Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
OF THE BRITISH
MUSEUM
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wSiC
TREASURES OF THE
BRITISH
MUSEUM
The
Museum
British
the largest
and
the world.
permanent exhibitions in
finest
visited
It is
people every
year,
specialists in
mention.
Museum and
found in
departments.
writers
To
this
is
to
to introduce
to the fascinating
its
various
fields
own
enthusiasm a vivid
expounds on what
what
Museum,'
the
Museum
John Betjeman,
serves.
it
is,
in 'Building the
how
the
J. E.
Morpurgo
it
on
show
us
grew, while
a voyage of
company of the
in the
and
'Prints
and Drawings'
the
scholars
Museum's
who
writers
have inhabited
glories
examined by
of 'The Egyptians'
treasures
The
it.
by Fleur Cowles.
late
by Robert
Erskine. 'The
RomancBritish'
by
essay
Gwyn Thomas,
followed by a review of
Peter
Young. The
Antiquities'
is
MacDonald.
Museum
rich variety
described by
Essays
are those
'Ethnography,' by
of 'Oriental
Malcolm
on other
aspects of the
by David Stafford'Clark on
Asa
Briggs on 'Manuscripts,'
is
supplemented by a
Museum's
spectacular collections.
The book
provides a valuable
who
visited the
will
have
yet to
it
Museum
TREASURES OF THE
BRITISH
With an
MUSEUM
Studio
The Viking
Book
Press
New York
All
1971 by
Thames
Television
rights reserved
Published in 1972 by
The Viking
New
York,
Press, Inc.
NY.
10022
SBN 670-72656-7
Library of Congress catalog card number:
Printed and
Jarrold
bound
in Great Britain
by
77-169579
Contents
The
Introduction
British
Museum
John Wolfenden
Building the
Museum
2
The Reading Room
John Betjeman
J. E.
Morpurgo
14
21
Prints
and Drawings
Michael Ayrton
34
4
The Egyptians
Fleur Cowles
The Greeks
6
The Romans
Tyrone Guthrie
70
82
Robert Erskine
7
The Romano'British
Gwyn Thomas 96
Antonia Eraser
9
Western Asiatic Antiquities
Peter
Young
125
10
Oriental Antiquities
Malcolm MacDonald
139
no
II
Ethnography
David
Stafford' Clark
12
Manuscripts
Asa
Briggs
168
13
Coins and Medals John Hale
Departments of the
Biographical Notes
Museum
220
187
207
156
Introduction
The
Museum
British
John Woljenden
would
and
galleries
But
Museum was
among
unique
the
museums
do claim
that
The ground
is,
it
for that
at least,
claim
is
unusual.
clear
When
enough.
Parliament decided, in
for the
the Harleian
the British
Museum
and modern.
And
of the British
secession,
which
Museum Act
No
a separate institution as a
this
wholly reasonable
became
to live a
double
life.
Museum
in
We are both.
other
museum
its
walls
its
No
million volumes).
lished within
museum
other
national boundaries
its
receives
- to an
know, no
Sinaiticus or the
we have
is
which,
in
Roman and
not a boast;
extent,
is
its
both
as a
museum and
world
as a library.
This
bility.
But there
on
us two.
collections
two
is
years
consistent
practice
over those
centuries has developed the accident into a policy, the fortuitous into
a principle.
There
are
two
sides to this,
as
is
right in
INTRODUCTION
any coherent
and
The
The
human
days of
earliest
is
down
to the times
of Sir Hans
was assumed.
example, was
at
the
collector of everything
And
were
so
Europe.
The two
plants.
Western
and a
specialist
together.
was
activities
and
universities
and
his successors in
not that he
It is
constitutions to animals
political
natural scientist
there are
the vestiges of
still
it
in those
as
rest
of
us call Physics.
tied
up
this
was, in
found
in neat parcels
out, in
and given
were snipped
distinctive specialist
its
names.
It
off,
an incredibly short space of time, that the unity could not, from
new
where we
was
memory
It is
now
it
the scientific
advances of the past century could not have been made. So the polymath went
Or
own
if he
did occur
it
Today
there
is
for
which
tions.
is
The
element in
intelligible
Does
it is
not.
This
unity
it
is
rich
illustrating
and
At the
is
symptom,
amorphous sameness
all
and
policies
experience.
it is
Museum's
It
is
may
is
the
more
rest.
Museum?
this insistence
Believe me,
not
activities.
comprehensive, each
of the
human
The
an overriding of distino
or
specialisms.
glorious diversity of
and
diversities
and illuminating
and appreciable
all this
is
Sir
Vf
10
INTRODUCTION
we have to divide our collections into departments and exhibit them accordingly.
But each specialist knows perfectly well that practically every other department
in the building can shed some light on his own special studies. The Rosetta
Stone
only one
is
The
example.
literal
outward and
we
countries
shapes, sizes
all
and continents,
is
thousands of objects, of
visible sign
and
from
materials,
dates
all
and
side
new and
is
old, priceless
sheer proximity of
When
these things
all
relevant objects
to
Malayan war/
or
see the
has been written about them in English and a great deal in other languages as
well. Clearly
is
it
more convenient
to be able to
pan of
There
is
it
at
and between
what
the British
is
Museum's
the British
Museum
purpose
the
is
essential
the second
many
is
purpose and
shall return.
than to have to
move
New York
to the
whole
point.
not the
is
My
for
whose
answer
to the
am
often asked
benefit
first
things to
documentation of
this
all
is
do
objects
at
book
a manuscript or a printed
or a
its
To
is it.
pan
is
that
essential
not matter
Greek
statue or
an
evidence of human
is
And
it is
that sort
of documentation, the collecting of it, the conserving of it, the exhibiting of it,
the publishing of
it,
that
we
me,
is
our essential
purpose.
Let
me
am
For whose
benefit,
exist? Is
it
ordinary man,
asked
woman and
at least
child?
which
Or
refuse,
is
it
Museum
logic, to
way of putting
it.
The
British
bands
itself
as the
spectrum
contains colours.
as
many
INTRODUCTION
own
our
is
his business,
It is
The Keepers
collection.
which
who come
work on
and
critical
in his particular
Museum
the British
from
all
it is.
Secondly, there
It is
We
are
activity.
to
much
scholars who
be the centre of so
Not
is
Marx
or a
life
in the area
which
And
or a
Reading
who
Room
over
my
They
are in
in the
week
many ways
in their
Street,
or Brussels or
look
tons
at
Hanover,
from Detroit
or
as well as those
to
in for
look
at
and
And
artistic societies
my window on
any
member with
Mum
who come
voluntary self/education.
their
be archaeological or
each
or
who work
lunch/hour just
Museum
who want to
programmes
from continuing
tions
on any
on
George Bernard
is.
of an eighteenth/
not always
Museum
Lenin
to
peaceful international
or the private
I I
is
may
disturbed
And,
finally, the
thousands a week
on the
mummies
galleries,
with contemporary
some awe), and chattering like excited monkeys all the time.
Across that band - and I have tried to present it horizontally rather than
vertically - who shall presume to say for whom the British Museum exists? It
laughter (and
is
not for any one of these categories to the exclusion of any of the others:
it is
for
INTRODUCTION
12
With one
pompous. None of the
of them.
all
proviso
little
unless there
on
work,
in the acquisition of
in the
play of interpretation, the value of the place to everybody else must, in the
Again,
am
The
not on view.
answer,
one
if
is
to
me to be based on a
we had enough room we
should put on public exhibition all we possess. But this is not so. If we had all
the room in the world we should not display to the public everything we have for the simple reason that the public would not be interested in it if we did.
Display is a comparatively new art, and we like to think that in our recently
reorganized exhibitions of Greek and Roman, Assyrian and ethnographical
objects we are using that art to some effect. The impact on the general public
Department
to
misunderstanding.
It
itself seems to
if
can be immense.
labelling,
along a wall,
cuneiform
and
make
tablet
very
striking
Greek
Fifty
discreet
little
to tears.
set
rest
of a few beautiful
we
It is
at all
on show
at
in,
Ours
is
not a static or
by purchase or
gift
number of objects
finite collection.
or bequest or exchange.
Every
But
it
once -
or,
indeed, ever.
from Africa
It
as
is
field as
it is
to acquire something which will have popular appeal for a few weeks. So
acquisitions. Scholarship
That
which
is
needs
this
because
is
and
book
is
about.
have
member
Museum.
criteria
in too,
will rightly
my
come
his or her
who
is
my
own
INTRODUCTION
This book introduces
yet
The
adjective
in
is
equally intelligent
And
others.
much more
noun
the
than
too
may
be an insult, because
'visitors', if that
word
all
Each of
them has
complex
personality,
would not
set
though
themselves
up
enough
to be able to
interests
of those
We
are, if
their personal
you care
to put
it
so, inter'
know
honoured
less.
company of
'intelligent
world.
to the
building that
to
them,
They
whole
modesty they
has been willing to take the time and trouble to interpret the British
Museum
It is
as experts.
collective
who know
are greatly
visitors'
and
in their individual
Smirke's
to be built
it
we hope,
on the
site's
St
is
made
what
known
is
at
present can be
and
Smirke building
And
there
Great Russell
is,
itself,
which
the
Mr
are intended to
services,
for
adapta^
new building
in
staff.
Wilson, provide
Street, to
mounted only
is
of
beyond
One
Chapter
Museum
Building the
John Betjeman
To
inmates as well as
rather as the
its
two older
universities,
time so
far as arts
From
and
its
staff
appreciate
full, is to
The
architecture.
the red/
The
of a republic's treasures
as
is
It is
monastic records, State papers and books. Sir Robert Cotton in the
pictures,
sixteenth century
and
Sir
difficult to find.
Had we
staff said to
me
'In the
we were founded in
still
this century,
made on them by
officio,
we are governed by
we would have
Museum, but many
Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons. There were also family
trustees representing
hold
office.
The
only ex
officio
trustee
These
collections.
who
survives
the
is
no longer
trustees
monarch.
There
other officials.
their
an eighteenths-century
is still
book
is
The Keepers
a lifetime's
subject.
to the
Museum
tury they
wore
and
its
livery
books
to the
Museum where
Superintendent
at a
the porters
monarch's
characters,
and
at all,
last
word
they refer
enormous entrance
hall',
on the
The uniformed
air
visit
as Trustees meetings.
sit, is still
in the British
The
Museum
livery.
goes back
to the days
when
it
forecourt
flat fields
of
and
antiquities,
and
the public
until
Montagu House,
see
Duke
assembled collections of
Not
taste
and where
British
the present
Duke
It
until 1810.
Now
Museum,
had been
it
can
stood in
built for a
of Buccleuch.
It
was
it
1675-9.
Old
water-colours of
it
show
red/brick house with stone dressings, rather like Kensington Palace. Inside there
was a painted
staircase,
and
at
some
George
Ill's,
enormous
young man
in 1803,
frieze
being removed
Sir
Robert Cotton
(left)
Windsor Livery
at
Museum
(right)
who had
from the Parthenon with crowbars. This was sold by Lord Elgin,
caused
it
to
until
man of few
words.
brought back
Battalion of Infantry,
able
805.
artist father,
an
which continued
illustrated
manual
still
in this
style
A Review of the
was becoming
Lord Somers
Wykeham Archer
Montagu House
seen
time
so well that he
called
c.
1800
in the
to say
(opposite above)
fashion/
Anglo/
different parts
by John
later to
style.
the country.
and
as
Norman
At the age
antiquities
which
travelled to Italy
be
When
travelling in Greece
at
to
Museum.
to Paris
had
had
it
(opposite below)
of
when an
SfcKKSi \ft!5ESk&
was
architect
He
building material.
and
in.
and
tracts'.
is
proper
to prepare
He was
serene.
bills
buildings.
It
was natural
employed
his favourite
architect,
though
examining
style.
He
so reliable
such
scaled to the
it
that his
calm
woodwork,
as
rooms
Greek
doors, handles
or saloons in
which
and ironwork,
most carefully
are
Colour
plain
is
and sober
The most
scale. It
is
up
Museum,
that
one
Museum
is its
realizes
of the Portland stone in the pilasters and the walls behind, and in the columns
themselves,
is
so
The same
and plain
strong.
'front hall'.
The
chief emphasis
delicate
of horizontal
front hall,
produced
verticals
woodwork
The
in the magnificent
and those
this
are
and
wide and
in
its
walls,
and
on
effect is
is
makes
stairs.
itself apparent
Smirke disliked
by the unfortun/
whole
spaces in the
building.
Smirke's
no walks
work
in
is
when viewed
best
its
and turning
seen at
left
make down
the
The enormous
length of the
rest
room
main
to
stairs,
cleverly
falls
all
along the
east front.
slightly
way up
light. If
it is
know
Sir
Museum
with,
let
us say,
Sir
Aston Webb.
Webb's
to be screened off
with hardboard.
Smirke
retired
in office at the
from practice
Museum
by
his faithful
He was
succeeded
(1799-1877). Sydney designed the iron railings which shut off the south front
as
to
me
to
20
new
Panizzi put
into the
life
Museum
his
in the
form of a square enclosing a rather gloomy stone courtyard. Panizzi made a rough
sketch and
showed
this to
Thus he
Pantheon
after the
Rome,
at
created the
and Robert's
who
Sydney Smirke,
world
Museum
he
filled
galleries,
notably the Assyrian and those on the upper floors of his brother
Robert's
Museum,
designed
to display objects.
man.
spirited
He founded
and
Sydney Smirke,
unassertive.
They
simply
are
was a public/
and was
Sir
the
Beaux/Arts
north side
in Paris.
He
designed the
is
neither
its
which
are
Edwardian
Thomas Brock
is
at
Smirke
is
style,
the base.
down
They
Marble
to the
are
liftshaft at the
north
stairs or
1904. This
bust of
stairs
ascend to the
basement.
galleries.
wholly original
in scale
and
detail.
