The British Museum Part Two

I have no photos for specifically for this post, so instead you can look at this one of the main lobby of the museum.

As I said yesterday, I have always been interested in Ancient Egypt and I was lucky enough to see the temporary exhibit 'The Egyptian Book of the Dead'. It is quite impressive to visit a blockbuster exhibit where almost all of the objects on display are from the museum you are visiting- very few objects were loaned from other institutions. It was quite busy when we went and the start of the exhibition space is quite narrow, so traffic flow was a bit of a problem.

Overall I thought it was a good exhibit. It was interesting to see examples of burial rituals/ spells from different eras of Ancient Egypt and contrast the differences as practices changed over time. Some of my favourite pages were the less adorned pieces because they gave a tighter look. There was one example of a manuscript written on leather that also caught my eye. It was also as we wandered around that Jenn learned of my love for scarabs (I have a crush on the humble dung beetle, okay?). I pointed and may have squealed slightly every time I found one in the exhibit.  

I also had a look at the Egyptian galleries on the second floor (most of the sculpture, including the Rosetta Stone, are in the ground floor galleries). I have no photos because it was packed with people and at times I could barely move, never mind get a good snap. There are some fantastic information boards in the galleries about how they have conserved some of their mummies- think about it, how do you conserve something that has been on open display for 150 years that is a human body (part of the answer is textile conservation netting- yay!).

When I was a little kid, I had a sticker book about Ancient Egypt. I carefully put all the stickers next to the blurb that went with each and looked at it hundreds of times. I saw at least half of the object in that book in real life in those galleries. From the intricately wrapped mummy to the Roman-era painted sarcophagus; the wall paintings to the cat mummy, it was like they all came off the pages of the book. I can`t express just how cool it is to see them up close.

Final British Museum post tomorrow.