Day 34: Making the Most of Our Last Day

I'm going to try to make this post as blurb-like as possible so I can finish packing at a reasonable hour.

Today was our last day in London and surprisingly probably the day Ethan and I spent the least time together.  After breakfast we headed to a harp showroom that Ethan had found near our hotel.  After seeming to be closed, we were able to sneak in and Ethan played on some pedal harps.  It was very beautiful and a special treat for me.

Ethan then headed to the archives of Lambeth Palace while I returned to the British Museum.  My goal was to essentially tackle the rest of the ancient rooms from Europe and the Middle East.  Part of this collection included massive gateways and friezes from Assyrian cities like Nimrud and Nineveh. The lamassu, an Assyrian protective deity with the head of a man, body of a lion, and wings, comes from Khorsabad.

This fragment depicting an Assyrian king hunting lions comes from the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh.  There walls and walls depicting these hunts, both from chariot, by bow, and by hand.  The reliefs even show courtiers watching the event.  Sadly, as many of you may know, Nineveh has fallen into the hands of ISIL, although so far seems to have escaped the fate of other sites like Nimrud or Hatra.  ISIL has threatened to destroy the city's ancient walls if the Iraqis attempt to liberate the city.

I moved from ancient Assyria to ancient Greece and the world of Hellenistic art.  This golden wreath, dating from between 350 and 300 BCE, show the wonderful talent of an ancient goldsmith.  Not only are the leaves done beautifully, the wreath is full of acorns, two cicadas, and even a bee.  Wreathes like this may have been used in religious ceremonies and this one may have been for a cult of Jupiter, as the oak was his tree.

This Roman copy of a Hellenistic sculpture depicts an extinct breed of dog, the Molossus.  The breed originated in the northern part of Greece, taking its name from the Molossian people.  It is believed to be the ancestor of today's Mastiff-type dogs, which are still sometimes called Molossus dogs.

I was then able to explore remains of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.  The portion of the frieze below depicts the Amazonomachy, the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons.  The frieze would have been about half way up the 148' monument.  The sheer scale of the remains were amazing, so it's hard to fathom what the original mausoleum would have looked like.

I went a bit back in time to earlier periods in Greece.  This large pottery vessel, probably a pithos used for storage, seems to be in the style of the Greek protogeometric period which was between 1050 and 900 BCE. 

I came to a room celebrating Athens and the power it rose to during the 5th century BCE.  Perikles, depicted below, not only solidified the power of the Athenian people, but also worked to make the most beautiful city in Greece.  This brought together some of the finest poets, playwrights, architects, etc.  They're crowning achievement was the Parthenon.

Much smaller, but beautiful in a completely different way, the Erechtheion sits in the shadow of the Parthenon.  The temple was constructed around 420 BCE and is most noted for its porch of caryatids.  The caryatids, which depict young women, act as support columns as part of the temple.

The British Museum has a wonderful collection of Greek pottery from throughout Greek history.  This red-figured kylix (wine cup) depicts a symposium scene, albeit with some interesting characters. Rather than an Athenian citizen and a female companion, the painting shows the god of the Underworld, Hades, with his wife Persephone.

I then made my way to Italy and the world of the Etruscans.  The sarcophagus below was made around 150 to 140 BCE for a wealthy woman named Seianti Hanunia Tiesnasa.  She is decadently dressed in brightly colored robes, bracelets, rings, earnings, a necklace, and a tiara.  She checks her appearance in small hand mirror.

Etruscan mirrors always hold a special place of interest to me after hearing my grandmother talk about studying them.  This bronze mirror depicts the hero Hercules, as shown by his signature club behind his head.

This large limestone sculpture comes from Cyprus, an ancient society I know next to nothing about.  It dates to the early 5th century and depicts a Cypriot priest in Greek- style robes.  The sculpture was found at the site of a temple dedicated to Apollo, but the sculpture predates the introduction of Apollo to the island.  Therefore the man in the sculpture must be a priest to an earlier deity.

I ventured into a bit more familiar territory in gallery about the Greeks in Italy.  This terra-cotta figurine from southern Italy shows two women playing with knucklebones (astragalos).  The game, which used the anklebones of sheep or goats or models made of terra-cotta, bronze, or other materials, is similar to jacks.  It involved throwing the knucklebones in the air and trying to catch them with one hand before they hit the ground.

