I am always fascinated by museums. I make it a point to include at least one, wherever I go. After all, museums are great windows through which you can peep into the history and culture of a region. But some museums go beyond their own region and cover almost the whole world and many diverse cultures.The British Museum is one such in London. When my guide Marguerite Ryder Large told me that there are almost 16 museums in London with free entry, I was quite thrilled. If not all, I thought I would be able to see one or two at least partially: thus happened my visit to the British Museum in the Bloomsbury area of Lon-don with Marguerite leading me with her large strides as the slight drizzle threatened to drench us.
Reportedly the first national public museum in the world, the british museum is home to a mind-boggling collection of 8 million works
With a permanent collection numbering some 8 million works, The British Museum is the largest and the most comprehensive museum dedicated to human history, art and culture. It was widely sourced during the era of the British Empire, documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.Said to be the first national public museum in the world, it was largely based on the collections of the Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane; opened to the public on 15January 1759 in Montagu House, on the site of the current building with Greek temple style portico. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of expanding British colonisation and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions later. Out of this ocean of a museum, all that I can do in this article is share just a few samples of the amazing exhibits.
The British in India
British colonial officials, Christian missionaries and Oriental scholars carried out studies of South Asia.The ‘Company School’ of painting emerged in response to the British demand for illustrations of local people, monuments and traditions in the days before photography.Indian artists quickly adopted European conventions such as linear perspective and realism for their new clientele.The form and function of late1800s silverware, such as this salver, primarily catered to British taste and demand.However, the pieces were of-ten decorated with Indian motifs and images – these panels show scenes from the Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit epic that recounts the adventures of Prince Rama.
Living and Dying
This gallery explores how people everywhere deal with the tough realities of life and death. These challenges are shared by all, but strategies to deal with them vary from place to place, people to people. The central installation by Pharmacopoeia, entitled ‘Cradle to Grave’, looks at an approach to health and well being, describing the medical histories of a typical man and woman in Britain today
What is the Rosetta Stone?
The Rosetta carries an inscription in different languages, which helped decipher the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic script. It is the only surviving fragment of a larger stone slab (stela) recording a decree on 27 March 196 BC.
At the top, the decree was written in hieroglyphics, the traditional script of Egyptian monuments, then already 3000 years old. In the middle,the same decree was written in Demotic, the everyday script of literate Egyptians, and at the bottom in Greek, the language used by the government. At this time Egypt wasr uled by a Greek dynasty, and the decree was issued in honour of the boyking Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It records the decision of the Egyptian priests to establish a royal cult in return for Ptolemy’s concessions tothe Egyptian temples. The granodiorite stela was placed in a temple, probably at the city of Sais near Rashid (Rosetta).
Basalt statue: Hoa Hakananai’a
An Easter Island (Chile, South America) statue brought by the crew of HMS Topaze in 1869 is a relatively small but a typical of the island’sstatue form, considered a “master-piece” representing an ancestral figure of the birdman cult expressing ideas about leadership and authority. Hoa Hakananai’a is made from a block of dark greybrown flow lavamore commonly known as basalt. Typical of Easter Island moai, HoaHakananai’a features a heavy brow,blocky face with a prominent nose and jutting chin, nipples, thin, lightly angled arms down the sides and hands reaching towards the stomach, which is near the base. It has a raised Y-shape in the centre of the chin, eyes hollowed out in a way characteristic of statues erected elsewhere on the island on ceremonial ahu platforms, and long, rectangular stylised ears. A line around the base of the neck is interpreted as representing the clavicles.
Indian Gallery
Displays some interesting sculptures and paintings, posters of ‘Mother India’ (Hindi film), a video of Uday Shankar’s dance etc, all that we can easily relate to, and feel proud that the whole world gets to see and know our Indian culture through this great museum.
Vijaya Pratap is a freelance journalist and a documentary filmmaker, based in Hyderabad. She specialises in the study of art, culture, history and wildlife.
Meet the Author – Vijayapratap
