

Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Detail of King Jehu of Israel kneeling before the Assyrian king. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Scene from the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Scenes of Assyrian torture (people being flayed) from the Lachish Reliefs. Lachish was a fortress-city of Judah destroyed by the Assyrians. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Impalings at Lachish. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Assyrians were not always cruel. Their art included scenes from every day life and religious imagery. And Ashurbanipal (the lion hunt guy above) collected the largest library prior to Alexandria.

Artist's depiction of what an Assyrian palace and its reliefs would have looked like. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only. Okay, I admit it . . . I got distracted and forgot to take many pictures in this section!

Babylon (various periods)

 

 

Queen of the Night, Babylonian moon goddess. Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Public domain image. Wikimedia Commons.

All right, I admit it. I did not take many pictures in this section! But I looked at everything . . .




Egypt (various periods)

Egypt in the New Kingdom. Public domain image. Wikimedia Commons.

 

Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only

Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only

Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only

Wait a minute Dr. H., are you running out of steam? Are you posting fewer pictures with virtually no captions? Yep. It's the middle of the night here and I have had a really long day. But I wanted to give you a feel of what our "museum tour" is like. I probably will not be able to keep up even this level of detail in subsequent days. The spirit is willing . . . just sayin'.

But I must post this picture of a truly iconic artifact, the Rosetta Stone, the trilingual inscription which allowed scholars to translate hieroglyphics. It was the best picture I could get . . . there are almost always huge crowds around it, and the glad causes pretty bad glare. But when there was an opening, I snapped this pic.

Photo © Eric Huntsman, taken courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum for educational purposes only.

Oh yes, we are in London . . .

"But wait a minute, Hunts. Aren't you on a study abroad in Europe?" Well, yes, but remember that the primary academic focus of our trip is the Ancient Near Eastern and Classical Worlds. But at 2:00, we turned everyone loose to see the town.

First, I took a smaller group to Buckingham Palace and then a still smaller group to Westminster Abbey.

We strolled over to Parliament, after which we returned to the abbey for evensong.

I was pleased to see that over half of my group had taken my advice and come for the service. This is an England tradition of mine . . . I love the Anglican choral and liturgical tradition, but it seemed particularly moving to me given recent terrorist attacks here in the U.K.

Of this evening's experience, I posted the following on social media:

Organ echoing off of old stone walls. Late light streaming through stained glass. Ancient chants, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. Lessons in the Queen's English. Woven harmonies, beautifully sung. Prayers offered together. Evensong at Westminster Abbey. #BabylontoBerlin #BYUAbroad #HighChurchMormon — at Westminster Abbey.