I moved away from Greece and Italy and towards the ancient Middle East.  This famous piece, referred to as the "Ram in a Thicket," comes from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur.  The piece, which is one of a pair, is over 4,500 years old.  It also to be more precise (and less influenced by a passage in the Bible than the discoverer), the depiction is of a goat.  For those in the United States, the other sculpture is at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, so no transatlantic flight needed!

When I went into the gallery on ancient Iran, I was struck by how many of the pieces jumped out as things I have study over the past three years.  I believe this portion is a cast, but the Museum contains fragments from the Palace of Darius in Persepolis.  They have been reconstructed to show the triumph of the Persian Empire, which focuses on subjects from all over the empire bringing dedications to the king.  This panel however shows a lion attacking a bull and is mirrored on the other side.

The Egyptian rooms on the second floor of the Museum focused on death and afterlife.  As the collection of mummies is infamous at the British Museum, the rooms were packed.  It was quite impossible to move, take satisfactory pictures, or really enjoy artifacts.  However, I did manage to find some wonderful mummies from Roman Egypt.  Artemidorus died in the early 2nd century CE and was buried at Hawara.  The burial combines the Egyptian religion and gods with a Roman-style portrait and garb and a Greek name to create a Roman Egyptian.

The Egyptians will always be fascinating.  This was proven again when I was able to see the mummy of a cat up close and personal.  I guess in some way it's sweet?  (Also not just the Egyptians; yesterday I found a rather large funerary monument to a Roman's dog.)  Other animals mummified included a kitten, fish, an eel, a snake, and sacred bulls.

I ended my day in the museum by exploring a small gallery on Coptic Egypt.  The fragment of pottery below has lines from Psalms written out in Greek.  Sadly, Ethan was not there to translate the Koine for me.

After a long day, I managed to see every gallery I had wanted to (excluding the ones that were closed).  My feet were tired and my patience for large crowds had run out hours earlier, but I got to see so many amazing pieces of history.

Ethan and I reunited and had a quite last evening in London.  Now it's time to rest before our journey home tomorrow.

Fun Fact #34: In 2005, a little-known artist going by the name Banksy hung his own piece in the British Museum.  The piece, entitled "Early Man Goes To Market" and depicting a caveman with a shopping cart, hung in the gallery on Roman Britain for a few days before being removed.  I wonder how much that Banksy is worth now!  Maybe the British Museum would even purchase it now.

Day 33: Tackling the British Museum

Today Ethan and I spent our entire day at the British Museum.  In the morning I made a list of galleries I wanted to see.  The list was 44 galleries long.  Not exactly realistic, but I separated out the rooms that may contain research related items and we headed to the museum.  Five hours later and 1,220 pictures later, we headed out.  I had only seen a fraction of the things I had wanted to and it had been an exhausting day of fighting through crowds, but also a wonderful and exciting day.

As I took so many photos, it was impossible to go through them all before this post so I decided to do my highlights from the Roman Britain gallery.

Below is a rare gold body-chain from the Hoxne Hoard.  The Hoxne Hoard is a collection of 15,000 coins and precious pieces of jewelry and other items found in Hoxne, Suffolk.  The body-chain centers around an amethyst, with garnet decoration and what is believed to have been pearl decorations as well.

This 4th century wall painting with Christian imagery comes from a Roman villa in Lullingstone, Kent.  Shown here is a large ΧΡ, or chi-rho, symbol, which represent Jesus Christ with the first two letters of Christ in Greek.  There is also an alpha and omega, an appellation of Jesus in the Book of Revelation.  Other painted walls from the villa depict early Christian priests preaching and giving benediction.

This head of Jupiter would have had much more decoration in Roman times.  Where there seems to be a seem or an indented band would have been a separate wreath or diadem.  The eyes would have been filled with enamel to give a more lifelike appearance to the king of gods.

I'm surprised in such coin based societies, I haven't seen more piggy banks.  An example was found in England though, with a simple pot cut for coins to be put in and a few coins still inside.

This is thought to be the earliest depiction of Jesus Christ in Britain.  The mosaic was found in a complex at a villa in Hinton St. Mary, Dorset.  The images shown in the larger mosaics were not just Christian, but pull from Greek mythology as well.  The mosaics in the front room show Bellerophon fighting the Chimera, while the depictions around Jesus resemble the four wind gods.  However, it is theorized that the figures around Jesus are actually depicting four of the apostles and were executed by an artist unaware of the symbolism.  Either way it shows Christianity being depicted in mosaic in Britain by the mid-4th century CE.