Sir
round
capitals
Whereas
seen best from the middle wherever you look at his saloons, halls,
was
a Scottish
added
Romantic, makes
all at
to the
his Classic
Museum.
no
Chapter
Two
J. E.
The Reading Room of the British Museum is the most wondrous, the greatest- if
among the least'beautiful cathedrals in the world, for here all gods
perhaps also
are equal
devils, here
all
is
present
that
all
some
is
if
only
with
after a soul/testing
man
has
achieved in the cause of beauty, vice, hate, love, entertainment, science - and
downright
silliness.
Given
a lifetime free
from
all
other diversions
list
as
balls.
and
know'
Equipped with
the
himself with speculations about the masterpieces that are being written
around
all
to be
added eventually
to the
who
And,
attempts to describe
because the
it is, I
it
hope,
totality
is
it
is
inevitable
of all that
in
is
susceptible to definition,
books
would
back
is
too
still
much
for
accounting
be beyond comprehend
into the
from
this
How
persons singular have used the Library and each of them, in his
it
some
rhyme
than by
its
computerlike
to
benefit,
own way,
or
some
my own.
easily
moved by
infallibility.
meant most
to
It is
Sir
J.
after a
painting by
G.
J.
Watts,
R.A.
Museum and
who served the
pluralists,
as
Outrim
for
example,
Library well in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the period when,
both in an architectural and in a bibliographical sense,
forms
that he
handed on
lation of Dante.
Print
is
to a century
Room, whose
ghost, unless
gown
setting to the
it
it
was
spectral
was
main entrance
no
it
hall
of the
staff of the
war dead
Museum - and
into the
as yet
of a Professor of Literature.
to
They
I
sit
me
by
and
even long
the
eternally
in the
sometimes
shelves. In accord
some smile
that
at
who had
The
poet
yet
way
my
days
no
his
less
after
for this
to
my Eng/
The
remember
book because
shrank from
to the poets,
find
my
on the way
own puny
- and
as his 'place
lesser
that
is
but
still
easily diverted
form
immortal spectral
mind. Just
that
is
an
imperative to whatever
to
labours
title
upon my
some book
eye caught by
ineffably fascinating
Thackeray
in preparing
for the
requisite to receiving
Room
work on
at the British
spent
or
at
staggers by:
is
recognizable radios-rival, G. K.
hand,
as
to
lifting the
and
this
and
Shaw and
W.B. Yeats
necessary
after
me and some
and,
what
unmistakable Bernard
Chesterton.
is
having said
with
23
as
when
essential pre'
work
have in
of my concentration
my mind
deserts
my
incidentally
of business'
achievements in print.
Presiding over
all
to establish
all
and maintain
who
who
have
used this huge encyclopaedia of villainy to prepare their crimes, over the merely
curious,
have nowhere
figure
else to go,
and
it
is
devils
who
have come
in spirit
is
one huge
for almost a
24
who
century but
in this place
creativity
no ghost
is
Room
Reading
He
at
No
all.
and
in 1971
this
to
symbol of
virtually
unknown
man and
one that
most appropriately
member of
Books -
papist
attempted
two copies
in the British
from 1856
also a Protestant
is
series
of
Museum's huge
collection
all
Museum
Library.
from 183
in this country
'a
scholar
The man
1,
the
Antonio
Keeper of Printed
and unhonoured
and
is
and
in his
own'
to
Conrad'like,
name
it
who was
to
unknown
is
we now know
the
his
complete the
and even
British
believe, only
Panizzi, a
to
and
to the public,
of respectable librarianship,
tion'
'a
Museum
British
Britain's greatness
to represent the
other,
murder of a 'Chief
book
to the
all,
my mind,
and
centrality to learning
its
is
as
his
own
to call a
Resistance worker, fighting from behind the mask of respectable law-officer and
Modena. Dei
and
by
to
him
a death sentence
written not so
sought
his
cause.
to the scaffold,
and
as a
much
to liberate
to
damn
As
in absentia, flight
who had
as to
persecuted
with Panizzi's
friends
him and
book was
the people he
Bloomsbury and
of
The whole
Duchy
is
those
from persecution,
to the
respectability of Victorian
wrought with
far
more
idea, speech,
successful
and
rest
Museum
of his long
life
and
far
his
Entrance hall of the old Building (Montagu House), 1845; by George Scharf (abov e)
The
old Reading
(below)
/'
26
He
it
Act and,
to a successful
win
he failed to
if
conclu'
for the
Library the right to a second deposit copy that he coveted because he wished to
due course,
his
we
vigorous
now
efforts
had some
for
He
deposit arrangements.
He
Iron Library.
introduced a
was when
It
- though,
that
the
even
alas,
staff
it
is
It is
said that
it
was Panizzi
and
first
Room
who
in
funds
first
still,
Lamb
I first
and a half
my
seniors.
who
who
read.
editors, the
out of popularity
Leigh Hunt,
man who
first
in his
is
day the
still,
greatest
turned his considerable ability for abuse also upon Panizzi and upon Panizzi's
Library.
the
first
Lamb, though
he did not
know
live to see
even
fruits
recognized that
it
wrote,
is
not as simple as
it first
appears.
for loyalty,
Lamb
was
me when
far
too
Lamb and
which
am
to this day,
Panizzi.
so Carlyle. For
facilities for
private
'You have
Lamb. Not
of the world).
modern observation
against both
Cary and,
a close friend of
they
utility
than
him
the
volume
Reading
It
it is
was
(a shortage
many of
before
Room
Museum
does
still.
Charles
to
Lamb,
my
to
me
whatever direction
sensible time^waster,
time^wasting
may
Because
take).
that
felt
own
his
had been
and
one of
to
hope
to
any
at
must attempt
(as
27
to rid
Lamb's schooldays, and Leigh Hunt's, had been passed in similar surround'
I knew that it was not so, that the pre'1902 school in New
gate Street, London was at once more beautiful and far more like a slum. I had
ings. Intellectually,
and
it,
was seeing
too, as another
of English
now
the
Lamb
had known
it,
Coleridge that
Having passed
to discover.
own
in the mirror.
was
more than
might help
not even
Literaria,
man's
life,
who had
thought of
and
of his family (thirteen - of whom Samuel was the youngest), had also been a
ridge
had
also written a
Museum's
revised Latin
print,
was
Grammar.
for the
first
It
came
to
and perhaps
wrote out
my
left
John Cole/
John Coleridge's
never read one word of
slip for
I
my
only time in
life
in direct contact
awakened
I
to
any
He
who
listened
hope he
moment
my
to
that, in
my
wonders of
to
was
as well as
the
was chasing
of superlative achievement.
remembered
ship and
size
just short
life.
It
in Coleridge's troubled
endeavour
was seeing
knew
seen.
closest friend
sought
Charles Lamb's
sat
awed by
the
immediacy of
to the
still
it
be handled? Should
me forever. 'Oh, we
Any bookman or for that
missed
to
my
like to
it
rarity as this
who
have thousands
Angus Wilson)
him
(I
dis'
like that.'
be available
who
frequents the
then,
asked? Should
fly-leaf of
and
the past,
and although
is
Museum,
his everyday
prime function
is
custom
compre--
28
time
to
time worship
at the shrines
it
first
rarity, will
of the book'Crafts.
substantial
seum
pieces;
look
at
Guten^
type, took
examples of typographical
finest
from
less
its
vellum.
none the
forty'two'line
The
There
skill.
are, in the
most severe
sense,
mu/
me. But the pocket editions produced in Venice by Aldus Manutius just
to
century became the sixteenth: these are mine; these are the
as the fifteenth
humble'seeming books
appeared on 30 July
that
1935-
Those
Penguins, published
first
at
political or social
comment
science,
was
that
remembered
titles
and
taste.
A collect
later to
instant
And
the
A simple
colour code - orange and white for the novels, green and white for the detective
stories,
and
blue and white for the biographies - was the only break with parsimony
austerity.
Museum
Yet
own
sitting-room his
my
able part in
me from
However,
if I
Penguins were
book^reader
to the
to play a consider^
*s
world over,
to book/collector.
to
make a
career
several careers - out of my passions and pastimes, and all of them have brought
me frequently to the Museum - even at one time to membership of one of its
my
America. For,
as
ties
anyone can
and,
particularly, almost as
I,
in vain for
some answer
to the
mystery of what happened to the second British colony in America, the City of
Raleigh
in Virginia,
Dare's birthdate
unaware of her
and
to the
we know,
existence
first
the 18th of
and
who
is
were of that
>k
'
Company'
for
left for
England on
life
to
and supplies for the tiny colony, and through his eyes and
pen what they saw - and perhaps saw in the last horrific moments before
seek reinforcements
his
Some
is
King and
if
massacre
it
was
that destroyed
great Indian
for
father of Pocahontas.
women who
created the
Any
mention of Pocahontas
the
sets
most minds
to
death, Captain
sceptic in
30
in
table to
European
Museum
me
drives
grope
tastes. I
first
summer
is
if
- and
upon
death of cold
to
in
who
When
was
hope
Now am
Now;
They
If
And
It
odd
years
glasses
me
that
come
to their
Gravesend.
gave
me
strange looks
have plenty.
when
them
see
quite well,
have wasted
What
my knowledge
to
the
Museum,
set
off
who
its
in the
more
at
in the
for
origins at the
dead
life,
on the quest
my
a pity
companion
regular whispering
ago
so
to
who was my
go
my
some
occurs to
And
and
polish
(I
I'm beginning
are
treacherous,
ninety
Of knowledge
under
sins
Museum.
my
pala/
hope
young man
is
it
is
his wife. I
summer
even an English
Gravesend.
at
make
Jacobean garments
as to
it is
to enlarge
tobacco so
to cure
for a cigarette
and pub'
He
it
was
an answer
another
to
Angle
Gravesend, and
in a place that
is
less
than ten miles from the place where Pocahontas's husband founded the fortunes
at the
continuous use
tourists
North America
who gawp
their
is
as the
Wren
contemporary
The
who had
ascription
reason to
is
is
in this
made by
twenty years
my
faith
is
a near'
Wren
would
Building
has
Wren's and
the likeness
rumour. But,
as
to the
have found
to
my
no
is
if
it
staff
were by Wren.
great leap
man who
Wren's dome
regards
him
started the
Fellow, a
undeniably
is
man who
the very
to devise, for
our
own
to a living
for St
And, if may
jump the Giant's Causeway
Coleridge and Lamb, stayed on to consider
who came
I,
here
first
to study
much
is
which
The
it
to
Wren, have
?I
for a life
Sir Barnes
in the last
would be
the
first
to grasp.
personal prejudices of
the
against the sciences, for a long time held back his Library from achieving
arts
up
set
in other places libraries specifically for the sciences, there are collections that
are of
more immediate
now
to
Bloomsbury of
the
all
centrality of the
Museum and the very fact that here all science and art is under one roof- may
they perish who would fragment the collection - makes this still the best/
equipped storehouse for the student who seeks knowledge of the sciences and of
their relation to politics,
was not
ship or
bouncing bomb.
test
was not
and
of
for
his
much more
had
superb didactic
social structure
of this
other nations.
called
what
upon
that theory
is;
What
of
air/
skill.
as
an
of
and
the assistance
covered within the Library, was some understanding of the reasons that lay
of
collection
book can
any major
which
important than
is
all
books
me
in
an example within an
Museum;
example,
when
magnificent
I
1
came
to consider the
on
tragically destroyed
its
bumbling
perspicacity,
Wallis a premature
finish to
hideous death
to
what
have come
at
for
him by
Sir
Museum'. But,
if it
rest, for, as
most important.
life
of Wallis,
is
all
am no
for this
that
Swallow
state
of imbecility
who come
or the
it is
who come
is
denied by
cloak of glory.
all
moment my
could
Michael Redgrave.
must hope,
With
value.
to regard as
101,
was beyond
histories
rival, the
books which
my
is
the
bibliography, the
who
him
has in
given two grains and then he must accept that the very
to immortality;
3 J
statistics
of this Library are against him: 7 million volumes in the collection, and, from
new
to all
sure
memorial
is
is
titles
added each
only
Still,
year.
Museum
the
is
was never
book
Library.
finished.
have mine: a
life
of
an
essay
by
Lamb,
among
a place
monument among
series
the
litter
of foot'
memory of the
soldier/poet'actor'secret agent/painter^engineer who died in the fading moments
of the War of Independence at the end of an American rope, and was mourned as
much by those who condemned him as by his own countrymen. When I began
to work on his life in the British Museum Library I saw Andre as the epitome
of eighteenth/century dilettantism, saw him too as the strangely off-centre
notes by authorities on military law are
that
all
remain
two
the major
great English/speaking
characters of the
Atlantic,
all
to the
sides
of the
But
if I
knew
so
it,
somewhere announced
at all or
My own
it
when
- even
it
life
of Andre.
appeared
further
from
it
hesitated.
was
rich only
Perhaps these are the true ghosts of the Library the books that have never been
:
written.
I
I
watch
am
at
for there
that
the eager readers, the busy scribblers at the desks in the Library,
must be
spectres
more
restless
statistics are
on my
and
Chapter Three
and Drawings
Prints
Michael
Ay Hon
Nearly everything
It is
my
am
making
painting, or
Like
best
the
all
way
Drawing
is
Museum
in the British
could, just as
Louvre
like
is
and
many
my work
some
is
sort
of
learned to
Room.
only partially
learned to draw, in
in Paris,
Vienna and,
think that
order
all sorts
true.
of places.
and
learned to think as
learned to
draw
in
in the Albertina in
at
the
world about
down, in great awe, at a table in the Department. There I was given a box of
mounted drawings by Albrecht Diirer to examine. I turned them over slowly,
under the eagle eye of the great A. E. Popham, one of the foremost scholars in
the field of Master Drawings and later Keeper of the Department. I remember
sat
made me
It
was granted
Scotsman.
with
And
was
It
to
me
infinite patience,
pocket/money.
It
was
wish
block.
had
It
important
it
now.
was a
to
me
was
in 1933.
like
bought
it
was an
the proprietor as to
Diirer's
how
to
spend
woodcut, St George
early impression
on
Bull's
my
(1), for a
Head
paper,
stamp-collector. Paradoxical as
it
in a
Taking
real Diirer,
as a
November day
my hand shook.
the Museum almost
was advised by
there that
It
Room
a dark
Room
inordinately proud.
was
nervous that
so
form
may
this,
to a
me
schoolboy
first
of course,
is
and
fore/
one of the
i.
