Qype: British Museum in London

London – Arts & Entertainment – Museums

With it’s neo classic pillars and enormous central ampitheatre, the building is almost more exciting (especially to us Londoners livng in tiny one bed flats!) than the collection itself.
There is a little something for everyone here – which is lucky because being free – there are lot’s of everybodies.
Post colonial and modernist displays are given more than lip service although really everyone is here to see the great trophies of empire. The pock marked Elgan Marbles (er sorry – that’s the Pantheon Colletion in museum jargon) is impressively ensconced in a light filled hall, but such is the quality and extent of the early civilizations and classic collection that it fails to stand out from the pack. (Read – I think the British Museum would be no worse without it and Athens greatly enriched)
The item of greatest interest to me was one that I walked past several times – I didn’t see it because it was surrounded by tourists bumbing and jostling and taking photo’s as if they’d just cornered David Beckham – that item being the Rosetta stone.
I nudged my way in and stared at it for a few minutes until the crowds and there flash photography drove me away (Why do they need to photograph everything??? They are never going to look at it again – bring back film! At least that was self limiting..)
The Rosetta stone is amazing, and I guess I can’t expect to have it to myself. It is beautiful, with delicate handcrafted symbols on smooth black rock and rough jagged edges. But the story it tells of mstery revealed when lost ancient languages converge with the known, is simply icecream for the imagination.

Check out my review of British Museum – I am gotiges7 – on Qype