Hercules was a popularly depicted deity in Britain.  The one below was found near Hadrian's Wall and may have been commissioned by soldiers.  If the sculpture was complete it would depict Hercules with a bow, shooting down the Stymphalian birds.

I've been really fascinated by any sort of everyday items I've come across, especially perishable ones like textiles or this bucket binding.  Made of twisted willow, this binding would have held oak pieces together to form a bucket.  It was thought to be used for a well.

The Ribchester Helmet was found in 1796 by a clog-maker's son as part of the Ribchester Hoard.  The hoard contained military paraphernalia, including pieces from cavalry sporting events, or hippika gymnasia.  The helmet below would have been used in such events and is a wonderful decorative piece.  The figures depicted show infantrymen and cavalrymen fighting.

This iron ingot, known as a pig, was found in Hints Common, Straffordshire, but originated from lead mines in north-eastern Wales (indicated by the DECEANG).  An inscription on top of the ingot declares it the property of emperor, Vespasian.

These two gold fibulae show how the upper echelons designed their brooches.  They follow the traditional crossbow design, but are done in higher quality gold.  Both date from the 4th century.

This collection of silver snake rings comes from a jeweler's hoard found in Norfolk and dating from the mid-2nd century CE.  The rings show how certain popular styles of jewelry were being mass produced in Roman Britain.  They jeweler also had a similar collection of gem-set rings and even more gems cut and ready to be put into new rings.  Other items included tools for carving and finishing jewelry and older silver coins that were being used as scrap metal.

This is a very early example of a letterhead.  The 2nd or 3rd century wooden writing tablet from London has the official stamp of the imperial procurators in Britain.  These officials represented the imperial interests in the province, including tax management and government expenditure.

Possibly the most exciting thing I saw all day was a selection of the Vidolanda Tablets.  The tablets, originating from a Roman fort just south of Hadrian's Wall, contain discussions of military matters, personal messages, communications between families, and other bits and pieces of everyday life in the northern most parts of Roman Britain.  The tablet is a letter between brothers discussing business ventures.  There's a theory that the author was left-handed.

I saw probably thousands of other objects today and it wasn't enough.  I ensured to go to all my research related rooms today, but missed many other sections that I wanted to see.  I'm headed back to the British Museum to explore more tomorrow while Ethan does some research at Lambeth Palace.  I think tomorrow still won't be enough, but at some point I'll be come oversaturated with their amazing collection!

Fun Fact #33: Before the discovery of the Vindolanda Tablets scholars were not sure how the Romans in Britain referred to native peoples.  The tablets give Brittunculi, meaning little Britons, as a derogatory and patronizing term for native peoples.  However, this may have been particular to the Romans in the northern part of Britain or for the tribes in the northern area.

Day 32: Finding Roman London

Today was a busy day and it's late here, so I apologize because this post is not going to be what it deserves.

This morning Ethan and I decided to go see St. Paul's Cathedral.  We had decided not to go in because of the cost, but to walk around and see the exterior.  We wandered around the massive cathedral, taking in the 365' dome.  Outside the front entrance of the church, stands a statue of Queen Anne, the first Queen of Great Britain.

St. Paul's was an important image of British resilience in the face of the German attacks during World War II.  The cathedral was struck with three bombs, two which detonated and caused damage, but not enough severely harm the building.  The third bomb was successfully defused and removed.  A famous image of St. Paul's surrounded by the smoke of London on fire became a rallying image for the British, and the world, against the German Blitz.

We then headed to Southwark Cathedral, where Ethan was meeting with dean of the cathedral.  We also wanted to visit as the cathedral was where Ethan's priest and mentor had been ordained (plus the cathedral has plenty of history).  The cathedral sits in the parish nearest to the Globe Theater, so it has strong connections to William Shakespeare and his troop.  His brother is even buried there.

While we were in the church, Ethan attended a morning prayer service in the Harvard Chapel.  The Harvard Chapel is named for John Harvard, the benefactor whose gift changed the name of New College to Harvard College in 1639.  John Harvard was baptized in the Southwark Cathedral.

After lunch Ethan headed to his meeting and I started my tour of Roman London.  I decided to walk to a wall section at Tower Hill from Southwark Cathedral.  My route took me across Tower Bridge, which gave me a great view of two of London's newest buildings.  The lower building is the City Hall of London, built in 2002 and known as the "Armadillo" (or some more vulgar options), and the taller is the Shard, built in 2012.  They certainly add flair into the London skyline.

