Return To The British Museum, Again

Our first full day in London, after the B&B breakfast of scones and clotted cream and other goodies, we set forth for another return visit to the British Museum, still our overall favorite here. Our real purpose was to look at all the things--vases, reliefs, metopes, marbles, busts, statues, entire temples--that were strangely missing when we visited Turkey and Greece last fall. Indeed we found many and were gratified to know we had "been there" and could well imagine how the removed object might have looked. I do hope the Brits someday will give a few of the Elgin Marbles back to the Greeks. France, as I recall, gave theirs back on the occasion of the most recent Athens Olympics. But I doubt France ever will give the Mona Lisa back to Italy.

It was the height of the the high season, a Sunday, and a rainy day in London as well, so the Museum was more mobbed than we have ever seen it. It's still always a pleasure and a bit of a thrill. In addition to looking for favorites and random exploration, we did tours on the Enlightenment Room--the first items the Museum collected, now together in what used to be the British Library--as well as on early Medieval artifacts.

The Nereid Temple from Xanthos

Reliefs from the Tomb of Kybernis, King of Xanthus

Stupid satyr tricks... (do not try this at home, kids)

Elgin Marbles

Mob scene at the Rosetta Stone

An old friend, the Queen of Lewis Chess

And always much new to learn; here a display on the survival

of glass-making in Europe after the fall of the western Roman

empire

It was the height of the the high season, a Sunday, and a rainy day in London as well, so the Museum was more mobbed than we have ever seen it. It's still always a pleasure and a bit of a thrill. In addition to looking for favorites and random exploration, we did tours on the Enlightenment Room--the first items the Museum collected, now together in what used to be the British Library--as well as on early Medieval artifacts.