The Wonders of the World

I love the jaw-dropping magnitude of the British Museum's holdings. They're truly stunning in quantity and quality. When I first walked into the museum's galleries last Saturday (14 Nov.) in search of the Elgin Marbles, I walked smack into the camera-armed hoards surrounding the Rosetta Stone. My direct route to the Marbles took me through three more rooms, which included the entryway from an Assyrian palace (with two colossal statues and, in galleries through the entryway, multiple complete rooms of wall carvings) and a complete monument lifted from Greece.

There's no way that the British museum can be 'done' in a day--or, for that matter, a weekend. I returned on Sunday to look at a sample of the recently discovered Staffordshire Hoard, a the largest single collection of Anglo-Saxon gold discovered to date, on temporary display in the museum. The small sample of the hoard was amazing to look at; the two cases had artifacts caked with dirt, clearly waiting with the rest of the hoard for detailed conservation and research work. The patina of dirt, however, only added to my appreciation of what was on display. While the majority of the collections in the museum are painstakingly preserved and often mounted with awe-inspiring recreations of the original objects, the Staffordshire Hoard invited imagination. My photos came out with unfortunate glare, so take a look at the hoard (and read up a bit on it, if you like) on the official website devoted to the hoard here: http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/

I spent the better part of my Sunday in the museum but still barely scratched the surface of the collections--and that's just what's on display! Here are few of my personal favorites (discounting the 'big' items like a copy of the epic of Gilgamesh and rooms full of mummies):

• An automaton clock, the centerpiece of the two galleries of clocks and timepieces, that was used to announce dinner. Although it is no longer working, the mechanism of the clock, at one time, animated the complete crew of the clock and a small organ that would play music to accompany the figures marching about on the deck! Slightly less-photogenic favorites from the same gallery included a novelty clock that used a rolling ball as its regulator (instead of the more common pendulum, hanging weights or spring escapement) and a mechanical alarm clock in the shape of a book.
  
  
• Next to all the legalistic documents in cuneiform was this little wonder, a recipe for red ink that dates from 1400-1200BC with an older date in the text that was included to give the ink recipe more authority!
  
• This recreation of a Sumerian woman's burial headdress reminded me of the 'traveling crown' Mom and I saw this past summer at the Met's special exhibition of objects from Afghanistan's National Museum.