The British Museum

The British Museum is a fine establishment that excels in both organization and quality of pieces. Besides having completely free admission to the public, there are also guided tours which meet at designated areas free of charge. There are donation boxes everywhere, and it is interesting to see among the British pound notes and coins that there are also American Bills, Euros, and money from all over the world. I noticed some kind of Arabic bill with “50” written on it. Every piece has an informative paragraph; even large display cases with multiple pieces have them numbered to correspond with their descriptions. Rooms are arranged by locations, chronology and themes such as “Money” or “Time”.

It is interesting to note that this is the first place I have seen Braille. It also seems like the worst possible place to have a blind person stumble around looking for the name of an exhibit they cannot see. And don’t you think someone would be traveling with a fully-abled person who would tell them the name of what they are “looking” at?

One of the top exhibits in the British Museum exhibits are the Elgin Marbles, or Parthenon. The sheer amount of collected pieces is large enough to fill its own museum, but it finds a nice home in a nice wing that is probably one-tenth of the museum. The pieces were brought over by some bloke, Lord Elgin who may or may not have purchased and brought everything to London illegally. Either way, the British Museum wants to keep them, and Greece has been working hard to reclaim their treasures.

Walking into the western side of the museum on ground floor, you first pass an impressive-enough display of part of a temple of the godess Nereid. It had some short-lived wonder as you wander into the much bigger room that serves as a grand hallway with marble battle scenes along the walls taken from the Parthenon. Worn bits, rough bits, and surprisingly detailed and intact pieces depict grand scenes of war, worshipping, and common life. Each section is divided up into dozens of scene descriptions and explanations. Countless hours, manpower went in by artisans and storytellers to create awe-inspiring pieces. The most impressive to me were the pieces at the extreme ends of the exhibit – the west and east pediment. The pieces were grand sculptures rather than reliefs that depicted their own scenes.

The one that caught my eye the most was a horse’s head on the far right side of the east pediment. It is simply a horse’s head, and not the grand fighting figures of warriors and centaurs, but it conveys the same kind of grand power. It was designed to hang over the side of the pediment, and is displayed as such. In a room where various heads, limbs and entire sections are broken off, missing or were defaced somehow, it was refreshing to see a part in its entirety. The smooth marble is detailed enough to make the horse actually look as if it has veins, muscles and life. Its exhausted expression makes it seem as if it is still panting for breath after serving as one of the moon goddess’ chariot horses. There are a few bumps, craters and scars in the stone-white marble, but it unexpectedly adds a realness to both the piece and gives it an overall more historic value. If it were too neat and polished up, one would think it might be made of plastic. There are many more fantastic things to see and learn, but the Parthenon horse head was my favorite.