London on the cheap

So the Friday night fish fry was a success...but 5 o'clock seemed too early for dinner so Nate and I headed to the British Museum for a cursory exploration.  We actually ended up staying almost two hours and we only did the ground floor!  I can't wait to go back--being so far away from the Smithsonian in the U.S. makes it nice to have access to the free ones in Europe!

Basically the first thing you see upon entering the museum is the incredibly famous Rosetta Stone, key to the translations of many ancient manuscripts.  Unfortunately due to its great value the stone is fully encased in glass, making it quite the tricky object for photography--the ones I took actually have Nate's reflection on the case, despite not using the flash!  However, the museum has a copy of the stone out for public display, so that's what you see here.  I also included a close-up of the inscriptions since the stone was so accessible.

There was so much information on the ancient cultures...tons of friezes, sarcophagi, statues, and other relics.  One that really caught my eye was this cat statue from Egyptian ruins.  The owner had made some changes to the statue to preserve it, including inserting a metal cylinder to make the head stay on as well as painting it this lovely shade of green.  This too was unfortunately behind a case, so I apologize for any glare!

 

 

As impressive as the objects in it is the British Museum itself.  The beautiful glass ceiling was completed in 2000, comprised of thousands of individual glass pieces.  It covers the central part of the museum and the two staircases that lead to the upstairs galleries and the restaurant.

 

What I originally thought was a very ornate baptismal font was actually a vase!  I can't really fathom what kind of bouquet would go in here, but rest assured it would be very large.  By my estimation, the opening was about 4 feet in diameter!

  

This is a beautiful, although unfortunately slightly blurry, example of nature and man working together.  The shell was sculpted into the shape of a helmet by whittling away tiny fragments, then painted with ink with a nautical scene.

  

This was an incredibly ornate (and accurate!) heliocentric model of the universe.

 

These aren't particularly famous nor noteworthy, but I loved the story behind these tips.  The early archeologists who discovered these thought that they were shot into cattle by witches or elves, because they were so fine and sharp.  In reality, these are arrow tips thousands of years old--modern dating estimates have come up with a range of 2500-6000 years of age.

After the museum we got take-away (not take-out, mind you) from Munchkin's, a fish fry right near our flat.  The price was right and we took our dinner and a blanket to Russel Square Park, and fought the pigeons and squirrels for our well-earned dinner.