13 September 2004

The British Museum

The minute we decided to visit The British Museum, the Gershwin song "A Foggy Day" popped into my head. I'd say the words pretty much describe England's attitude and weather this summer:

"A foggy day in London Town, had me low and had me down.  I viewed the morning with alarm. The British Museum had lost its charm. How long, I wondered, could this thing last?  But the age of miracles hadn't passed. For, suddenly, I saw you there, And through foggy London Town the sun was shining everywhere."

London is a busy place, with new construction everywhere. As we passed along the River Thames we could see many of the important landmarks Americans think of as English ... Big Ben, The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. But the real treasure we came to visit was The British Museum.

With exhibits like "Buried Treasure: Finding the Past", and "Europe: Medieval/Modern", how could we go wrong?

Cat's class had been studying Egypt. As part of their lessons, they were paying a visit to the museum to see all the things they had only glimpsed in books. Jay and I hitched a ride on the bus but decided neither of us had the patience to chaperone the kids. Fortunately there were other more saintly parents ready to take on that ordeal. So once we arrived, the afternoon was ours, and we had freedom from hearing those young voices sing "The Wheels on the Bus" for the 15th time.

And we were not disappointed. The British can really put together a museum. For centuries, "Britannia Ruled the Waves," and in those old boats it seems they brought back just about everything that wasn't nailed down.

When I found myself standing in front of the Rosetta Stone (Napoleon's gift to the world), I was seven years old again, remembering "The Weekly Reader" reporting how this piece of rock unlocked the secrets of the hieroglyphics. The giant stone now rests inside of a glass case, but it's still possible to walk around it and look at the different languages carved into its face.

It is impossible to give justice in any description of this museum. There are tombs from ancient Egypt, complete with mummies and animals (even a cat) and carvings and vases.

Entire sections of buildings ripped from the Acropolis of ancient Greece rest inside this incredible place. The recovered gold swords of Anglo-Saxon kings appear almost as a tiny drop in this ocean of artifacts. In fact nearly every corner of every room holds priceless treasures and amazing finds.

With so much to see, it may seem a bit odd that I found the best part of museum to be the library. The museum is actually several ancient stone buildings that have been joined together by putting a roof over the whole lot of them to make them feel like one building. Smack dab in the middle of all of this is a big door marked "library."

Once the door is opened, the most magical thing happens ... a giant round room unfolds before you, maybe the size of a huge superstore. From the place where I stood, all the way up at least three stories high, the curved walls were lined with rows of wooden bookcases, filled with thousands upon thousands of books. It is a place of majesty and wonder. The domed ceiling arching overhead, the dark wooden shelves and desks, the smell of leather and paper collected from around the world and filled with the knowledge of the ages.

And then it was back on the bus and back to reality. As we left London behind, the "wheels on the bus" were still going round and round and any hope of the children falling asleep on the long ride home were soon dashed by excited talk of how the ancient Egyptians used to pull the brains out of a mummy through the nose. Ten-year-olds are seldom impressed by libraries.