I then made my way back to the Tower of London and went up the hill behind it.  It provided a new perspective of the fortress, and one I think that most tourists miss.  I think from this angle it becomes more clear how over time pieces were added to the fortress.

Just above the Tower of London is a remnant of the Roman city walls.  The walls would have stood over 20' high and had a sentry's walk.  There's also evidence that they had tours built in intervals around the wall.  The current remains were adapted in the medieval times, but the use of Roman bricks can still be seen lower down.

I tried to follow the London Wall Walk from the Tower of London to the Museum of London, which houses much of the Roman archaeology of the city, but failed.  I think construction blocked the route, but I soon got lost and decided to head more directly to the museum.  The one advantage of this is the route took me right by yet another of London's newest skyscrapers.  30 St. Mary Axe, better known as the Gherkin, was completed in 2003 and opened the following year.  I tend to think it looks more like a pinecone than a pickle.

After a solid day of walking, I made it to the Museum of London.  I began my tour in the earliest periods of London's history.  One of the highlights of the collection is the skull of an aurochs, a wild ox that stood around 6' tall and thought to have inhabited Britain between 245,000-186,000 BCE.

Skipping ahead many thousands of years, these stone mace-heads from c. 2500 BCE were probably a marker of status and authority.  The rare marbled stone would have made them rarer, therefore representing leadership.

These coins come from the Sunbury Hoard, which dates between 100 and 50 BCE.  The image on the left depicts a "highly stylized" Apollo and a butting bull.  This is particularly interesting as Julius Caesar first invaded Britain in 55/54 BCE.  These coins, if interpreted correctly, show that Mediterranean powers had been trading with the British natives before Caesar's invasion. 

I made my way into the Roman section, which followed the history of Londinium from beginning to end.  A moment of London's Roman history that has always fascinated me is the destruction in the 60s CE at the hands of Boudicca.  As the Roman governor was campaigning against the Druids in northern Wales, Boudicca, queen of the Icenii, ravaged southeastern England.  She burned both London and St. Albans.  Eventually, when he had hurried back, the Roman governor was able to subdue the uprising.  The skull below, found in Walbrook Stream, is believed to be a victim of Boudicca's devastation.

A temple to Mithras, a Persian god beloved by the Roman army, was found in London in 1954.  The site has had a deal of controversy, with all the remains being moved and then being rebuilt inaccurately.  The Mithraeum is now currently being worked on and restored in a more accurate manner, which sadly makes it unaccessible.  Luckily for me, some of the pieces of the Mithraeum are in the Museum of London.

There is evidence that around 350 BCE the Mithraeum was rededicated to Bacchus.  Some sculptures, like the one below, were re-carved to depict Bacchus, when they had originally shown Mithras.

I could go on for a long time about what I saw in the Roman section of the Museum of London, but sadly, it is late and I'm still trying to process it all!

Ethan met me at the museum and managed to look at basically the whole collection in the time it took me to go through about half of the Roman section.  After I finally finished, I had him show me some of his highlights from the other parts of the museum.  One of the first ones he showed me as this century old model of the old St. Paul's.  The St. Paul's depicted was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

We also saw an early printed book containing the Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder.  I think the illustrations certainly helped readers understand the massive tome, which covers topics ranging from astronomy to zoology to mining to painting.

Another favorite piece of mine was fragments of broken stained glass windows, smashed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  This has really become a theme of my trip, with all the churches I've seen.  The fractured glass and bent metal really captured the destruction the Dissolution caused for me.

I'm sorry I can't capture this day to the fullest.  It was really wonderful to explore Roman London in the Museum of London (although I did have questions about their collection and use of replication).  Certainly showed me a lot about the Roman side of a wonderful city!

Fun Fact #32: Going of yesterday's sidetone, today I stumbled upon this list of plants that were introduced (or attempted to be introduced) to London by the Romans:

Cherry

Cucumber

Fig

Grape

Mulberry

Pea

Walnut

Apple

Pear

Hazel

Plum

Lentil

Quince

Olive

Stone Pine

Peach

Coriander

Rue

Dill

Summer Savory

Fennel

Day 31: Dusting Off Old Books

This morning Ethan headed to Kensington for another meeting and I stuck around to plan my visits to Roman sites in London.  I then went to meet with Ethan and take a stroll through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park.  As Ethan pointed out, if only we'd had this weather when visiting the palace a few days ago.

