Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Islam
The museum's fairly modest
Islamic collection
is tucked away in room 34, by the
Montague Place entrance. Among the highlights are the
Damascus and
Iznik ceramics
in greens, tomato-reds and no fewer than five shades of blue. Also worth seeking out at
the far end of the room, are the medieval astrolabes, celestial globes and a
geomantic
instrument
used to tell the future. The most striking exhibit is a naturalistic
jade
terrapin
, discovered in Allahabad in 1600; close by is a silver-filigree cosmetic box said
to be from Tipu Sultan's palace, and a couple of jade Mughal hookah bases encrusted
with lapis lazuli and rubies set in gold.
6
Ancient Egypt
The BM's collection of
Egyptian antiquities
,
ranging from Pre-dynastic times to Coptic
Egypt,
is one of the finest in the world, rivalled only by Cairo's; the highlights are the
Rosetta Stone
, the vast hall of Egyptian
sculpture
(room 4) and the large collection of
mummies
(rooms 61-66).
Egyptian sculpture
On the ground floor, just past the entrance to the Assyrian section (see opposite), two
black-granite statues of
Amenophis III
, also known as Amenhotep III (c.1417-1379 BC),
whose rule coincided with the zenith of Egyptian power, guard the entrance to the BM's
large hall of
Egyptian sculpture
(room 4). The name “Belzoni”, scratched behind the left
heel of the larger statue, was carved by the Italian circus strongman responsible for
dragging some of the heftiest Egyptian treasures to the banks of the Nile. Further on,
a colossal pink-speckled granite head of Amenophis III stands next to his enormous
dislocated arm. Nearby are four black granite statues of the goddess Sakhmet, the
half-lion, half-human bringer of destruction, who was much loved by Amenophis III -
each sports solar discs and clutches the
ankh
, the Egyptian symbol of life.
North of here, another giant head and shoulders, comprised of two-coloured granite,
bears the hole drilled by Napoleon's soldiers in an unsuccessful attempt to remove it
from the mortuary temple of Ramesses II - it was this relic that inspired Shelley's poem
Ozymandias
. Moving towards the end of the room, make sure you seek out the bronze
Gayer-Anderson cat goddess
Bastet
, with gold nose- and earrings, and the colossal
granite scarab beetle by the exit.
The mummies and other funerary art
Upstairs in room 61, eleven large fragments of the colourful wall-paintings from the
tomb-chapel of Nebamun
from 1350 BC are displayed, depicting the idealized life of
wealthy Egyptians of the period. Next door, in room 62, is the popular
Egyptian mummy
THE ROSETTA STONE
There's usually a little huddle of people in the centre of the Egyptian sculpture hall crowded
round the
Rosetta Stone
, o
cially the most visited object in the BM. This slab of dark
granodiorite, found in Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile delta in 1799 by French soldiers, is inscribed
with a decree extolling the virtues of the Greek pharoah Ptolemy V in 196 BC. What made the
Rosetta Stone so famous, however, was that it was the same text written in two different
languages and three different scripts: Ancient Greek at the bottom, demotic Egyptian script in
the middle and, most importantly of all,
Egyptian hieroglyphs
at the top. It was surrendered to
the Brits in 1801, after they had defeated the French at Alexandria, and brought to the BM, where
it has been on more or less continuous display since 1802. However, it was a French professor,
Champollion, who eventually unlocked the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and produced an
accurate translation some twenty years later. A full-size replica, displayed as the Stone used to be,
is on display in the Enlightenment gallery -it's free to touch and free from crowds.
