The British Museum 

Friday 1st September
Another bright sunny morning this morning and although the forecast is for 50% chance of rain the skies don’t look at all as if they could find a drop. This is England though and only the gods know what the day might bring. We have booked an uber cab to take us into central London today so after an early breakfast we venture out into the still cool morning air to wait for the pickup.

Our ride is on time and we are on our way out of Wimbledon towards Putney Heath, Wandsworth and Clapham, all names that come easy to me as my memory kicks in, then winding our way parallel with the river Thames through Battersea and Lambeth all the time the city becoming more densely populated as the larger mansion style homes of Wimbledon make way for red bricked and white stucco fronted, gable roofed, terracotta chimney topped row houses of two and three stories. The homes, closely packed together, are close to the road, off street parking is virtually non existent. The density is not just about housing, the road carrying cars and buses becomes evermore crowded. The number of buses on the road is amazing, those red double deckers are huge and take up an enormous amount of space on these narrow winding roads, our driver is constantly dodging and weaving around the buses and other obstacles as he takes us forward. The ethnic diversity along the streets also changes as we pass through the denser populated areas, through what seems to be recent migrant areas.

Nearing the river Thames too, building is going on at a frenetic pace, cranes dominate the sky line as new apartment buildings in various development stages are in the process of adding to the population density. Along the riverside, judging by other newly completed apartment buildings, the prices are not going to be cheap, river views this close to London will bring astronomical prices for sure. We continue on until we reach the Waterloo bridge, crossing over we have an amazing view up and down the river, then we are driving through Covent Garden and our destination the British museum. We had promised ourselves some culture this trip and so here it begins. 

I had visited here as a child, as I would think that every British kid would have on a school outing or maybe just diligent parenting, then as now the building is a massive repository for historical relics that were collected by British explorers over several hundred years particularly when the British empire dominated the world.

There are reportedly thirteen million objects stored here covering 2 million years of history. When I visited years ago the museum buildings contained a circular domed reading room that sat in the centre of a courtyard formed by the outer buildings. This was taken down and relocated to the national library building in 1997. In 2000 a replacement building of cream marble formed a new version reading room, the outside of which houses a book store, gift shop and above a cafe. The huge courtyard is now covered by a geodesic type clear roof that connects to a centre skylight dome above the new reading room that remains unseen and closed to the public.

After we pass through security, entry is free and you can take as many photos as you like. We enter through the outer building that acts as the main entrance then opens up into the grand courtyard with the geodesic glass dome above us. 

We decide to purchase the interactive audio tour equipment that allows you to enter into it a room or exhibit number and be guided about the room or hear a story about an article you are viewing. Every piece has a story. You can also be guided by the machine and just pick your areas of interest. We have googled the top things to see, but the two pound map has a list of the most popular, the map is well worth the money, just to stop you from getting lost if nothing else. One of the theme rooms we want to see is a history of clocks, but has you make your way from room to room the many treasures distract you. Before you know it you are wondering around taking in one amazing artefact after another. First off a giant ancestral figure, Hoa Hakananai’a from Easter island just stops you in your tracks. It was given or traded to British first explorer seamen then taken down to the ocean and put on a raft to float out to the wooden ship for transport back to England, an incredible feat on its own.

There are huge hallway rooms on Ancient Egypt with what must be some of the best examples of Egyptian sculpture outside of Egypt, then there are the mummies and sarcophagi. 

Then many rooms of ancient Greek relics particularly painted pottery urns, jars and vases of unbelievable detail.

 A Japanese room, again with amazing pieces dating back through time before the Edo period to current time. Europe features medieval Europe and particularly fascinating to me Roman Britain. Since the romans ruled Britain from 43 to 410AD there is a lot of history there. The Middle East is featured with relics from Assyria. 

The Americas including Mexico. We see the turquoise studded mosaic mask of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca. And Mayan stone carvings.

A striking bronze head of the Roman emperor Augustus, an enormous preparatory sketch for a later painting by Michelangelo, a treasure trove of Roman jewellery and coins,

the gilded inner coffin of Henutmehyt a Theban priestess and a Japanese samurai suit of armour built to stop Portuguese rifle balls, all before we make it to the clock exhibition.

 We decide to have a break and grab some lunch in the cafe style restaurant that sits overlooking the great courtyard, before descending again into the outer buildings to discover more and more treasures. 

An entire room is dedicated to money, both coins and paper, its origins and development through the ages. One item on display is an extremely ornate Tiffany cash register manufactured in Dayton, Ohio in 1901, you can imagine its use in early department stores at that time. 

When we do eventually find the clock exhibition, one can only say it is magnificent, clock making led to all sorts of other so called automaton, once the coiled mainspring was invented to store power by mechanical winding a number of consecutive movements could be made to operate by a series of gear wheels. One clock a golden gallon made in Germany in the mid 1500’s has wheels that in enabled it to sail across a banquet table, played drums and music, has figures that represent the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and entourage that rotate inside an outside the passenger quarters at the rear of the ship and also fired canons, all that and it told the time too! 

While large clocks built for church towers and town plazas started to appear in the 14th century, it was not possible to make portable clocks until the mainspring was invented, these were still not very accurate until the 18th century when the balance spring was invented. The most accurate clocks were the pendulum clocks invented in the mid 17th century.

The display traces the earliest clocks through to the pocket watch and wristwatch of today. We hadn’t realised clocks were that old. We decide it’s time to move on, we have spent nearly five hours here, but we are continually distracted by other exhibits we walk through to try to gain egress. One last mission though to see the Rosetta Stone, we eventually find it a slab of dark grey granite like material, that solved the mystery of interpreting hieroglyphics, enabling scholars over 25 years to translate them into a language we could understand today. The stone, actually the same decree engraved in the stone, in three languages was the key. Discovered in 1799 by a French member of Napoleons expeditionary forces in Egypt, however taken by the British when they defeated Napoleon in Egypt in1801. The stone was considered so important that it had to be stored underground during World War Two.

Eventually we call it a day with blinkers on we head outside and make our way by foot to Drury Lane and through Covent garden. This is the heart of Londons West End theatre district and is full of colourful pubs that are beginning to fill and spill out onto the streets with afterwork drinkers, or maybe pre theatre dinner goers, it is after all Friday evening, the beginning of another weekend. 

We are soon at the entrance to Waterloo bridge and make our way across the Thames in one direction then cross under the bridge at the end to walk half way back again on the other side just to take photos of the skyline from each perspective. There are ominous looking black clouds around but the sun keeps popping out from its position low in the sky, as the air cools towards evening. 

We then find a convenient place to call up an uber cab on our phone app, the car arrives in five minutes and we are whisked away from London following the same route back to our hotel in Wimbledon. Each journey taking around 45 minutes. With still full stomachs after our museum lunch we enjoy a glass of wine and some olives in the hotels bar then retire for the night after a long day of cultural awareness.