Adventures in the Mouse House

I've hardly used my British Museum membership this year, mostly down to health reasons, but also because of lack of motivation due to the overcrowding of recent exhibitions and the fact that I don't like the space in the new Sainsbury Wing.

That led me to look for reviews of Sunken Cities before I booked a coach ticket.  The only one I got as far as reading was the Guardian's - they hated it, but it was one of those reviews that was so sneering and mean-spirited that it just made me want to go.  At one point the reviewer admitted that they hate Egyptian and Hellenistic culture.  So why would you even - oh, never mind.

As it happens, this is the first time I've been impressed with what they've done with the exhibition space.  It's quite dark, the walls are all painted dark blue.  (But not so dark that I had trouble seeing everything, and I have fairly extreme difficulty getting enough light to see things properly on a good day, so clearly they know what they're doing).

The exhibition showcases finds from two "lost" cities of the Nile delta, Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus, which were founded in the 7th century BC and gradually sank as the channels of the Nile changed, were subject to earthquakes, etc, but are believed to have been inhabited as late as the 7th century AD.

There are lots of large monumental scuptures as well as the largest collection of ritual items ever found.  (In other places the metal would have been melted down for repurposing as they became obsolete).  Many of these are shown alongside videos of the archaeologists uncovering them.  This is something else the Guardian reviewer hated but I personally get excited watching underwater archaeology at work.

Then the exhibition takes a turn into telling the story of the Osiris myth.  I thought it was a bit of a non-sequitur but, like any good geek, I *love* that myth, and there were a number of excellent statues that normally live in Egypt, including several that I've seen in textbooks so it was fantastic to see the real thing.

The reason for telling this story becomes apparent when you turn another corner and the exhibiton takes you through the ritual that was done surrounding the Osiris myth every year.  We know about it from various sources but in Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus they have found physical evidence for the ritual.  So that was pretty exciting too.

There was a bit of a crush at the beginning of the exhibition but as I went on it was still busy but far less crowded, which made for a nice change.

I was going to buy the book as it's very nice indeed but I'm aware that I've been haemorrhaging money lately so I declined.  I can always order it later.

Definitely recommended, but it's only on for another week.

On Saturday I managed to fit in a visit to the British Museum's Babylon exhibition (thanks to techbint for booking the tickets - as we all know, I'm rarely that organised!).

The exhibition was really interesting and had a wonderful collection of artefacts (I can't believe I've never seen a cuneiform tablet before!). However, the exhibit space was too small for proper viewing of some of the paintings, and there were just far too many people in there! There was one painting in particular that I could see that there was some interesting stuff at the top but that I couldn't make out either the lighting was wrong or it needed a good clean (or both). I broke down and bought the book that goes with the exhibition, and it's all wonderfully clear in the reproduction.

I would say that I recommend it if you can find a less crowded time, but that is likely to be impossible.

As the shop was as crowded as the exhibition, I failed to see the book on as-yet-undeciphered languages which nasrat purchased. This is just as well, and unlike the exhibition book, I can probably pick it up online somewhere when the book pile in my room gets less oppressive.

We also took in another temporary (but free) exhibition in the Egypt section - 3000 year old paintings are well cool! Failed to see anything else in the museum, partly due to lack of energy but mostly because the British Museum is just way too crowded on a Saturday. Will be back when I can start taking time off work again. I was last in the British Museum when it was still the 80s!

Following the museum trip and a truly stupendous curry courtesy of The Tiffin Tin in Hornsey, we watched an odd Japanese film called Death Note[1]. A young law student finds a book belonging to a death god in which he can kill off anyone in the world by writing down their name, and starts killing off all the criminals in the world. It manages to be silly yet subtle and deep at the same time. And how they were not sued by Tim Burton over the matter of the animated death god, I am not sure.

Was off line all weekend - have had a quick skim of my flist, but if there's anything you think I need to know, drop me a line!


[1] That's the first live version, not the anime, not any of the sequels or the TV series.