Diirer, St George;
Woodcut,
c.
1505
z.
Michelangelo, Reclining Male Nude (Study for the Sistine Chapel Creation of Adam);
Red
chalk,
c.
5 1
why
primary reasons
were and
prints
are
was not
It
in the
way
except haphazardly.
instinct.
where
The
ings,
also
me what
where
was
work
their
is
to
does.
am
not a collector,
it its
that
no one
this
it
is
need
Room
at
the British
who taught
Museum and every-
be found.
houses so
then,
still
created in 1808.
and lithographs
What,
It
so
mastery
else
am
happy and
in the
really
just
how many
items
it
so
many, during
so
many
agony
marks on
is
surfaces?
flat
It is
to
master the
skill
much
It is
many
as
assume.
pan of 'self-expression' -
It is
37
people think.
It
is
It
con'
consistently as people
as
an - but
less
self.
with
It
is
mind and
cannot
what nature
and
finish',
unmanageable.
as usual
It is
sense.
To make
it.
much
order appearances.
It
combat with
beyond man's
as
is
It
is
reality
and
It
is
all
thanks
All
this
is
for the
and
opposing
the natural
It
to
forces
menaces
is
it
only very
to master
is
it is
mum.
subdue
to
is
to
appearance of
an act of power.
is
which
It
man
images, by drawing, by
forces
Nature
It is
also
it
is
individuals spend, and have spent, their lives in this onerous and endless
specialized activity in order to
connoisseurs.
Drawing,
like
make
any other
art, is
what they
are
how many
every
known
from
to
paranoid
and
fantasies,
infinite
to visions
on paper. Regretfully,
to classical allegories,
how many
spectacle:
It is
an invention.
like in order to
men have
seen
have decided
left
and thought
to pass
it
sort
of choice
necessary to represent
wonderful group of
nudes.
all
of them are
sets
the
3.
Antonio
Pollaiuolo,
God's image -
in
at
ink,
c.
1460
drawing.
The Greeks
They did
of the
human
'true'
and
human body
to
Greek
human
as a relationship
one another,
conform
the
them more
figure,
it.
to
which
Of course,
which
body.
It
was
who
will
satisfactory
of all relation'
of the
naked
figures
was
They made
their
gods
the
human
more
real,
mathematics
relating
to
to
timeless
made
all
the
naked
other things
There
China and
opposed
to,
the
are quite
unconcerned with,
or religiously
any concern with the nude. There have also been long periods
in
39
Europe- one of some 1 300 years - when the nude was more or less outlawed from
the arts. It crept in when absolutely necessary, as in the case of Adam and Eve,
but
was
it
about the
and suddenly,
From
that
it
was
the
gradually
Greek
idea
demerged,
returned in splendour.
it
the core
itself as
and heartbeat
carved on bones and incised on pottery. But for the period before the
on paper housed
do not
exist,
different
and
in the British
special fields.
And we
Greek
in the
whether anyone
firmly
likes
it
we
is
a very
odd
in
Renaissance
sense
was
tend to think of
or not,
and predominantly on
The nude
marks
Thus
rests
the
tion,
which we mean
Museum Department
thing.
is
ours.
it
Italy there
restored and,
today,
Drawing
was
as
a twin
as a discipline
and
as a joy,
the nude.
It
(Adam and
has, of course,
ink,
c.
501-3
am happy
(left)
(right)
to say, close
40
we
to
all
It
own,
a nude. In
my own
case,
it is
wearisome and,
me, an unattractive sack of tripes with dreary demands and various chronic
structure
its
me.
is
which
varies
its
It is
it
more from
the condition
and age of
we
wear, there
which
it
the individual's
this respect
is
yet a
combined,
is
it
anatomy
is
art that
what
The
the athlete,
Spenser put
as the poet
much
as
for the
Elizabethans, 'soul
we
And form in its relation to the spirit, no less than to the physique,
it
of
is
about.
masters of the
all
else.
nude
There
is,
no landscape, no
is
Michelangelo.
in all his
stilMife,
He was
concerned
none of
to
be
phenomena which
so
Leonardo da Vinci.
He
6.
Michelangelo, Crucifixion;
Black chalk,
c.
1560
human
frame, and
when
for
it is
human
the
human
frame
41
body,
the form.
itself
was
all
was needed.
He
began, because he was from the outset a sculptor and concerned with the
when
was
womb,
in the
brought weight back into painting, weight heavily and magisterially draped.
Then
for a
human
and
aiming
to establish
body,
When
first
in
its
of its weight, moving his eye and hand over and under the taut or slack muscles,
each dependent in
which,
as
its
tension or relaxation
it
upon
the
complex
interrelated forms
human body
to act.
All the
underlying structure of a great mountain landscape could be read into the torso
of one of his drawings (2); the rock hardness of the bones which
and
legs
just
lie
relaxed muscle suspended like a rolling hillside below the thigh. Disdaining
error,
he would
restate a
leg,
where
that contour
should
He
be.
is
Given
He
and shapes of
exploring.
is
definitively be set
animated by
flesh
known, how, on
the
may
discovering
is
has ever
correct'
drawing,
surface of a
flat
we
all
inhabit,
came
to
doubt
(6)
no longer concerned
drawn from
built
to
like a mist, a
are miraculously
They
seem
at
is
no
was
of doubt,
real stillness in
once dense
is
limbs,
latest
cloud of
His
in fifteenth'
a clear, tough
This indeed
and sixteentlvcentury
and very
specific
approach
to
Woman
7.
Rembrandt,
8.
ink,
c.
the Etching:
1639
The
Etching, 1658
(left)
Model
(detail);
(right)
Greek and
time.
Roman
match Antique
Age.
And
even
The long
century, but
to
ideals
now
this tradition
it
move
north.
German, who
draughtsman outranks
Classical nude.
It
He
it
it
there.
in the
Albrecht
in that field
began
with draperies
trained as an engraver,
seek to
Golden
continues.
for the
Diirer, a
it
to
and
as a
Italy at that
lost
artists
reborn, and
form from
its
to the degree
it,
to
compre^
of harmonious certainty he
felt
dis^
43
such
store
and which
the
He imposed
remembered.
had
Italians
form of geometry on
his
which
who
by Andrea Mantegna,
were
among
the
wood-block, the
Without
At
it.
came
print, really
into
its
packaged and
means
Durer did,
They were
artist to artist
copying.
to
Venice
to
also cheap.
in
1507.
By
those
fetish in
hundreds
in
still
left
and no
those days
shop
his
do enabled me
to
and
Rubens, disdained
or
his prints.
circulate
to
buy one
or
to
shame
false
through
two when
was
school.
From my schoolboy
addiction to Diirer,
turned elsewhere.
what seemed
whose genius
deep that he
is
so
9); the
huge
straightforward, but
to his close study
as to his
trasted
artifice
is
buried.
is
They look
naked people
like
'true' in
what seems
and
look-(7,
a most
as
much
was
right
how
artists
at
me
but
it
was,
thought, simply a
and wrong.
their predecessors.
wide
my
suppose, was
turned to Rembrandt,
about
rejected, in
I
as,
as if they
context.
'natural'.
and
me more
could make
to
images look
intellectually considered
8,
to place unless
Rembrandt
all
was attached
at
from place
travel
make
sent.
careful copies
own.
could not
and
He made
in Italy.
(3)
draughtsmen of the
great
first
his
Rembrandt owned
set
first
Nor
did
variety of images to
know,
despite the
am making now
how
constant the
44
artist, I
wanted
my
to be original,
too, did so
tory of
this
drawing
and
so far original
in 1655, he
in 1656.
was no aspiring
myself.
here illustrated,
owned by Rembrandt,
and uniquely
art
for
it
was
If,
seems
likely,
he copied (11)
art
to take
shame
in
He
he so greatly enriched.
used what he required from his carefully assembled collection of prints and
drawings by Mantegna,
as
much and more from his fellow human beings. That was the equation, and the
nude is central to it. The human body is both to be drawn and to be embraced,
and
drawing
the
is
in itself an
embrace.
By then I was, I think naturally, much concerned with real human bodies. I
was fifteen or sixteen at the time. Those bodies, although highly attractive, were
very often far from ideal and whatever other relations I had with them, I was
drawing them every day, year in year out, from 'nature' in art schools. It took
me
complex and
enlist the
whole
away
You
have
what you
are
borrowing.
Europe. Influences,
styles,
have
to
to imitate
an and
you do
this
As
grew up
was lucky;
travelled
gulped away
remember, and
at
it
all. It
about
in.
Art
down
as
all
in
artists. If
You
to proliferate; I
intoxicating kind, as
At this
Museum
you develop, but not always very wisely. Nor do you inevitably
or understand,
books began
is
to art students.
in order to master
naturally, as
know,
number of
great
drawings available
for
and
historian,
Giorgio Vasari
in the Florence
brandt and Rubens and, in England, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir
Lawrence.
He
visit
Thomas
What
is
certain
is
and
9.
Rembrandt, The
had
to
Unfinished etching,
was
the
1648
preferably
readily available
work of
more
c.
more
his contemporaries,
fruitful
was
skilled
his inspiration
and
the
and
the
The coming of the Second World War, because it shut down the great
museum collections, shut one off from their contents. It took one back into the
position of one's predecessors. True,
betters
not think
benefited as directly
to
had contemporaries -
from them
as
perhaps
my
course, give
me
the physical
my
elders
might have.
and
I
do
had some
to prints,
life
mean
physical.
46
Apart from
activity
intellectual
its
and
am
and formal
not sure
how
qualities,
often people
Rubens
much
copy
differently, to
left
as
an adaptation.
make him
model
serve as the
is
for a painting.
He
to
is
not so
He
He
This drawing
changing Hercules
stand on Discord.
To
He
how
utilized copies he
drawing of a marble
an intensely physical
is
drawing
who
drawn
how
to place the
arm
a private matter;
it is
his
way
is
be expected and
to
- not
his
it.
What
fast.
There
those final
commitments of
down
legs.
both
is
at
is
It is
his
mind,
These
legs.
not
strikes
after
running abruptly
hard and
which propose
know how
to
read of
this. Firstly,
shaped and then established. Those strong contours are the signs of a
having made up
can
sure.
Those heavy
felt for,
man who,
pose of the
is
stated
heavy
as
when
he
came
to deliberate the
of
the chalk
But the degree of pressure on the chalk would have been nothing
or quill
like as
for himself,
in fact,
he
thing comes out of the tension created between the finger-tips and the opposed
thumb and
this
resultant line,
needle point
is
is
which
delicately scratches
away
the thin
wax ground on
steel
the copper
to expose the line to the acid can be as light as a feather. Those dense blacks and no other medium can give such stygian darks as etching - come from re^
It is
Ik
-/->
?
b
-'
S-
:.
"^ .V*
'^
io.
11.
Rembrandt, Copy
which
is
after
work
r.
1504 (above)
where
for,
it
can
through the
get
line,
it
brown
wax
c.
1655 (below)
to the copper,
eats into
Copper engraving
ink,
it,
is
where
creating incisions
another matter.
sharp gouges which directly and forcefully cut the line into the metal.
laborious and precise. There
brings
I
me back
come back
finally to
to
him
level,
no
I
my
method of correcting an
- to Albrecht Diirer.
easy
started
here, rather as
quarter of a century of
emotional
is
where
am awed
him
to
by
have come
to
It
little razor--
error,
It
is
which
personally after a
me
deeply
at
an
it.
Apollo (4),
is
and minutely wrought with a sharp pen. Even the name of the god, inscribed
%>
and misspelt
copper
plate,
Three
it,
drawn backwards
and read
ink,
c.
way round.
the right
1504
It is
an absc
nude, the pose and form taken from the Apollo Belvedere, a
Antique
all
using
is
it
marble copy of a
famous of
statue,
lutely Classical
Roman
Arms
as
now
lost
Greek bronze
original
and perhaps
Rubens used
the most
own
purposes.
famous Fall of Adam (5) and Apollo becomes Adam. One of the
drawings I first held in my hands in the Print Room, when I was twelve years
copper
old,
to
his
was a study
and
imitation,
and public
Adam's arms
meaning and
statement.
drawing, made
12.
for
Rubens, Hercules
It
has haunted
from and
me ever since.
also a lesson
representation, inspiration
Adam
after a print
(13).
to learn
is
and
In a
way it is
about originality
skill,
private thought
of a marble copy of a
standing on Discord;
Red and
lost
black chalks,
c.
1618-22
are
50
But consider
What
three
began
as a
clarity
how
They
his arms.
is
hands.
different, separate
The
here takes
artist
possession of his subject; the copies have served their purpose. In the engraving,
all is
The hand
will
become
Adam's
arm
left
fingers
which,
is
drawing
in the
to
is
become
his
in the engraving
hand
vital
How should
it
be got
right?
Now
if
you look
at
your
physical relationship of each digit to the others, the tension across the knuckles,
There
to
engrave
it
or cut
it
new drawings,
in marble, or cast
it
is
And
public.
What
the
because
it
is
subtle
it,
there will be
The drawing
is
one
drawing
private, the
the serpent
hold
still
hundred
right in
engraving
work;
bronze or paint
in
shows
are a
it
is
it.
is
selecting, discarding,
probing
for the
at
such a drawing you are admitted into the process of visual thought and you will
be,
at
it,
briefly not
movement of
in the spontaneous
only
his
at the centre
hand.
him marshal
ing
behind
in order to
life
his experience
do
You
are
form on a
artist's
mind, but
watching him
create the
of a great
flat
surface.
at
the
his
it.
the
hand
grasp.
It is
in the
fruit
of the
tree
of knowledge.
Chapter Four
The Egyptians
Fleur Cowles
me and their
past seems to me to be a
Egyptian
4000
relics that
Museum we
do
Egypt's
particularly
years of
human
No
experience.
be
past,
glittering
survival
mystical
story
that
at the British
for that
we
are
privileged.
