scarab | Hot Cute Girly Geek

Hi my hot cute girly and boy geeks of course. Another day, another museum post. This time, the British Museum. When I was in London in September 2012. I had a couple of things on my list of what I wanted to see. And the British museum was one of them. The reason was of course the Rosetta stone. This because of my fascination with the Egyptian culture. The fact that I was alone on this particular holiday also helped a lot. Since most people whom I do go on holiday with don’t like museums I had a perfect excuse to go myself.

General info:

Name: The British Museum
Place: London, UK.
Website: http://www.britishmuseum.org/
Date of Visit: 27th of September 2012
Permanent collection: Egypt, Money, A history of the world in 100 objects and many more
Price: Free

Like I said before in my other museum post. I love the Egyptian culture and the British museum has a nice collection, so that was one of my main reasons to visit. And can I just say I love the building the British museum is housed in?

So the first thing I went to visit in the museum was the Rosetta stone. I mean, it’s only the biggest discovery in Egyptian history ever. Without this stone, we wouldn’t be able to translate the hieroglyphics. And like with all big historic museum pieces, you can’t help but feeling, I thought it was bigger. (I mean, have you ever seen the Mona Lisa in the Louvre? Puny little painting.) But still, it was so amazing to see it and take pictures.

Talking about pictures, I was really surprised you were allowed to use flash photography in most exhibits. What I didn’t like about the British museum is how they displayed the exhibits. The rooms where all the art objects and artefacts are on display, are really big. So instead of putting everything alongside the wall and a few pieces in the centre, it felt like they put everything at random. This made it more difficult to actually see everything you like. In particular if you travelled from one room to another and there would be an exhibit you didn’t particular fancied. It doesn’t compel you to look at everything, which is a shame, really.

Ok, back to the Egyptian department. It is spread over multiple floors and has some real beautiful pieces in its collection. Like this one. Even if it isn’t recognisable as such, this is actually a piece of the beard of the Sphinx, that is really amazing.

Or what to think of this huge statue of a Scarab. It doesn’t look that big, but believe me. And it is beautiful.

Like every Egyptian museum, or museum that has a good Egyptian collection, we find the normal display of the signature statues. (Unfortunately, I didn’t photograph the displayed text, so this will be an assortment of Egyptian statues.)

And of course the arrange of mummy’s with caskets.

Another interesting piece is this sheet of papyrus, inscribed with Chapter 100 of the book of the dead. How amazing is that!

But the museum doesn’t only harbour Egyptian stuff, what about the King’s Library! If you are as crazy about books as I am, it is amazing to just take a quick peek. Just the smell alone makes you think you’re in book heaven.

But wait, there is more! Fancy a peek at a statue from Easter Island? Or what about this human skull, that forms the base of the mask of Tezcatlipoca, one of the four powerful creator gods in the Aztec pantheon.

The museum naturally has the ancient Greek and Roman Culture, as well as an exhibition about different religious systems on display.

And I’ll leave you guys with this. Just trust it to me to find the only geeky thing in the whole museum. I was really surprised to find this beauty in an exhibition about money. You guessed it, Doctor Who Money!