I'm In UR Country, Stealing UR Artifacts

For those of you who are not addicted to the internet, the title of this post is a reference to something called LOL Cats. Look it up. And then see if you can find "Suck It, Whigs!"

Anyhoo, today's adventure involved lots of crumbling marble and a certain amount of bronze. I'm talking, of course, about the British Museum. We visited this morning, which was a wise choice since every single human being on the planet arrived about noon.

The British Museum is free. This is fantastic. More, it welcomes all sorts of people. Upstairs in the Roman Britain section, Charles and I overheard this exchange:

Officious American to Museum Guard: "All these screaming children have no business being allowed in here."

Museum Guard to Complete Jerk: "Sir, this is a national museum, we can't prevent them coming."

UNbelieveble. This same guy, no doubt, will complain about how children today don't learn anything.

You will have gathered, from this outstandingly interesting little story, that we visited the Roman Britain section of the Museum. We also checked out Egypt, Ancient Greece, China, Malaysia, Tibet, Japan, and India. We saw enough Buddhas to sink the Titanic and a goodly amount of classical statues with no arms, heads, legs, etc.

The best part, for me, was the 18th and 19th century jewelry. I found jewelry in every room, however. I think I could find jewelry in the dark, blindfolded, upside down. Some of it was fabulous, while other things were simply odd. For example, ancient Celts apparently wore torcs (necklaces that are basically rings of metal you fit around your neck) weighing up to 1 kilogram. That's heavy, dude.

Downstairs, there is one long room devoted to the collecting obsession of the Enlightenment (the late 18th century, basically). It's like being in your crazy uncle's knick-knack room, only it's about 100 yards long and two stories tall. The walls are lined with bookshelves, and the shelves are full of stuff. Stuff? Yeah, Maori objects, skulls, Egyptian organ-holding vases, intaglio gems, Chinese urns, African baskets, etc., etc., etc. The sheer variety makes the room vaguely spooky.

As wonderful as the Museum is, and it's definitely fantastic, it leaves you with a slight tinge of imperial guilt. All this stuff used to live in a variety of countries. Then the English came. And took away beautiful things, religious things, precious things, pretty much every thing. Part of me thinks it's wonderful that this air-conditioned building, secure and carefully maintained, preserves the treasures of the world. The other part feels like a cad.

Then we took the bus. Back to Oxford, to our favorite pub, the Cape of Good Hope. Tomorrow, the tuck shop. Mmmmm....beloved tuck shop.