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 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.

Day 30: Getting Rained on in St. Albans

Today we had a stressful day, but a pretty successful one.  Ethan had a meeting the the Dean of St. Albans Cathedral and Abbey and I was tagging along to see the church and explore the Roman city of Verulamium.  Sadly, we had issues finding the right train station to get to St. Albans and then more issues with tickets.  After spending far too much time on the tube, we got on the train on a very rainy day and headed to St. Albans.

We went to the cathedral-abbey first and explored a very amazing church.  With Norman and Saxon origins, the church grew into a massive abbey complex and then dwindled again after the Dissolution.  It was revived and is now the thriving cathedral of the diocese.  The church is named for St. Alban, a 3rd century martyr who was a Roman citizen in the local town.  He was martyred for converting to Christianity and sheltering a priest.  His cult probably began around the middle of the 5th century and there is a shrine that holds relics of the saint in the cathedral.

St. Alban is depicted in the new nave screen, which depicts seven martyrs.  Four are locals: St. Alban, St. Amphibalus, George Tankerfield, and Alban Roe.  They range in period from the 3rd century to the 17th.  The other three are St. Elizabeth Romano, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Oscar Romero.  All three come from the 20th century and are meant to remember the sacrifices still made for the church.  Together, they represent early Christianity, Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism.

The cathedral has centuries of history, most of which I learned from Ethan after his talk with the dean.  The Lady Chapel, pictured below, was for a long period separated from the rest of the church.  There was quite literally a road running between the church and the chapel building.  The chapel was used as the local grammar school before being reincorporated to the cathedral.

The Wallingford Screen was built in the late 15th century but was devastated by the Dissolution.  Every statue in the screen was torn down and destroyed.  In the 19th century, the cathedral went through major restoration and renovation.  The two main benefactors disagreed on how the screen should look.  One felt that it should be restored into its original state and the other wanted to go more modern (and more egocentric) with just a silhouette of himself and Queen Victoria.  Apparently the conflict went all the way to the House of Lords, and luckily (in our opinion) the more traditional restoration won out.

The abbey greatly benefited in the 12th century when an Englishman was elected Pope.  Nicholas Breakspear, better known as Adrian IV, had been educated at the Abbey School of St. Albans and his selection as Pope increase interest in St. Albans as a pilgrimage.

After the church visit, I headed to the Verulamium Museum and site while Ethan met with the Dean.  I first headed to the theater at Verulamium.  Unlike the other theaters I've seen this trip, it is a true theater, not amphitheater.  The first theater at the site was built around 140 CE and was enlarged in 160 CE.  The theater could fit 7,000 people and featured columns 5.8 meters tall on the stage.  The theater eventually fell out of disuse, even before the Roman occupation ended.  It's unclear why it was no longer used.

Around the theater were the local shops and a few homes.  One third century villa contained an underground shrine, possibly suggesting that Christianity had forced pagan rituals into private settings.  Although, it may have just been a private shrine and that might be too much of an attachment.

Below is a pendant with a triskele, which is a design featured in cultures around the world.  It was particularly important in Celtic culture and art.  I'm curious how this was influenced by the Roman occupation and vice versa.

The gold ring below has a depiction of an ear of wheat.  The native Catavellauni tribe had a culture dominated by farming and it seems that the Romans continued the tradition.  Along with the ring, there were also depictions of Ceres, the goddess of the harvest and crops.

Below is a variation on the classic pennanular brooch.  The pair of silver brooches were connected by a thin chain.  I'm unsure if this would have been done to hold a cloak or just as a decorative statement.  Either way it seems like a fairly unique and beautiful piece.

There were many burials around Verulamium, fitting for a large Roman city.  They varied in their use of inhumation and cremation.  Some of the burials were in ornate lead coffins and others were in more simple stone ones.  One very interesting find was this Septimius Severus coin found in a child's grave.  The coin, shown with the child's teeth, was placed in the mouth of the child for burial and the copper in the coin turned the teeth a bluish-green color.  The coin probably dates the child's death to around 210 CE.

The depiction of Venus below, done in bronze, was originally depicted holding a golden apple.  The golden apple was won by Venus in the judgment of Paris, when she bribed him with the love of the most beautiful woman, Helen.  And we all know how that ended.  As a decline of Roman religion in Verulamium, the statue was found in what is believed to be a scrap pile in the workshop of a metalworker.

Verulamium had a unique triangular temple at a major intersection of roads.  The temple was dedicated to Cybele, an Anatolian goddess imported to Rome, and her consort, Attis.  The ceremonies dedicated to the gods involved the sacrifice of an ox, pine cones, palm leaves, and ceremonial pottery, all of which were found in the site of the temple.  The skull off an ox is shown below.

From the museum I went into Verulamium Park, which contains some more Roman artifacts.  Sadly, I was only able to peak at a large mosaic since the building had been closed for the day.  I did get to walk along portions of the city walls and see the foundation of a massive gateway.  The walls were a later addition, being added towards the end of the 3rd century.  Unlike most sites I have been to, the military presence in Verulamium was much smaller and the site was never really a fort.

I headed back towards the abbey through the park to meet Ethan in the rainy weather.  Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, as I arrived back at the abbey, Ethan headed to the museum to find me.

I took a few more minutes to walk around the abbey before Ethan and I reunited.  We eventually found each other and headed back to the train station.  By the time we were back to London, we were wet, hot, sweaty, and ready for a break.  Though the day was successful, the travel logistics were messy and the rain dampened both our hair and our moods.  But with a little rest, we were able to rally for dinner and a quiet evening.

Fun Fact #30: There were several breeds of Roman dogs at Verulamium, shown by the various dog skeletons found at the site.  Romans had three divisions for different types of dogs, villatici or house dogs, venatici or sporting dogs, and pastorales or shepherds' dogs.  The villatici could be small lap dogs and the sporting dogs were divided into further categories: fighting (pugnacious) and hunting (celeres, sagaces).