The
its
rare
deliberately
Thus, much
rituals
account
Nile Valley.
in the
their treasures in
and ancient
made
The Egyptians
life
remains.
still
Before the First Dynasty, Egyptians simply buried their dead in shallow
trenches, the bodies being preserved by desiccation in the hot, dry sand.
When,
about 3000 B.C., the nobility started building superstructures over the sand,
destruction of
would have
perished.
Imagine the
thrill
of opening a royal
tomb
And
of the British
monarch's
can, if we use a
we
see, re-create
This
is
not
yet today, as
Museum and
life,
little
forte,
we walk
see laid
we walk
am
the Egyptian
I
an
many
straight
I visit
all
her favourite
out before us so
numerous fascinating
nor
with
finery,
do when
my
much
details
rooms
art historian,
of the
aspects of such a
back
in time
to observe carefully
life
and
what
she led.
at the British
Museum. Egyptology
me
but
it
gives
THE EGYPTIANS
52
love, even
if,
doing so makes
me long for
When
in
Egypt
is
the
Visiting archaeological
memory of days
tilted in
bewildered, round
relics in the
sites,
spent
Cairo Museum.
as well as
Egyptian
ruins) has been a luxury I've enjoyed for the last twenty years of restless travel,
is
where
papyri,
with the
pomp
cat retriever
world
like
and
relics
eels
mummy, on
paw of a
as
over the images of nobles; imperturbable gods with heads of falcon, or cobra, or
bird, or cat; court records of thieves (like
in hieroglyphics
modern
titanic statues
and a
To
use,
And
they are
Sometimes,
at
As
very beautiful.
all
and
to the ancient
and
an
artist
myself,
and
as a
woman,
one
woman
bit
Long
ago, to simplify
my
own
foreign to our
wander through
I
bear
it
in
the collections,
mind
am
objects that
however
Though
it
And
what
three
main
all
visits, I
as
I fit
what
see into a
me
most. Then, as
personal pattern.
As
long
carefully
set
have
now found
its
of
all,
life
itself.
For
all
man's head,
know
that the
in
it
was
lived with a
animal form.
men
When
I
it
Secondly, death.
it
fascinating
THE EGYPTIANS
the ritual of
mummification (which
after /-life.
Egyptians expected
its
gory detail).
to live
Each elegant
its
mysterious symbols,
had enjoyed on
tells
for
an
after-life
(all
came
earth.
In each category,
- and,
of their plans
53
have gleaned
as
my
do
shall
best to describe
them.
Life
One
a sense of
and
history
delight in
work and
the
good
life,
was
his efforts
monumental
new
we now
and
historical records),
mented. The
controlled,
he had
administration.
enjoy. Irrigation
cated,
and
and
intelligent
the
first
And
As
a jeweller, his
all this
most of the
its
rest
a spreading delta.
culture kept
work was
style
mud and
the ideas
and customs of
of mankind.
and ending
fourth millennium,
as jewels) animal'deity
when men on
the Nile
grouped into
tribes,
each with
its
own god. This was generally an animal or a bird, but gradually these beasts gave
up their own bodies to become hybrid'humans, keeping only the head of one or
the other to place
even look
Men
now
on
worshipped any
force,
good
and crocodile
The
transition
was
so smooth, one
can
as sacred as
or prevented
if
soon
they thought
as he believed
it
exercised
feared,
from
m.
.-
MUMMY
Of
CAT
..IEQ
CAT.
[Roman niooJ
Mummified
Divine
to
cats,
from
status thus
went
to
many
goddess Bastet
mummified
My
among
favourite
senied by a
ears, fur
woman
these animals
with a
head).
cat's
The
had upright
and ochre,
first
mousetrap.
It
animal soon
divinities
From
rose
agility
the granary
it
was
length about
two and
as a retriever in
a short
walk
Wild
cats
a half
hunting but
to the foot
of Egypt.
and
its
tail
ferocity
is
feet, its
as
man's
of a throne.
The
to
fire
the
kill
daughters a
The
To
cat
was
trial
ibis)
'little cat'.
a goddess of pleasure.
relied
upon
to
ward
to
dance and
One
in
of
THE EGYPTIANS
the most celebrated
and
Herodotus
after a visit
of castanets, walked
and
in
in
statues
seem
to
cats were,
Museum,
at
Mummy
spirits.
Wine
to Bastet
sound
Egypt.
And
black jackal
freely.
after a life
even the
who
all
human dead
and
of veneration.
mummified
cat
funeral
by the hand
god of death. As
the
flowed
Lord of the
to the
mummified. All
in her
More
Egypt was
fair at
55
rites
and
the art of
him. The
sleek,
to the presence
of the
to
ping
in the sky,
(2).
2.
Horus
in the guise
of a falcon
56
THE EGYPTIANS
the
As
is
applied to
and
tiptoes
studded
The
the sky
called Hathor.
all
finger-tips.
earth at
her star'
belly.
lady lion
lioness'headed
to
have intended
battle, full
to
included responsibility
of vengeance. She
human
race.
Her
fire
of
the sun).
either seen in
Some
its
own
that ever
hideous likeness or
as a
down and
It
man
worshipped a
crocodile.
Sebek
destroyed
it,
others
worshipped
it
to
be appeased as a god ; some were even given golden ear-rings to wear, others had
gold bracelets riveted to forelegs. There was even a special sanctuary for them
(Crocodilopolis)
live in
tourist attractions.
One
legend
supposed
3.
to
is
own
first
who
4.
Commemorative
scarabs issued by
Amenhetep
III;
c.
1417-1379 B.C.
after
death; the other, to prevent the valued physical heart (which was thought
man.
Worship of the beetle came from its extraordinary habit of burying its eggs
of dung, which were rolled along between its legs, giving the newborn
larvae something to feed on. The Egyptians identified the scarab with the power
behind the sun - which rolled in similar fashion across the sky much as the ball of
eggs encased in dung rolled across the sand. From this activity, Khepri was con'
in balls
sidered to be the source of power (indeed, given credit for rolling the ball of sun
into the
Other World each evening and back again each morning, representing
the renewal of
life
The importance of
name
existence).
He was
also considered to
Khepri means.
are
found
in
thousands of
potential
life
varieties.
into
it
eventually
became
a royal
emblem
came
(certainly
of
THE EGYPTIANS
58
The
Constantinople temple,
It is
Room,
Jewel
see in the
the
whole
story.
a special history.
and
can
Now we
It
was
come
it
which record
sounds made by
was
the Ibis
in another. In the
own
Museum we
Ibis,
which was
sacred to Thoth.
world and
later,
was
phics, he
his
The
the story.
done with
had been
theft
to a
Rumours of a
their confessions
see the
and he was
known
as the 'Mistress
of the
House of Books'.
It
that the
hippopotamus was
a female.
Thoeris
is
always seen as a long/breasted beast, nearly always standing upright and always
potamus
red
(5).
My
and yellow
statue,
is
its
final
example
in the
Museum
is
a small hippo/
-a
large
also striking.
who
Even
favourite
fertility,
when
was
decomposed. Thus,
it
life.
was
to protect the
con/
The
bull Apis,
is
Honoured through
Egypt, he was always black and easily recognizable by certain mystic marks a
:
moon on
He
own
temple, from
on
his
which he was
made
flight
tongue - and a
let
on
tail
his back, a
with double
5.
hippopotamus; faience
At
in vast
subterranean
sarcophagi.
The
cows of Memphis
sacred
also
had
their
own
vast cata-
combs.
complex
fertility.
is
Soon,
its
place
fear
among
became
the
it
was
much
its
own,
associated with
to
keep snakes
marking out a
of its
evil
particular territory
Because
Snakes were
also
worn
as
which
serpents
came
forth
it
brow of royal
statues
is
The
popularity.
Khnum,
the ram-headed,
is
thought
to
have moulded
But three other animal gods had the most thankless assignment of all: they (and
a fourth, a
these organs
6.
The
so'called
jackaL-headed
called
Imsety, a
'Canopic Jars' -
(6)
),
over the liver; Qebhsenuef, falcon/headed, over the intestines; Hapi, the baboon/-
who had
There
are
many
Death
Burial
things that no
man wanted an
of
idyllic reconstruction
its
Life
on
was
so full of
good
best elements.
man's tomb.
If you
as in life,
went
than a
life
Who/
man was
to survive, his
body
to
remain
would be
left
carried
so that,
intact
left
in each
tomb
to
make
certain of this.
life
to
be
Draw/
so deftly illustrated
on posthumously.
7.
Mummy and
coffin
of unnamed
priestess
THE EGYPTIANS
62
Preservation of the
that
it
for
dates
after viscera
Only the
and
lotions.
abdomen was
first
to dry the
body,
filled
Most
to dissolve fats
the
inside.
left
nostrils
cassia
to
of understanding, was
finger
and each
was bandaged, then each limb and finally the whole body.
king's arms
would be covered in jewels, his toes and fingers sheathed in gold. Across the
toe
waist and body, bits of gold and glazed beads and necklaces and daggers were
Tutankhamen's
placed.
mummy
is
jars in the
tomb
treated
example anywhere.
itself.
it
artificial eyes.
series
The
eye of falcon^headed
Horus was
it
wrapped
in a
deceased.
own
in their
made,
as in
humans,
to
produce a
wrapped
is
on
but with
all
those
human
mummy,
'This
is
the
most
Afterlife
food and drink. Kings and nobles buried pieces of furniture, chests of clothing
and
all
without.
Of
shawabtis
and
which such
a person
would
not
want
to
be
which went
into
tombs
there to
to act as slaves
and workers
that the
for
Egyp^
THE EGYPTIANS
would be
tians believed
life
on
as necessary in the
Underworld
Some
it,
shabtis
as
it
63
were carved
in
wood
is
or stone,
new
for
explains so
and
much
figures
to
by
That
role in the
fertile
life, art
of sale,
five
Museum
know for
one man
green,
bill
the process by
wanted
collection,
set
This small
overseers.
Museum
It is
hundred
papyrus -
years
how
and industry of a
to
is,
in fact, the
how
key which
supported roofs of early houses. Later, they were replaced by carved stone
replicas of an
together,
8.
enormous
scale to
uphold
A shabti of Amenhetep
III
crates, baskets
and even
bundled
furniture.
"
^yt
9.
Fowling
And
in a
fresco
c.
Papyrus
leave the
first
marsh;
coffin^texts insured a
tomb when
necessary.
good
life
Among
and
is
the broker,
no doubt enjoying
illness or
harm.
a lucrative sideline.
how
earth
is
to
Museum is the
Crown Prince
priest
Another
to calculate the
there
or
is it
an
acrostic?
Of the
beautiful in the
displays:
in
quisitely painted
window on
One,
'/ the
set
Garden,
is
an ex^
65
rounding a pool
which
in
Another
lovely painting
hunter
is
which
The boomerang
it
as
it
flics at
counted
up
it,
colouring and
and gay.
playful
(their
which
a bird, stuns
The
falls.
must be a
there
is
Two
the water.
composition
harmony.
in poetic
and
lilies live
swimming, on
is
The
magical explanation.
and
birds
fish,
In one, cattle
reports.
Asian
their
origin).
In another,
in
in
admiration. In most, one finds the nobleman watching the exercise, and usually
also the scribe
frescoes
The
still
who
grows
is
there to record
in
The
it.
wheat
lovely bearded
in these
ancient
Egypt today.
art,
characterized
to give a
maximum
taste.
in
tie
had
their
mixed thinking,
they painted faces only in profile and bodies only in front view (as in a beautiful
profile, in the
stiff,
same lovely
maidens
manner of the
day.
in profile.
of in the required
He
also
profile,
one could
by showing two
their toes
- an unusual
girl
profiled
Each
with bodies
at
stylized
in
style.
straight
inv
totally
dose of realism, solemn but not pompous, serious but never sad. Royal dignity
required no rich garment or lavish dress.
we know we
of royal portraits.
Men
Though looking
One
is
at
nearly
overwhelmed by
naked men,
the solemnity
privilege.
All
are
inv
pressive.
The Sculpture
coffins,
Gallery
is
one then comes upon the Rosetta Stone, about which a book could be
picked by Ruskin
as 'the noblest
and
truest
large,
carved lions
recumbent
have ever
lions
seen.
were
And
THE EGYPTIANS
66
yet, in
them, the
smooth
as
lions'
as a mirror.'
These lions
and
On
was
end of the
the other
years later.
finished in
spectrum,
art
These
human
III for a
we
When recaptured,
back
carried
and
to
Nubia.
tombed
posses*-
many musical
must have dearly loved music (but no one has been able
played - there
carried
a second
are represented
are of artistic
instruments, they
to
demonstrating wine being made, bread being baked (loaves of bread 3500 years
old were found
at
Thebes),
and
sailed boats
the bakery
(the brewery
the granary
women
gallery visitors.
eels
They always
we go back
to
men
no doubt by
for,
found in
to the objects
tombs. Perfumes and cosmetics were once so costly they were sometimes stolen
One tomb
in preference to gold.
gems
the
able oils
for
first
later,
stolen instead
The
we
as
understand
and poured
gold and
for the
valu^
from
if
we
it,
this very
still
visible
is
look
at
cheek and
Women
fat
lost
behind
left
Perfume,
to
were
on
gilt
women
now. In
sticks to help a
oils in great
their
ramout
nails
in
woman
perfumes
the jewels
apply rouge
little
cones of scented
heads to melt in the heat and trickle over face and body!
Women hennaed their hair and also painted their nails and
dye.
are using
room with
the
lips.
used
on top of
as
Hadlv
precisely as
we
Egyptians did.
If
one looks
at the
coffins,
no
further evidence
is
needed
io.
tomb of Amenhetep
of the importance of eye make-up: blue-glass paste, like lapis lazuli, encircle
eyes, the sort
in
little
jars
little
ebony
sticks.
If
use
one wonders
was
why
restricted to
jewellery
was
all
so lavish
(n and
12),
it
is
because
its
as far as
am
graphic description; the combination of colour plus texture plus scale gives so
much
to the eye.
Very often jewels were made in the shape of petals, flowers, bells, lotus pods,
fish - the beautiful elements of everyday life. But often they were animal gods and
and
sea.
