Wonderful day at the British Museum today! Led to the best bits by native guide Cheryl Morgan, we covered a lot of ground. That is a truly world class museum, the best I've ever been in. From recreated Saxon swords to board games scratched by bored guards into the base of Assyrian sculptures (my favorite bit: bored military gamers are an ancient tradition!) it was wall-to-wall fascinating. I enjoyed the Assyrian bits the most I think; whereas I was not as impressed by the Elgin marbles as I expected. And I found the propaganda flier they have about why they shouldn't send the lot of them back to Greece hilarious.
Tomorrow is flat-out silly tourist day, as we take a guided tour to Leeds Castle, Cantebury and the White Cliffs of Dover. No internet access along the way, I'm afraid. Also, the tour is scheduled to take >10 hours. So it is unlikely that Curtis & I will be able to make the BSFA meeting tomorrow, which we're very sorry to miss. To everyone that I was hoping to see there, Thanks! And I hope to catch up with you again soon.
For those yearning for more Masterclass tidbits (I think we'll all be processing and writing about the experience for at least a week or two yet) you can find more commentary from Niall Harrison as well as some photos, plus Jonathan McCalmont's initial thoughts.
3 comments:
Glad you enjoyed it. The British Museum is one of my favorite places.
The sword, by the way, is Saxon, not Viking.
Wish I'd known you were going to be down this way today ... you will get to within 7 miles of Folkestone. Lucky you!
Cheryl - thanks for the correction, I've edited the post. And for the guiding!
MKS - I know! We went right past Folkestone, and I thought: "Wow, as of a few days ago I now know 4 people here!" It's kind of amazing to think about.
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