Saturday, April 13, 2013

The British Museum Take 2

He just wants to be best friends forever. 

Hey guys, I'm back with more tidbits of history, and this time I even brought pictures of skulls! Instead of working on a paper for my abnormal psych class, I decided to spend a couple of hours in the British Museum today. I chose to start upstairs today, and made it through about three exhibits. This museum is going to take a while. It is massive.


The first exhibit I explored was about money. It was pretty interesting, and explained the history of currency in different cultures, but by far the most interesting things were the old cash register, the Doctor Who money, and the duck weights from Mesopotamia (because they are shaped like ducks, obviously).


There was also an exhibit on the middle ages, that I will have to go back and spend more time in, but what I got from it this time was medieval chess is cool and used to flirt with people. That's it. I was pretty focused on getting to the mummies this visit, so I walked by a lot. Near the medieval exhibit was an exhibit that went through the history of clocks, and I learned how a mechanical pocket watch works (springs and gears, that's about it). There was also an automatic tea maker alarm clock. Not coffee maker, tea maker. Because this is England, y'all. 


On the way to Egypt, I stopped by Ancient Greece, where I ran into this super happy pig that would probably get along very well with the horse at the top of this post, as well as these not-scary-at-all surgical implements, with nice descriptions like "probes, needles, and sharp hooks" and "bone chisels". 


I eventually made it to Ancient Egypt, and got to see a lot of mummies. And CAT scans of mummies, and funeral offerings, and... well, you get the picture. It was cool, but I will have to go back sometime that it isn't packed (aka not a Saturday morning), because it seemed like everyone wanted to see the mummies today. I also need to go to one of the free tours... maybe I will fit that in on Monday. 

-El




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