THE EGYPTIANS
68
At
first,
that
came from
it is
was
brownish
reds,
is
knew
their
brilliantly perfected
and we
see purple^
artists
benefited.
pieces today
might note
was
in
ence.
Faience,
made of powdered
quartz,
and
lime,
make
beads.
ing lapis lazuli was also achieved. Precious stones were not 'home-grown': real
lapis lazuli
came from
the Sinai or
Arabia;
But the
Such
real
crystal
glass
in very
and amethysts
from Ethiopia.
beauty lay in the simple objects into which they were fashioned.
creativity
and
taste surely
influenced
- and continues
c.
1.
New Kingdom;
12.
artists);
XVHIth
dynasty;
c.
figures
to
S9WJ^
Chapter Five
The Greeks
Tyrone Guthrie
are
some of the
finest
marble
Parthenon
Athens. They
in
works of art
relief which
crown of the
came
originally
British
They
from the
Museum's Greek
collection.
To
time
was not
it
states,
Greek
city
common language and close ties of religion, history and culture. Athens acquired
its
leading role
(500-449
after
B.C.). In the
Age
and
artistic
Parthenon was
and philosophers
and
Socrates,
created the
Athenian
art
and
influence on
Towards
the
end of the
to be called
fifth
no
cities
literature,
predominant
was involved
in a long/
physically, financially
now?
The
Anaxagoras
like
as
institutions
political activity.
its
victory,
which
has, ironically,
begun
in
greatest of the
age.
He was appointed
the Parthenon
was
by Pericles
to
It is
the
greatest
artists in
and he died
stone of any
own
likeness
on the
efforts.
He was
in prison.
The Parthenon,
erected
city. It is
a gigantic
^^r
Greek;
Clay
c.
toilet
(pyscis)
460 B.C.
box with
lid
on which stand
four horses;
Attic Geometric,
760-740 B.C.
~*F:
THE GREEKS
72
During
build.
was used
mosque.
its
history
has served
it
many gods.
In the
as a
It
it
became
damage
a Turkish
man-made.
is
1687
in
fifth
ing force of Turks and a great explosion destroyed the roof and
The Elgin
Marbles, the work of Phidias and his fellow craftsmen, are frag'
ments, some taken from the fabric of the Parthenon, others salvaged from
The
ruins.
formed a
frieze
its
which ran
round the tops of the columns supporting the temple. They represent a procession
am
round the
vast rectangle
following
it
and
beautiful
interesting.
It is
to the
of the colonnade.
immediately
is
which evoke
instinctive
and
primitive reactions of awe and pleasure. But then, reaction to great works of art
is
primitive and
far less
them
more
intellectual,
Many
masted sailing-ship.
There
are considerably
now
colourless,
brilliantly
and
realistically
mean 'Pop'
don't
art) consists
lay
on
the
ground
as a
are
whole, were
detailed
why
to appreciate
just as easily as
is
who
allocates to
illustrated.
Apart from
the panels
groups of statuary,
several
which make up
much
dominant position
in the architectural
which
Judging by
originally decorated
their proportions
it
is
and
their
infer that
no longer possible
be
to
These
be absolute masterpieces.
by those
can't see
if they
who know
them except
a great deal
as
were.whole. But
more than
to
becomes ignorance
to
be other than humble. Let us accept them as masterpieces and be grateful that
even so
much
Grateful to
given his
whom?
name
Bronze head of a
Greek,
c.
to the collection.
griffin
650 B.C.
Well, in the
first
He was
British
Ambassador
to
who
Turkey
at
has
the
^ w
V)
k
^-v
Hermes
(left),
herald
cloak and hat. Dionysus (right), god of wine; Elgin Marbles, East Frieze
time
set
works of
that unparalleled
visited
art
England. Shortly
compensated Elgin
after the
for the
completion of
Treasury
contemporary caricature
is
pay money
for stones,
when
to
his children
on the argument
us the popular
John Bull
compelled
Museum shows
in the British
at
being
had no
that Britain
Athens
fact
until the
ground down
Of course,
certainly
end of Turkish
this
to
many
Some
rule.
Government were
to return the
would merely be
exists.
Marbles
set
to
up
Now
The
cords by
which
is
argued that
if
the British
in another
if
South Frieze
it
Horsemen
if
make cement.
danger no longer
it
(opposite above)
North Frieze
(opposite below)
THE GREEKS
76
to
its
logical conclusion,
all
must be centralized
artifice
the wealthiest
who
communities
in a very
safely
housed
that,
stupendous museums,
Wouldn't
achievements of humanity
say,
be rather hard on
and be deprived
it
still
isn't there
some^
my
view,
Museum
of Art in
comprehensible,
New
if far
think there
created.
is
if
more
art to
Meanwhile,
enjoyable, as well as
places
much more
York, would be
The
British
collection should,
to take the
object
Museum
is
It is
materials
wood,
Greek
in the
say that
section in
mere antiquity
which
every
not necessarily
is
room
artistic
is
You might
among
would be
to
us,
its
The
made of
fail to
a material derived
from
trees
which
('It is
wide
tracts
of the
it is
twentietlvcentury civilization.
Now
under a
for so
buttress.
things
which
why
a wise
Clay drinking.>cup
man
(kylix),
figure
of
to
be
in a fireproof vault;
and
affection.
Bronze
at
loss
it
box
hold
The
This
c.
460 B.C.
{above)
c.
Marble
statue
Marble
figure
of a
curiosity.
To
have survived
proportion of British
the
at all
Museum
it
c.
330 B.C.
{left)
B.C. {right)
A high
religion.
a god'
haunted people. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing, the fiftlvcentury
Athenian
felt
He acquired
as 'the first
and
European
poets'.
life.
the Iliad
and
all
wisdom
poems were
c.
2000 B.C.
from Boeotia
in Central
Greece, marble;
c.
560 B.C.
who lived on the top of Mount Olympus. Zeus, perhaps better known
by his later Roman name, Jupiter, was king or father of the gods. The queen and
mother, wife of Zeus, was Hera. The other principal gods, who were regarded
of gods
as the
children of Zeus and Hera, were a brilliant but tumultuous brood, boiling
with very
human
human
discipline of
conscience.
There were
to
deities in
qualities.
There was
to live;
and
of money, metalwork,
the Greeks
It is
felt
had
god
rivers, springs,
for
mountains and
you name
very far
that
during the
ever
still
practised today.
of extensive sections
no one
sceptically to claims
it,
it.
way
valleys
gods
Also
there
is
reason to
THE GREEKS
They were aware,
about
all
becomes of us,
know from
if anything,
when our
works of Plato
the philosophical
we
are,
comes
present existence
institutions
why we
to
we know
what
are,
an end.
and Sophocles
And we
as well as
from
was balanced by
Athenian
little
8l
the
For instance
it
is
one thing
Aeschylus
for
It is
man
to greater
and philosophers
attitudes
to the
and
independence
man
mind
to free
beliefs.
in the street
he struggles
as
itself entirely
Bound a
to express in Prometheus
powerful intimations of
less
deity.
The contrast with our own times is immediately apparent. With the Church in
work and play have become to a high degree secularized
if for
darkness.
none other
And
that people
yet
who
it ill
becomes us
our attitude
lived so long
is
to regard
Greek culture
often unbearably
as a relic
at
such
ideas,
what,
if any,
Museum Greek
this
of pagan
collection
am bound
Have
could have
poetry, music,
to
wonder
great buildings?
Station?
Eliot or
or Euripides?
We
posterity.
But
at
the answer.
if effort is
The
anything
to
final verdict
judge by
does not
would
rest
say that
our cultural bequest to posterity will be poorer than that of the relatively small
city
We are too concerned with material comforts and the search for leisure with the
emphasis not on stimulation but relaxation. We have more than our fair share
of vulgarity - in
tion
is
is
that
it
style
and
taste
for ever.
collect
you and
me and
for
now, but
what
for life
and
Chapter Six
The Romans
Robert Erskine
Of all
There
are,
it
is
true, aspects
we have most
in
common
to us.
They
accepted slavery in the natural order of things; they relished the horrors of the
arena; they exposed
future events
unwanted
from the
entrails
would seem
children,
From
the
Roman
callous
and
precise.
in the
to the duties
They were an
Romans
theorized,
aged members
of friendship.
Roman,
They would
acted.
listen
open
and
reason,
to
Where Greeks
age,
not the differences between the texture of our society and the
it is
was another
standpoint,
But
it
to be able to foretell
to interpretation
by
jurists,
and
cases
were argued on
their merits.
left
Their
armies were better trained and better organized than any other until modern
times.
customs of
it
worked extremely
well.
when
They
it
was considered
and
that they
It is still
Roman
engineers
on
the shape of
the landscape: the aqueducts to carry water into the cities; the harbours;
the
famous
straight roads.
the
Roman
and
private dwellings.
and
Roman
there
is
communal works
thing
and
inclined to construct
own
house. In every'
sense.
In
its
hey-day, the
diverse character,
peoples of completely
to the sophisticated
If
IOT
'
i.
first
security
it
down under
settle
East.
It is
the
Roman
offered.
commemorative
relief erected
by
century B.C.
Roman
predilection, whether
it
was
whether
it
theme of
strove to
of
its
was conquest
Roman
make
history
their
is
world a well-regulated
The Romans
world adjusted
entity, a
to the
needs
its
geographical drawbacks.
It
was
as
much an
The Roman
No
god
and
but
knew
social
it is
best.
Yet
problems similar
to
human
2.
Roman
The
denarii
showing
portraits
foundations of
Roman
this
Mark Antony
conscientiousness
lies
who
stare
quality of self/dignity
sion.
for
if
wrought
to
little
own
proclaims that
Roman
history, for
which
it is
is
an
On
attractive
his features,
them proudly
as a
their integrity.
this
of Julius Caesar,
man
individuality.
accomplishments and
a pair of formidable
sign of his
of
clearly a
is
and fair-minded,
reliable
is
in the character
Pompey and
The
Brutus.
stirring times
of
word
suggests today.
personal conscience.
In
dilemmas
the
fact,
that he experienced
Roman
intention
is
to perpetuate
lived.
It
man
political leanings,
man
as he really
set
up
its
was, rather
As
tomb/
by the side of the road leading into the town where he had
Roman
virtues.
Countless people
would judge his memory by his portrait, and the evidence of his
would survive. It was usual for another head to be kept in the entrance/
passing by
qualities
was
situated
mausoleum,
all
was
were
3.
the gold
to a.d. 14)
wearing an aegis;
86
THE ROMANS
hall
of the family house, along with those of other distinguished ancestors of his
line.
in public
on
rites.
Here again,
effigies
waxwork
Through
feel
has given
man behind
way
to
more permanent
which
stone,
still
we can meet
the stone.
the
even further, and actually hear them talking through the private
have come
it
first
letters that
personality that
period, there
was
it is
man's
in a
letters that
best of all.
who was
letter/writer
a contemporary of Sarculo's.
His
letters to
more formal
and
essays
legal speeches.
many of the
on them and
we
the events in
which he and
his
Romans
awkward
an
argument and
visit
affable.
December,
again on your
was
And
He
largely
They
He
way
about
to
it
When
he had arrived
crowded with
at
power:
room
wasn't a guest to
back.'
at
was
so
are as fascinating to us as
whom
you would
literature. In short,
say,
'Do
please
in
men
come
no glamour
But
He
in civil war.
themselves.
comments
destiny in political
after his
or strength or generosity.
ignominious death
about
his fate: in
my
in Egypt,
Cicero
relents a little
end. ...
4.
When
Caesar used
later, in
own
makes no
wants
letter to
it
difference
that
man
Brutus himself:
damned madman' he
what
passionately.'
century a.d.
words:
to say, 'It
ever he wants, he
first
And
statue
calls
is
him
if
care.
THE ROMANS
88
The swashbuckler
is
still
No
somehow: he
I
Her
[he says]
insolence,
lot.
They seem
when
was
she
living in Caesar's
cannot
recall
to
think
without indignation.
spirit,
but
feelings at all.
There
are hopeful
Caesar intended
who
and
as his successor,
slighted Cicero
no
So no
that at times
here.
It
How
wonder
inherited his
to
name
when he
is
we may
at the
we have
him up
the promising
now
In the event, Cicero turned out to be absolutely wrong. 'The boy Caesar' grew
up
to
Antony
all
for
it
murdered and
Mark Antony
also
succumbed
vailing fashion for violent death, leaving 'the boy Caesar' high
summit of power,
During
to
the Civil
become
Wars
the
first
Roman
own
populace and
was a
have
to
the
medium
(2)
at
available for
to the pre'
and dry
to their
troops,
and
Roman
denarius
portraits
treatment.
Still,
5.
and
Bronze
initiative
sestertius
Emperor Nero
6. Silver
showing a
portrait
of the
(left)
cup with
a repousse decoration
showing
first
millefiore (glass)
(opposite below)
a scene
century B.C.
7.
they enable
THE ROMANS
90
Republican tradition
for their
aim was
How
different
Augustus! Here
with
in
his
old
profiles,
is
is
(3)
handsome middle^age
'at
Roman
taste
at
the
Roman
shows
It
corrupted by fulsome
is
new opulence
detested.
the
Emperor
homage
capital, for
and
to the ruler.
princes.
The
jewels in the
way
it
is
here (6)
is
Roman
much
very
in
cup describes
a scene
Golden Age,
silverware.
The
silver
and
Homeric poems,
into his
is
now
the unfolding of a
new
artists celebrate
power
illustrated
rule. Virgil
Wars. Augustus
the reins of
cup
own hands
in the
name of
is
efficiency
government.
Meanwhile,
emphasizes the
Roman
presence.
is
Emperor's
statue set
up
in countless temples
Emperor's god'like
and
to the loyal,
fine
Museum is
Aswan in Egypt. It was one of hundreds to be found in every corner of
Roman world: indeed making Emperor^statues became a considerable
British
world
the
The
at
art
temple was
now
a sculptural virtue,
out, the
head
is still
portraiture in
necessary to
and although
the
human
a reasonable likeness of
Roman
summarize
the statue
Emperor
still
felt
it
these.