The weather was warm, but breezy as we walked around the Round Pond and headed through the gardens.  We followed tree-lined paths to the Long Water, the portion of a serpentine lake in Kensington.

At the end of the Long Water, there is the Italian Garden, consisting of an Italianate building and a terrace with four fountains and flowering ponds.  The garden was a present from Prince Albert to his wife, Queen Victoria.  The walls are decorated with Vs and As.

The garden fell into disrepair and was most recently restored in 1991 and 2011.  Work was done to repair damage to the structure, the stonework, and the ponds themselves.  My favorite addition to the garden was little wooden ramps to ponds to help ducks and ducklings safely get in and out.  The renovation was greatly helped by a grant from Tiffany & Co.

We followed the Serpentine Lake into Hyde Park and watched tourists boating around on the water.  Although I've talked about seeing swans before, Ethan and I were both commenting on the wide variety of birds we've seen in London.  At any one time, in Hyde Park, we could see eight or nine different species of birds.  Many were introduced as gifts or representative specials from around the United Kingdom.

We took the tube from Hyde Park to St. Pancras and King's Cross so we could return to the British Library.  The station was originally slotted for destruction in the 1960s, but was saved and painstakingly restored between 2001 and 2007.  The station now serves domestic trains, but also international ones via the Chunnel.  When we were in the station yesterday we saw trains headed to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam.

The train station opened in 1868 and around the same time a massive hotel was built as an attachment to the station.  The Midland Grand Hotel had 300 rooms, each with gold leaf decorations and fireplaces, a grand staircase, hydraulic lifts, and many other top of the line features.  The hotel went out of business in 1935 and was used as railway offices.  After the 1980s, when the building failed safety regulations, it was left empty.

In 2011, the building reopened as the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel.  The renovations began in 2004, during the revamp of the train station.  The new hotel contains 244 rooms, 2 restaurants, 2 bars, a health and leisure center, a ball room, 20 meeting and function rooms, and on the upper floors of the original building, 68 apartments.

Ethan and I grabbed lunch and then returned to the British Library.  This time we had collected our proper documents and were able to register to use the reading rooms and collections.  We both looked into manuscripts relating to our research.  I was able to find a 17th century manuscript of Tacitus's De Vita et Moribus Iulii Agricolae, which follows the life of the man credited with Romanizing Britain.

The manuscript was quite simple: no cover, simple paper, and written in a brown ink.  The entirety of the book was copied out on 36 pages, although text was only written on the lefthand side of pages and only on on the left page.  (Please excuse the quality of the next three photos.  I was unable to use my camera in the reading room and my phone's camera has damage to the lens, leaving big black dots in all the images.)

I think this may suggest that the righthand sides of the pages were being reserved for the owner's thoughts and commentary, but I may be wrong.  The manuscript came from a larger collection, referred to as the Trumbull Papers, and I did not learn much about the larger collection.  From what I could tell, the collection held a diverse collection of works and topics, so I'm not sure how Tacitus fit in.

Flipping through the pages, it was entertaining to catch the mistakes the scribe had made in copying out the text.  Words were crossed out, added via carets, and squeezed in when forgotten.  I even found one of the most classic scribal errors, which I believe is called a homeoteleuton.  In the photo below, the word habebatur is crossed out and replaced by the correct word narrabatur.  In the line above the word habebat appears and in the copying process, the scribe certainly skipped back a line and brought the earlier habebat below.  Luckily, the mistake was caught and the meaning of the sentence wasn't changed in a very confusing way.

We didn't have as much time with our manuscripts as we would have liked, as the reading room closed at 5pm, but we left the library happy.  We decided to head to the infamous Fleet Street for some meat pies.  Ethan, who loves Sweeney Todd, had found a pie shop located between the supposed location of Todd's barbershop and Mrs. Lovett's pie shop.  Ethan went for a pie and beer tasting dinner, which came with three of the restaurant's most popular pies and paired them with three different beers.  I had a lamb pie with a red wine, rosemary, and mint sauce and a cider.

Overall, it was a successful day, filled with research, wandering, and good food.

Fun Fact #31: Meat pies have origins 11,500 years ago in the Neolithic Age.  They were introduced to the Mediterranean by the Egyptians and were adapted by the Greeks.  They then reached the British Isles through the Romans.  So the Brits have the Romans to thank for one of their favorite national meals.

On the flip side, they also have the Romans to thank for the introduction of stinging nettles, so it's not all great.