Day Three London, 4 March 2010

I arrive late for Morning Prayer - it was early because it was to be followed by a Eucharist at 8, which I stay for.  There are only three of us, priest included.  I marvel at how all the liturgies descended from the work of Cranmer have diverged - how there isn't a sense of cooperating, at least with the English versions. Some prayers are distinctly the same, others are totally new to me.  It made me pay attention during the liturgy.  After mass, I have a quick breakfast alone.  No one is really in the refectory.

I leave and grab the DLR, this time getting off at Bank, and going over to the Center line.  My goal is the British Museum, and once I alight at Tottenham Court Road, become totally lost, wandering around Covent Garden like a lost soul.  It seems that what I thought was north was actually south - grey skies will do that to you.  However there was something good that came out of it; I bumped into St. Giles in the Fields.

St. Giles in the Fields Church

From the exterior, which is Palladian, I thought that the church might have been a Wren, but no it was by Flitcroft.  Interestingly, it was founded by Queen Matilda, the same patron who founded St. Katharine's. This building was the third such building, the second, consecrated by Bishop Laud also figured in heavily during the Plague.  Also of interest is a pulpit used by both John and Charles Wesley.  What struck me was the interior, bringing back memories of Old North Church in Boston.  The stained glass in the chancel is the only such glass in the building (luckily all the Victorian glass was blown out in WWII), the nave lights being plain glass.  The tables of the law are also mounted in the chancel.  I took some time there to sit and think (and figure out where the British Museum actually was).  

The Great Court at the British Museum

Although the buildings at the Museum are impressive, it is Norman Foster's Great Court surrounding the reading room (which was closed, unfortunately) which gives the place a sense of place and wow.  I found myself just having to walk around it a couple of times to take it all in.  Like the Louvre, you don't quite know where to begin.  So I bought a map, and noticed a large pharaonic head, and started there.  

 

The Rosetta Stone

One is properly greeted with the Rosetta Stone, and once again I was stunned.  It brought back to mind the first time that I went to Paris and the Louvre.  (My sister, Bonnie, had advised me to enter the building, rush to see the Mona Lisa, and having gotten that out of the way, to enjoy the collection).  As I left the Mona Lisa, I wandered down to a staircase and was suddenly confronted by the Nike of Samothrace.  I stopped, and I cried.  Not only was it of immense beauty, but it was true.  All the things that my father, Professor Norman Gienapp, and others had shared with me from art history, literature, and music was true - and it was summed up in the sculpture.  The Rosetta Stone proved to be a similar experience, although without the tears.  I took my time in the Egyptian Galleries, taking it all in.

The stele of Shalmaneser III

At the far end of the Egyptian materials I came upon another piece that I had known about since studying biblical languages, and that was the Stele of Shalmaneser III.  What is interesting about this piece is that it depicts one of the kings of the Bible.  There he is, above, Jehu, the King of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) offering his obeisance and his tribute to the Great King.  Like the Louvre and the Pergamom, there are lots of Assyrian, Chaldean, and Babylonia cherubs lurking over the visitors to the museum, intimidating us as they did the visitors or captives of these ancient empires.  

Next were the Greek Galleries, and of course, the Elgin Marbles.  Interestingly, rather than ignoring or downplaying the issue of these objects and the request of the Greek Government that they be repatriated, the museum had published a brochure stating their position.  

Group from the Pediment of the Parthenon

These sculptures are truly stunning, and they are displayed in a large and gracious space (in spite of all the French school children running about) that you can walk around them and truly take them in.  I realized that I was only going to be able to touch the surface of all this - but to immerse yourself in the totality of it all was truly wonderful.

It was time to have something to eat, and realize that the Roman curse had reappeared.  The Roman curse is a pain in my upper back that I first experienced last fall in Rome, and then later in Potsdam.  I think it may be due to carrying a heavy briefcase for 24 years.  At any rate a Margarita (the pizza) and a Limonata seemed to help a bit - that and sitting at a chair with a back on it.

Ivory cherub from the Levant

Now I concentrated on some galleries where I knew that I would see things I have treasured in my mind for years.  Materials from Nineveh, Syria, Babylon, Sumer, Agade, and Ur were all there.  There were ivories (see above) and gold - especially the headdress from the Royal Tombs at Ur.  There were reconstructed musical instruments, legal texts, religious texts, and objects that I had read about and been interested in continuously.  Some seemed smaller than I had imagined them, such as The Goat Caught in a Thicket, or the Standard of Ur (below).  Seeing them at all, however, was a real blessing.

The Standard of Ur

One of the exhibits that I really wanted to see were the materials from the Ship Burial at Sutton Hoo.  I had heard about these treasures before, but have recently run into them in my reading of The Inheritance of Rome, by Chris Wickham.  These treasures and the history that has been inferred around them, makes one realize that one is always a student of history, never its master.

Helmet from the Ship Burial at Sutton Hoo

There was the Enlightenment Room, George IV's monument to rationalism, and Olmec and Mayan treasures that took my breath away.

Olmec head

It was 3:00 - and time for Tea.  There is a wonderful restaurant on the upper level of the Great Court, that sort of wraps around the Reading Room.  There I had tea and a lemon tart, and watched and listened to the people around me: two gay men having tea and dishing, a man and a woman trying to impress each other, a couple of uppity women who pissed off the wait staff and were subsequently ignored by them, four Chinese women who wanted more types of tea than the establishment offered, and finally two Arab business men and their English client/contact, with the Englishman laughing in that disengaged manner that seems something of a stereotype - but there it was.  Too much fun, watching other people.  If Arthur had been with me, we would have surmised stories about each of them.  

I spent my last moments looking at a collection of Mexican revotionary books, posters, woodcuts, etc. that were quite engaging.  I never realized that Orozco was such a firebrand.  Off to the side were some woodcuts by Dürer and Mantegna that brought me back to my roots.  Finally a room filled with Indian and Chinese buddhas, and all their wanna bes formed in granite, basalt, and lacquered wood.  My camera battery ran out - so I new it was time to go.

On the way to the tube, I looked at St. George's Bloomsbury, whose architect stuck a copy of the Tomb at Hellicanarsus on the church's bell tower.  Appropriation - that's what empires are good at, and perhaps the British Museum's argument that they can take care of it best makes sense.  I know what all of this appropriated material has done for me, but what might it do for someone whose roots are part and parcel of these objects?

Dancing Shiva

I meant to close yesterday with a comment about St. Katharine's wheel.  It was the means of her torture and her demise, and when I came across this dancing Shiva, locked in the center of the wheel of fire that is life as we know it, I remembered Katharine's wheel.  We come to a place, leave it and move on, and come back again - a rotation of memory, experience, and deeds.  Perhaps that is what I am here to learn - where am I in this dance?