Throughout
the
first
bronze
sestertius (5),
provided a
better
format
The
THE ROMANS
Emperor Nero,
was content
admit
to
91
to his
and
no surprise
it is
death brought
of no
less
that he
instrument, for a
was
The
in circulation.
The mint
coins
his
again
are
Galba reigned
uncommon. Otho
for
vital political
Roman
people
months, and
saw
ended up with
civil
quite
plentiful
managed
today.
The
eight
months
in
power,
quantity of surviving
coins struck for these short-lived emperors stresses the importance of this
medium
of public relations: and, typically, the most powerful factor was the
portrait.
The
is
period.
Trade
from Spain
to the
were even
8.
Red
German
Roman
pottery
from northern
Black Sea.
forests, the
goods found
Sudanese
lamp
Italy
their
deserts,
century a.d.
Roman
way abroad
and
as well:
Roman
goods
are
somewhat
THE ROMANS
92
had
to serve
these
Roman
object. In the
parts of the
Empire
first
place, there
was
The Alexandrian
made of rods of
coloured glass
all
It
of commercial
factory,
and
Bronze pans,
similar labels.
The
rivalry.
is
betters-class pottery,
factories that
lamp
red pottery
stamped 'strobili' -
It is
identification.
further
brand^names of the
(8)
More commonplace
made them, in a spirit
(a
Italian
its
base.
Commercial
(9,
on
activity
this scale
in a
Legion, and
and
Roman
loyal to their
in the
adversaries
their
much
defeats,
for
The
legionaries
commanders.
Legions spread round the perimeter of the Empire. For the most
thirty
too
their
part,
No
men
For
many
and
toil
privileges,
legal
would be not
such
advantages of
Roman
of land
citizenship.
after
Even
the
me
Sir, a
It
was
is
preserved.
Here
is
letters
shows:
interest in his
to
your
Some of the
know how
soldiers' requests.
men
A legionary enjoyed
from the
to
far
drills.
readily
It
made Governor of
the reply
9.
Bronze
statuette
of a
Roman
i!-**d
,-.--
UuU\
io.
53-117)
have read the petition which you forwarded on behalf of Publius Accius
him
the exceptional
greatest
title
to
his daughter
hand
to
Roman
citizenship
his
and am
him.
THE ROMANS
Rome
humane government.
but
vinces. Pliny
and
men'
sensible
his
Emperor correspond
in 'the
honest
The Governor
Roman
language of
(a
letters
95
Roman Empire
all sorts
work.
at
of details of adminis^
tration
Among the
out),
is
there runs
what
which
eyesore
is
There
is
if
is
it
covered
my
every reason,
uncovered.
city
I
am
money
fully in control
If
of Amastris,
laid
The
health
and appearance
alike of
this shall
be
if
it
is
danger
as
which you
to health
always
while
it
say flows
remains
is
no
work.
we
learn
from
his
own
words. Here
is
man
think a
man
is
finished,
when
object.
goods,
and
sure
for this
He would
main
well built
his
is
active.
in,
which
through the
lack of
is
done.
Throughout
Roman
image
Even
in the
Roman
Romans'
interest
people.
The
narrative of
Roman history frequently anticipates the events of our own time. We stand in
the Roman shadow as we experience again and again the issues that they had to
cope with: that
is
why
their
own
understanding.
their attitudes
Chapter Seven
The RomancvBritish
Gwyn Thomas
The
centuries that surround the beginning of the Christian era were a time of
convulsion. Tribes
frontiers.
what
lay
random, unhindered by
at
for
what
lay
fixed
and powerful
fear
of
lation of wealth in
of needs crudely
tribal
moved
fulfilled, a sniffing
body towards
Final power
air
difficult. Prehistory
and
is
dim map
better
would go
of the
to
needs and giving the world a physical frame in which most needs could, on a
permanent, rational
basis,
to a
The Romans
wars
plunder
officials.
to fight
territorial
new
shores.
The
rulers the
for a
good millennium,
Romans found
in Britain
were
we
know today as the 'Home Counties', with his sumptuous capital at Colchester
(Camulodunum) was a newcomer. Camulodunum. It is strange how many
names of this period bring
vision, after the
Roman
to one's
mind
defeat,
relatively
new
arrival too
was Prasutagus,
kingdoms, leading a
the
tribe in East
husband of Boadicea,
that
won their
mainland.
little
Anglo/Saxon and
Norman
texture.
settlements
by historians,
little
which gave
physically
refer to their
dark people'.
It
own
conjures
do not resemble
the
tall, fair
Celts described
up
of a
pitifully
under'
c.
200 B.C.
reduced
hill'fastnesses,
tribe,
Welsh mythology
vention from the
stantial
is
spirit
Cunobelinus
as
Rome was
as
its
city
of
from Colchester.
Now
inter/'
it
top-soils.
rests
Deep'
delving machines and skilled, patient research are uncovering every day some
new
aspect of the
400 or 500
years in
which
and
the con'
querors of ill-assorted native tribes took to coalesce into the hyphenated unit of
Our
curiosity
we
call
'Romano/British'.
far
beyond the
giant, indestructible
fragments like the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, meant to intimidate and
repel the Picts
the
Caledonian
or the
Roman
hills to
fort at
take
Cardiff
.-**
which provided
Romans
Buried and
our century.
which
the place
took
The
hill'fort
of Segontium
had perforce
at
Normans'
greatest
in
And
more
the perfect
live in a
restless
in the posture
at
stare
at
is
which conquerors
beneath the
down
of defence. Caernarvon
way
their leave.
utterly fascinating
the Legions
Norman
later
is
soil
by hating
lit
the soil
the
eyes.
which awaits
the
brilliantly to discover the private details, the face, the voice, the gestures
of the multitudes,
now
pacific
which
who
fierce,
set
the iron
and
hand
We
THE ROMANOBRITISH
carefree he
When
he
is
terrified either
by the nightmares
redeem
it.
sophisticated
his
to
is
grateful.
Coins
a tangible witness to
99
hill
man's
rulers
or
back and
and
of
needs, to
door economically.
has been determined that in the villa^sites that have been dug, coins dated
before the close of the fourth century have not been found. This
settles, at least
on
the basis of a hopeful approximate, a question that baffled historians for years:
when
and
in the face
of the
fighting
tripartite tide
all
the
of barbarism,
when
still
the tribes
and
late first
Irish, Scottish,
and Saxon,
Roman
beyond the
that
century
that
must have
Hmites, the
Cambridgeshire;
arm of Roman
and
THE ROMANOBRITISH
100
serenity, a
Roman
municipality,
life
and unbearable,
Roman
when
who
were here
before him.
spirit,
effort
to
match
life's
that the
Romans had
to
own
erection, Britons
have
known
is
a goddess called
to her at Bath.
its
Minerva and
Centuries
later,
we found
Lydney a
made from
at
a deduction
of
its
And
first
century B.C.
identify
Roman
with the
(left)
century a.d.
(right)
art
Castoivware beaker
with barbotine hunting
scene
second to
mid'fifth century
Christian chapel. This recession of a vigorous belief in the pantheon that had
sustained Republican
emperor'worship
Roman
truly
and
is
heart of the
is
that
One
of the
Empire was
god'monarch Claudius.
Age
temple
to
One
of the
monuments of
last
buildings of
first
and dedicated
the
at
to the
RomancBritish
much more
When men find that they no longer have a robust confidence in their traditional
gods they are ready
Romans
take
was backwards,
ment
that
and
fifth
and
forever.
pages of enchant'
in the
Cotswolds
landowner
first
lost a ferret
glimpses modern
of a magnificent
Reminding
power and
us of
archaeologist, of a
which
had among
wool
Daniel's discovery,
mosaic
floor
its
Roman
pave'
other appurten/
Dr Glyn
Roman
villa. It
testified to
tessellated
trade in the
when
still
Cots wold
a very
young
The
story
is
Bronze head of
Hadrian from
the
Thames
at
London
Bridge; second
century a.d.
evil,
bow
and
in
and death.
clear.
relatively
is
and
and
easily
relentless
down
to the
And
the
when
again, the
man
races
and
America remained
the master.
tribes
easily replaceable.
the
fortress
Devum
and
pacified pro'
The Romans
is
is
from which
now York.
found
in the
Late Celtic
to
first
Thames
art;
first
glass,
near Battersea;
century B.C.
A.D.
Early Celtic;
first
century a.d.
THE ROMANOBRITISH
104
Dubonni and
west, the
in north/west
central
Roman
muscle in the
the Deceangli
hills,
Some
campaigns
and Ordovices.
Roman
largest city in
subdue the
to
now
It is
Britain
and
the
of the north/Welsh
tribes
Wroxeter.
imperatives
temple
now
Silures, are
at
is
social,
economic and
military
Scheme. There
tribes
that
of aborigines
industry.
Having been
rise
and
and
of the
fall
Roman
interest
it is
men doing
Empire, 'ordinary
extraordinary things',
Through
detectives
sensitive
and very
and
is
we
tips as
feel
Wall
My
Roman
or a
father
ear to the
past.
we once
man who
at
the
of Hadrian's
Roman
we do now. It is
among the hills of
of contemporary
in a cellar
night
Lullingstone in Kent.
villa at
or conviction that
tribal fires at
Rome
first
as
it
is
dominated every
strategic hill
and
river
My
father
had confronted
He was as proud
He
and
men on
rouglvneck
they
of them as he was
blow of vindication
who
which we
frightened the
call
Anglesey.
who
laid the
Imperial Purple in
field
as striking a
which
a half-mile
the barked
first
whip on
Rome, were
away and
strong
said, out
commands
on
the
wind.
and
My
rose to
wear the
father pointed to a
'It
was
the banks of that stream that our prince, the Silurian hero, Ely,
there,
along
was routed by
first
or early
THE ROMANOBRITISH
106
the
let,
hindrance, pass'
tribes,
When
he
left
Britain
come back. He had found the fuel he needed for his drive
Pompey and towards the Imperial Crown. Rome did not return to
until a.d. 43. The gap in time is long and has puzzled historians.
During
these years
against
territories
money
had
created in
are driven
by an inescapable urge
to
make
more.
it
minerals and
The
The
but to no avail.
fury,
men who
forward.
In the
first
there
as
Caradoc.
He
His
fled.
of the west
last
They
his
on
in
spasm
Welsh
words spoken
a violent
lives
broke.
was
Dubonni
He
Long Mynd
fort'.
He was
in
Shropshire
at a
taken captive to
at a
spot
still
Rome and
Rome still provide an oil of pride for the lamp of Celtic myth. 'Why should
who have so much have fallen upon us who have so little?'
you
Straits to
They had
ship.
saw
to be destroyed
and Suetonius,
to
having a
who
political leader^
to revive a national
at the
Welsh National
mood and
personality cut
THE ROMANOBRITISH
a
It
site for
was a slave'chain
when
that
human
ceremonies of
sacrifice to
which
for use
He
put
to use.
on victims of the
the
it
107
moments
in
to the boil.
The
initial
Camulodunum
new multi-national Roman army, had been founded as the new capital, with
the Temple of Claudius the god as its heart. What students of racketeering in
the
local princelings
One
and
and
treasure.
in East
Anglia. His queen, Boadicea, was violated and dispossessed along with her
daughters. She, like Caractacus,
eyes,
to the torch.
and fondled
cartload.
sort in
around
the
Welsh memory,
own inadequacy to
Roman settlements.
their
the rich
her
futile
Colchester and
London
who
The
rides
still
and flung
slain
round Mediterranean
were
had
long-headed
horrendous
their last,
Maiden Castle
in Dorset, reveal
more
in death
than in
life.
again and kindle the dream of a united front of Celts against the terrible
fight
fact
away and
slip
of an army backed by a
Suetonius took a
us believe,
civil service
terrible revenge.
was advised
and
Nero, a shrewder
man than
would
fiction
would have
either eliminate or
him with
Julius Classicianus.
a milder, craftier
memorial stone
is
name
Nero,
raised to
him
in Trinity
man.
He
to their villages.
The
Classicianus had a
is
appropriate.
It
who
traditionally
at
range of
The
land into sections, inside which the British population could be supervised,
policed, taxed
more
secure
and encouraged
and
fertile.
to
make
Between the
their
compact with
years a.d. 78 to 85
Agricola subdued
THE ROMANO/BRITISH
108
at
Mons
the Battle of
Graupius. Between 122 and 133 Hadrian sealed Scotland off with the great
from Tyne
fortified barrier
to
and
looked north
as they
We can
at the Scottish
still
look
at,
wives
long absences.
for their
disintegration of
and decay of
the
whole
found
The arms of
a.d. 196-7.
in the activities
had begun
the octopus
Roman
throne.
last
all
two
and
defeated
centuries of the
The
kind of
life
Roman
In
a.d.
Emperor Honorius
to the
wild
men from
without.
upon our
who saw
last leader,
hard
in
its
sustenance, sweet
doubt
to
co'existence,
and clement
was a place
in
and
its
We
lips.'
their
The
world
legends
looked back from a present of appalling sorrows to a past that had a golden
ample
the
assaults
which was
tide
410,
sea drives us
To
that
Gaul by
Age
Romano'British
returns.
At what
an army
areas of Britain.
broken cry
to furnish
killed in southern
by the barbarian
partially destroyed
and desperate
contractions
He was
The
their gruel
Highlands.
their
Spain,
Italy,
the
trinkets
The
Solway.
legionaries, recruited
mood. Legends
best years
light,
apart,
it
is
of Romano/British
found by Aulus
to the
routine.
But
for those
stone outstanding
who
accepted the
villas
new
afford or achieve.
who
and
tb*-^~-
Silver
bowl and
The
lid
and the
h '"
squares,
ii^ii
Things beget
patience.
voice.
and public
their opposites.
The Romanizing
And
halls
At
visitors,
is
a deep, ingenious
coming of Hengist
and Horsa, invited here by one of the Celts the Legions had subdued 400
before.
It
was
the
years
Chapter Eight
Later Antiquities
rather stern
its
halo enhancing
it.
ject
it
is still
with
in
title
shimmering round
feel that
some way
still
a priceless
how Walpole
in the collection
is
who
an additional
of such
hoard
relics
- something
me the most
as
he
exquisite ob'
They
which have
human
'the
of miraculous pre'
remnants of history
Then
the ring
tell
One
ordinary
is
who owned
and
there
curiosity
people
are, in the
of these antiquities,
horoscopes
their
cast.
it
in love,
fell
is
is
and
went
phrase of opprobrium for anything he did not agree with to digest, but
whatever
virtues,
when
But
to
proceed further - on a
variety
know happened,
eminent Sutton
Hoo
history, as well as
relics
some
The Department's
much
us for the
like
first
time the
post'Roman excavation
in British
porcelain and
show
is
what we
of proper information, a
early
to
Lord Palmerston's
Wedgwood. There
is
Garter, a mass of
also a splendidly
cacophonous
i.
Hoo
the Sutton
slightly contradictory)
Time
till
Time
find
(2),
race'
it is
chamber
Made by
perhaps into
more than
five feet
Habrecht
clock in
in
1589
for
of the Renaissance. Another princely commission near by, the large golden
Nef or Ship Clock (3), probably made for the Emperor Rudolf II in 1581 by
Hans Schlottheim of Augsburg, stands for the majestic prestige o{ the Holy
Roman Emperor in sixteentlvcentury Europe.
Nef or ornamental boat had
been used
to
mark
Rudolfs Nef, with its intricate clockwork elaborated the concept. As Emperor,
Rudolf acquired his power formally from the votes of the College of Electors
who
nonetheless
figures
tors.
on
As
the
they
owed
bow
their
appreciate
allegiance to him.
Ship Clock
how
the
Among
the variety of
moving
heads in submission
and waves
the
hand
to the
Emperor, he
in return gra^
princely
it
his
dinneMable on
its
wheeled
on alchemy
objects
that the
which
Emperor
most interesting
relics in the
beneath
its
legs,
for a while,
finally
together constitute
and
known either as
to
are
among
wax discs
(4
the
and
Dr Dee is
believed to have
owned
was used
figures, for
so interminably
names and
carriage.
(7).
communicate with
Dee, an extraordinary
him
known as Astrologer
when she was a young
to
Queen
Elizabeth
I.
He
cast his
first
horoscope
is
for her
Princess, but got into trouble for casting that of her sister
the
best
amounted
to treason
at
by the
for the
Emperor RudolfTl
c.
1580; attributed to
4 and
5.
Two of Dr John
favourable. Later
it
wax
Dee's
when
discs
mutual
interest in
Elizabeth
have
its
Queen and
seers, or
Dee
himself.
continued
to
enjoy a
On
and
delight'.
as
scientist
not only to be
predicted)
such studies.
demanded
properties
spirits,
Edward
mediums, on
fit
whom
he relied to relay
him
was
the
of
news
as honest
later satirized as
Kelly did
all his
Feats
upon
He
As
spirits instructing
Butler's wit. Yet leaving aside Kelley 's antics, the history of Dee's
is
so strange that
one
superstitious value
Some of
it
is
magic mirror
Cotton and on
his
rest
of Cotton's collection
to the
British
the
enthusiast
maging among
the belongings of
"Oh
what on
later
who
recognized
as he
It
was
the
was rum/
tells
the story of
how Lord
Frederick inquired
am
it
I I
'I
screamed out:
its
Lord,
black stone
!"
'
he attributed to
for
Surely
was
it
the only
The
it
mirror
the stone
which protected
his collection.
And
it
its
history,
in
more vanished
into obscurity.
certainly
it
Walpole's
case, record'
another hand'
it.
is
to
It
was
have ended up
last
at
sale
of his belongings
heard of at an auction
Mr Hugh
Tait,
was
in his
6.
Gold
7.
disc, at
in the possession
of John
or 'Devil's Looking'Glass'
Dee
(left)
(riftht)
116
Dee!
Mr
So
come
safely
and
confined to
is
showcase,
its
was -
it
now
Two
romantic
Richard
The
(8)
is
marked Reg.
P for
The
lettering has
it
King
was used
for
been deliberately
defaced with blows, as was customary on the death of a sovereign, to prevent his
seal
(which
is
as part
to the
set
in
Germany on
his
way back
which obsessed me
as a child,
from a pilgrimage
it is
Holy Land.
It
was
a story
of the Cceur de Lion myth. There are two versions, both featuring the
ring. In
one
story
Richard, dressed
as a servant to
magnificent ring gleaming on his finger (which no menial could have possessed)
drew
have sent
his
on
through
his
the
name
of the
King Richard
castle
Hugo,
merely as
the ring,
King of England
and
is
supposed
was no
had him
himself,
to
arrested
and inv
Richard's romantic rescue through the help of his faithful minstrel Blondel.
The second
emblem. The
beneath
is
belonged
on
and aims
seal itself
shows
to
that
had
it
It
writing
and embroidery.
When
consists of the
Greek
letters
to
employ
emblem
in writing
Mary and Francis, her first husband, the King of France, who died
when she was only eighteen. The interest of this monogram lies in the fact that
experts now believe from the general feel of the ring that it must have been made
representing
in Scotland after
how Mary
to
the
clung
same emblem
England many
the
alliance.
It
therefore demonstrates
Not only
that,
but
we
find
Oxburgh
at least
Hall, Norfolk,
8.
King Richard
gold
set
personal signcuring;
I's
with antique
these embroideries
in the interval to
monogram symbolized
death,
in her
and Mary
like to
think
historic but
comparatively primitive ring and the intricate splendour of the Lyte Jewel
Part of the
Waddesdon
Bequest,
it
is
(i i).
me
powerful argument
to constitute a
seventeenth centuries
when,
as the portraits
it
represents
two
arts in
King James
the Stuart
and
The
set
exterior
is
is
further
enhanced by the
most
for Iacobus
one.
visible
it
was granted
monarchy
in
England -
their
need
to
R - stands
early obsession
of
a genealogist:
own accord 'a most royally ennobled' family tree for James I,
Camden described it, with 'admirable flourishes of painting'. The
he drew up of his
illustrated as
chart
was duly
traced
back
presented, the
to 'Brute, the
King
studied
it,
and finding
that he
was happily
Elizabeth
I,
But the
many
of which are
with her arms and those of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, evokes more
poignantly than a jewel the greatest of Elizabeth's romances.
The
gittern
itself,
9 and 10.
The
with
its
fingeivring of Mary
engraved on the
know which
new
silver
Queen of Scots
1578
it
huntsmen and
was
restored,
foliage, dates
from the
coats of
arms
we do
not
in a
ominous connotation
Lady
it
was
contemporary
which for
would never reward with matrimony. Although
open Court
did
secret
come
till
when
the
news of the
so extreme that
back
at
musical enterprises
As
thereafter.
shadow of
beyond
its
it is
glamour
merits.
of the Rhine
is
The
original
attraction of
and
all his
my
cast
by the
glittering
and illuminating
it
convey
D wight of Fulham
John
his
It is
a master of his
me
to
by
portraits
used by
Dwight
than directly
cast,
Fulham
at his
formed part of
his
its
own
It
for
art.
having
if
unknown
pottery in
for
modelled,
in fact
in
119
memorated by
man
mind
initiate
One
one of the
at this
period of his
life
ranging
it,
own
likes to
We know from
War;
to scientific innovations,
to the art
of an
in the nature
Pepys that in
best tennis-players in
lines
of
still
few years
considered
this bust
seem
to
reveal
The
all his
own.
Department which
is
the
Cathedral
at
it
When
ficence of appearance.
middle of the
relics
last
century,
it
it
it.
The
The
some macabre
was
it.
of the
lid
relics
saints
finely
before
some
it
wooden head
Lastly,
to
haunt
am
of antiquities
is
was probably
Museum
in the
fifteen years
ago,
when
the golden
then
of
carefully
its
come back
carved, that
is it
yet
that the
But about
So
interest
for cleaning, a
and other
St Eustace
cotton/wool.
was assumed
found inside
is
to the
Department.
enrichment.
like
It
now
wooden
on
its
own,
some poverty-stricken
dopp el -ganger,
attracted to
as casual survivors
of time's shipwreck.
120
is
one of the great treasures of the Department, and indeed of the Museum.
But
among
Crown
the
it
appearance.
Made
life
its
On
Duke
cup passed
Little
nephew,
to his
pawned from
the
to
it
up
pay
No
He
It
to the
have been
until 1883
for sale.
to
Royal Collection
the
it is
I.
glorious heraldic
of St Agnes.
late
To
classed as
was
its
it
when
Abbess of a Spanish
the
how
the convent
later to the
stem of
and
memorial of the peace made between the Kings, the Constable Juan de Velasco,
returning thence after successfully accomplishing his mission, presented as an
offering to
referred
back
in 1604,
Duke
It
was
to the
and Philip
III
of Spain
became involved
in a lawsuit
Duke
who
of Frias,
considered that the cup had been presented to the convent in 1610 on terms
which precluded
remained
its
in Paris
of the museum.
resale.
till
First
the
However,
end of the
a French
to
story
at.
when
it
his case
way
disaster, revolution,
The chessmen
it
now
be marvelled
century,
The
the
in the
last
is
war and
less royally
obscurity.
and
are either
Hebrides.
rather like
which
about the
greeted
interior
183
1,
with
his
ii.
The Lytc
12.
found on the
Isle
made of morse
ivory
in
83
13.
But
his wife
who had
and
a stronger nerve
1680
c.
fairies,
flung
made him
down
return
sets,
rather than
one complete
set, it is
believed that these chessmen were in fact part of the stock of a travelling salesman.
Even
who
more
such
other goods in
mer^
Romanesque chessmen
it
among
as a seafaring
of
his rounds,
enhance the curious offbeat appeal of the chessmen and bring them
to
was once
hand
dealt
is
mark the
other hand we
dominion
remember
the
Duke
M-
On
the
his brother
i$.
late
fourteenth century
which
for reasons
gap which
exists
is
young
lives
it
is
the
here presented
on an
grisly fate
altar
Chapter Nine
Young
In the days
when
was
in the
Sebastia
so on.
a great traveller.
the
can claim
Pyramids
must be an
by the
Museum's
Obviously, Egyptian
arbitrary one.
who
many of their
know
to
Pyramids and
visit Petra - the
the
suppose
whom
was
was lucky
well.
army
and Assyrian
Nor was
from
about military
organization and tactics from the Empires that they had overthrown.
My
Israelites,
who
is
Jordan and
Lebanon. The Hittites and Urartians of modern Turkey and what was Armenia,
are included, as well as the
enough
that the
Arabs of
the
Arabia. Oddly
When
its
it is
realized
to the seventh
once
be appreciated.
to my surprise I find that some of
me have nothing to do with war at all.
Rather
interest
treasures
found
at
Ur
human^headed winged
collection.
It is
The animal
refer particularly to
will touch
on
which
some of the
me
well observed. Their curious, elaborate knotted girths are worth notice, as
indeed
is
human
heads.
126
doorway
at
It
(721-705 B.C.)
away
evil. It is
I (c.
first
to
decorate the gates of Assyrian palaces, as the Hittites had done, with these
formidable defenders.
Thus,
round
in
on
a sledge.
Some
trees to
carts
means of a
The
track,
some charming
detail in this
man draws
shaduj, a type
sow with
is
reeds.'
form a corduroy
Nineveh. There
at
to
wooden
see
ahead
as their
lions or bulls.*
or lamassate,
or
a scorpion^man carved
winged
Nineveh Gallery we
and
its
the
perhaps of the
stone bull
Carchemish on
at
of counter^weighted arm
row of
still
used
marslv
of hours or the Luttrell Psalter. There are about a dozen soldiers to be seen,
of them are waving their arms about by
least eight
way of showing
their zeal
at
Let us
now
flourishing in
logist Sir
I
2500
B.C.,
and
Leonard Woolley
to
some of the
in 1927.
rearing
up
masterpieces of ancient
Museum
at
art.
Philadelphia.
It
treasures discovered
some
sinister
is
merely
meaning
in the
legs
Reliefs, p. 10.
seems, he
it
Sacred Tree
which was
by the archaec
its
precise
of gold-leaf,
meaning
eyes,
is
not
known.
i.
at
lion
II
(883-859 B.C.)
128
fleece
of lapis
lazuli,
and body
of white
fleece
shell.
is
of gold
leaf.
came from
and
Queen
to
the goblet
gold wire
entrance to
and
was suspended.
it
handsome.
(3)
by which
a silver drinking'tube or
It
Queen
in existence,
and female
may
be,
Ur,
at
is
certainly
it
servants in the
It is
now thought
his collar
and
nibbling
two
at
trees,
a lion
seizing a bull.*
Some
of the oldest head-dresses in existence come from Ur. They are both
beautiful
and
practical,
to
used by modern
the kaffiyeh
and
This head-dress (5) has a delicate jewelled crown to keep it in place. The
of the decoration resemble those of the beech which can scarcely have been
leaves
Ur
native to
artist
seen a leaf
of this species.
But much
as
find
my
Assyrian palace
its
army, which
were celebrated
for nearly
natural frontiers,
in the sculptures
Bayeux Tapestry
Battle of
said to
Qarqar
in
illustrated
854
the
triumphs
the palaces of
in the
way
Conqueror.
At
that
the
B.C.,
much
detail,
army of William
for survival
efficient. Its
us of the
tells
depended
is
reliefs.
Shalmaneser
III
2.
the Tree
/J
3.
from Ur;
c.
feeding/cup,
2500 B.C.
however, warred
far afield
or siege warfare.
All these
and
It
had
had
chariots,
rudimentary supply
of the chariot
made
armoured
cars
Over the
was considerably modified. Under Ashurna^
sirpal
their captives.
under Shalmaneser
III
it
was
still
light
enough
to
driver
and
which
and
bowman.
man
carrying
Later, in
two round
the archer.
later,
with the addition of a second shield/bearer, and the chariot, of course, had
to
were
it
so irregulars
and
The
attractive.
The
this reason
13
more than
men
all
long
tail
and with
plaited
and
a
plume
shooting
Red
Indians,
who
at his throat.
still
also
had no
they
medium
and work on
The
the flanks,
infantry
4. Silver lyre
to
as they
Cavalry of this
One
The
when
was armed
the
army was
Pit' at
/\tWW
for patrols,
reconnaissance
in battle.
for missile or
Ur;
II
c.
2500 B.C.
bow
132
and
or sling,
coats of mail
the
recruited
The spearmen
the spear.
in their
The
slingers,
like the
shields,
The main
siege
their rate
to
at least
comparable
One
had
It
six
therefore,
shields.
touch.
no doubt
Then
as
so that
now
its
of special
is
when
even
ideas
ram shaped
had a pole
interest
and
a general
fortress
were
to profit.
Sir
him
now
not',
who had
was shut up
Nineveh (1847)
at
They
seem
to
The
the Conqueror),
first
and
worn
in the
battle in
no doubt some
sort
their
comrades.
Pro--
Judah'.
their missiles.
crest.
The
and guide
The
the 9th
The
behind
sling
his flock
the followers of
slingers (6).
is
the
out-
weapon of
the
by dropping stones in
5.
do the
of auxiliaries,
When I commanded
in Jerusalem in 1954,
as
direct
with
Middle Ages by
of mail,
their tunic
which
the
reliefs
opinion of
The
William
the
bowmen
upon
are, in the
fessor
distinct 'uniforms'.
fell
'like a
All the
the
key
at
it
that
my
soldiers
had
hit
Jewish
c.
sentries
2500 B.C.
6.
Slingers at the siege of Lachish from a relief from the Palace of Sennacherib
(704-681 B.C.)
at
Nineveh
Old
City. This
conscience for the range was something like 100 yards, and the idea was there'
This
is
and helmet
deduce
that he
is
their
discipline. In
No.
backs
3
to
his shield
Some
weapons on
and from
of the
are
Commando
in the
Second World
illustrates their
War we
good
used to practise
We
by pontoon^bridges
^^_^4
'
jiM
7.
The
8.
t%i IM<^'-
Ashurbanipal celebrating
relief from his
WW' -WW
Rwl& Ml WW^-#;'
Sft.
from a
x ii f'l"
Palace
Nineveh
reliefs
of
{above)
Te^umman and
{below)
136
and
at the
swam
the
ropes.
The
horses
The
reliefs
show
The
fortress
was evidently
men, the
latter
the
armoured
archers.
fellows for they shot their arrows even while climbing the scaling-ladders.
slingers did not
fire.
go into the
assault,
The
it
The
those
lot
whose
The
lives
relief
of the
last
Some were
down
lighted torches.
camels and in ox/carts, while the King, enthroned before his pavilion and
Near
drawn by vigorous
who humble
themselves
angel of the
fourscore
and
they were
all
five
thousand: and
9.
when
camp of the
'the
Prophet had
'And it came to
that Adrammelech
how
Assyrians an hundred
in the
Nineveh
;;s
*/
J
[IV
'Iff
v*\
ft'
..->
^
x
&$K
io.
Ashurbanipal hunting
and Sharezer
lions;
his sons
land of Armenia.
And
from
a relief
from
Nineveh
his Palace at
smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the
Esarhaddon
his
681 B.C.
The
and
great
executed
was
as
Ashurbani-
it
He commemorated
his
triumph
in boldly
reliefs.
It
'crowning mercy'. In
pal's
official
war
artist
to
there.
The
Elamites are
shown
in flagrant rout.
and other
foot,
carts
with a high platform and big wheels with twelve or sixteen spokes, and chariots,
built
on
the
are cavalry,
same
lines,
or spear,
and
infantry
The pursuing
armed with
Assyrians
spears
and
light
shields
covered with leather, and strengthened by a central metal boss. In the best
strip'Cartoon tradition, the reliefs
initial assault to the
are in disorder,
full
of dead
show
from the
rushing
men and
down
horses, with
in for
there
an Elamite
bowman
numerous
are seen
fish
which
is
138
him
finish
bow
off.
by half a dozen
in
draws
foes
his
for
mercy.
Ashurbanipal celebrated
garden
He
(8).
reclines
with a
his victory
on
actually
hat-stand
feast
Te/umman
who
from a neighbouring
sits
on a
the severed
taste,
if
from a
tree.
The Assyrian palace reliefs also show Ashurbanipal's campaign against the
(9). The practically naked Bedu as yet without the kaffiyeh and the robes
Arabs
for the
wonder
back
Sahara
to the
as fast as their
their
Incidentally camels
don't gallop leading with both forelegs, but otherwise they are beautifully
observed.
It
and another
was
has
come
Arab
to grief,
it's
tail.
They
may
didn't
do
that in the
A fragment of another
relief
at least I
and burning
tents
and spearing
the
hope
so.
Nineveh shows
unfortunate Arabs - a
when
at
the field/-word
was
The reliefs
in
pair
not quite clear why, but, of course, once they can get clear
- shooting Parthian
war but
in
his
Ashurbanipal's palace
at
Nineveh
The
even better than the battle/pieces and have rightly been described as 'the high
water mark of ancient Near Eastern narrative
was not
potamian
released
river marshes.
when
the
King
The poor
felt
like
Naturally, they
art'.
King - whose
would
beasts
ritual scenes
is
shown
huntingz-kit
show
air
were
first
hunting - rather
netted
in the
the
of truly
was highly
than
with an
lions single-handed
Mesc
way
That
that the
German
of the stricken lions, but by the group of Ninevite peasants watching from a
near-by
The
hill.
animals
stiff
is
very evident,
and makes
Chapter Ten
Oriental Antiquities
Malcolm MacDonald
became
I first
attracted
One
student.
of
exotic character.
mysterious.
them. So
know
wanted
as
Museum
my admiration with
to live for
to
glimpse
its
Asian
art treasures,
many
whose
peoples
a university
to learn
supplement
was
their
enticed me
a
me peoples, ideas and beliefs that seemed very
had known before. They were novel; they were
when
presented to
try to
Later,
which
their qualities
They
from anything
different
and
made
ancestors
and who
valued the
still
friendly.
Then
and
were
just
enigmatic
became enchantingly
often scholarly
knowledge about
which
and other
them through
to
centuries.
and found
from
that
some of the
father to son
among
skills
arts in their
local artists
still
legacies
proper settings,
lived,
having passed
many
different countries
in Bali,
produced
British
Museum.
cannot claim
amateur connoisseur
who
to
civilizations are
lodged in the
my
taste
am
an
of their
to
after
Cambodia,
Persia
and
many more.
As
fine
and probably
The bronze
of the
for
first
as old as
is
that of
China.
historically
more than
i.
They
of those
them
ceremony. This
vessel
was
a jar to hold
wine
sacrifices
of rams adorning
grace. Live
efficient
it
fulfil
rams were
three functions
sacrificial
feet
- symbolism,
pomp and
which could be
to
with great
to
quench
their
utility
and
aesthetic
handles; and those horned and bearded heads give the cup ornate
artistic distinction.
found
its
fullest
in various other
It
was
Age
in
ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES
Western
world
parts of the
some
and the
artistic
141
creations of
at
other times
by invading armies.
No
people have excelled the Chinese in the variety as well as the brilliance of
Throughout almost
their arts.
evolved a succession of
and
manner of
all
During
potters.
they
made
all
styles in
Tang
dynasty,
which
in
were
The
the
just as
British
lasted for
300 years
after
a.d. 618,
figures
and servants
that
their
next.
Shang
anxious
Museum
Western world of
were buried
him
in his
vases,
world
finest collections
teapots,
in the
next
life.
grave of some
Of course,
on display anywhere
Many
Take,
for
Camel;
in every
Old Cathay.
goddess of mercy,
2.
the
made
pottery with
No
3.
The
1***4**1!
k f /
4.
Autumn
Scene; colour
i"
(active a.d.
1657-74)
an
in the
And
as
all
dynasty (4).
who
He was
wielded
monk - and
Four Seasons.
Of course,
this
It is
awe on such
sights in
were inclined
to
artists
Ching
of the
let
As
to sketch
it is
imaginations run
with
their brushes
set
such a land'
it
is; I
true that
riot,
to
one piece.
make
it
have
many
idealize
something more
where the
of pic/
Can
a matter of fact
China. Nevertheless,
their
one of a
autumn
reality.
while
as civilized,
his
Chinese
the differ^
Look at this
ts'an
much
between Chinese
which
combined
in
I
ft
>
Head of an
7.
old
man;
stucco; Afghanistan;
century a.d.
fifth
I
.-4
The Japanese also have a tradition of superb artistry. This lacquer box (5) was
made about the year a.d. 1200 for holding scroll documents. The technical
skill
you
and
is
inlaid
see
it
crickets
and
in the
Museum,
jumping round
on
box
lid.
They
own
perfection.
Through
on
still
do
so today.
upon
patiently layer
lacquers
I
tire
over
layer,
which gradually
never
of looking
create
at
many months,
woodcuts made
for the
5.
Document box;
6.
Masks
for the
{opposite below)
and other^hued
of intellectual
aristocrats, or the
No
gilt
in seventeenth', eighteenth/
Throughout
the black,
Kyoto applying
exquisite styles of
workshops
many
Japan;
c.
8.
Some
Schist;
just a
shadow
plays of Java,
still
The
have ever
traditional
in
and
costumes, the same steppings and the same music that have enthralled audiences
through many centuries. The motives inspiring those Oriental spectacles are
varied.
They may be
acts
human
Long
before most of
myths, legends and historical episodes which played significant parts in shaping
their national character,
traditional
beliefs
and way of
No and Kyogen
life.
plays.
9.
Dance
their
detail
of the costumes
actors
became
c.
stereo^
a.d. 930
<%
9*V
*A
io.
500
years.
worn by
The
players.
a grim ghost
which
picture (6)
and
young
virgin.
made on
You
of
all.
at all
tipsy
is
children, peasants
illustration
folk
his/
of a fragment of Gandhara
not only
Many
century a.d.
otherwise Oriental
Roman
Macedonian governors
authorities regard
more
its
fifth
sculptures as Indo'Greek,
came
fairy,
There
Chinese
character.
tories
a.d. 950
c.
Gandhara
all
the
Gand/
Gouache on paper;
a.d. 1720
hara works are fundamentally Indian. This stone panel (8), for example, shows
the
elephant descends
air
and
upon
her,
asleep.
of the elephant's
visit
She
is
that her
dreaming
that a white
dream became
Buddha.
reality
ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES
150
Buddhism
its
multitude of
who
Siva,
granite
possessed
shows him
The bronze
is
earliest
of its type
group of
probably the
still
human
sages lived in such pious austerity that the gods feared they
pete with
therefore
went
its
shown
fire
in a small
phenomena.
the snake
field in
the
round
He
demon by dancing on
which
it
Museum
later
and
cliffs at
Ajanta.
those ferocious
He wrapped
Vishnu
the walls of
The
a snake, a
and
would conv
his colleague
in this bronze.
Among
all
skin as a garment.
confined the
is
tiger,
and used
as
illustrated
in that character.
let,
art.
homes. But
it
owns
paintings
culture
But although the original inspiration o( those miniatures was Persian, local
Hindu
and
in
character.
The miniature
is
muclvloved Hindu
deity
foothills. It
his mistress
Radha
.*
ir's.
&>
rf $4
'*m$
'Mfe&dtPJ
#^ a
r*
12.
The
future
13.
The
(left)
(right)
Its style
shows
how these
of life.
From
beyond
its
own
and
religious
Nepal and
neighbouring lands, and the sea into Ceylon and various parts of SoutlvEast
Asia.
Nepalese gilt-copper figure of about the year 900 shows the Maitreya
Buddha
(12)
who
Gautama
14.
Ewer;
with
made
and copper
Mosul
at
in a.d.
brass inlaid
silver
1232
instruction.
And
look
who was
Talented
She
feet tall.
societies thrived in
palaces, temples
The
brilliant
Khmer
well as architecture.
people
edifices in the
who
They portrayed
raised
in
jungle
exists
at
Angkor
all
survive.
in
Cambodia.
in sculpture as
women
still
many
treasures.
in those lands
relics
could
and benevolent,
is
No
who
still
characterize
many
why
felt
happy during my
15.
Mosque lamp;
years
still
among
the peoples of
6.
and
some of the
attitudes
best features
which
hectically
and
elements in
life
factories filled
artistic
more
lived a
But
still
made
had
to
in the last
disappearance of which
The
is
is
if
of worship of local
many
And
their
and
deities
called
better
and
consigned
to
artistic skills,
the
are
an irreparable
which
as acts
be of superlative beauty
those
think
ornaments were
therefore
to
than to the
They were mentally alert but spiritually calm, and did not chase
after immense commercial profits and industrial gains. Nor had they
existence.
huge
to the spiritual
industrialized
many
loss to
mankind.
the seventh
As
a devotee of ceramics,
think the
later,
and
They made
throughout
The
ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES
Turkish mosque lamp
illustrated (15)
is
examples
finest
of Islamic pottery.
One
had
pearcd. Otherwise
with inlaid
silver
it
this
is
it
and copper
as well as
brass surface
Its
is
decorated
life
are set in
and
courtiers feasting
and drinking.
human
name of the
in
Arabic
is
composed of
script,
Made
piece's
battle scenes,
it
is
at
Mosul
A wing of the gallery which houses Islamic antiquities contained until recently
samples of arts and
Although
ton Gardens),
beauty
is
crafts
it
shows
that creating
wood'
jungles
is
to stay
when
forests.
used
their
cut off heads but to carve creatures like this engaging hornbill,
the wild animals, hobgoblins
their long'
evil spirits
and images of
who
haunt
their
animist world.
Thirty thousand years ago our forebears in Europe, also primitive tribesmen,
painted splendid pictures in caves, like those
squatting in their igloos on the frozen Arctic
figurines of seals,
at lovely
rock'paintings
made
at
Lascaux.
Ocean
Bushmen of
Kenyah tribesmen in Borneo step'
of movement as unforgettably sublime as
Museum
One
of the
teach us
is
many
that all
men, from
all
epochs and
all
lands, are
Chapter Eleven
Ethnography
David
Stafford' Clark
The human
on
race
is
which
asset
complex and
this planet. In
distinguishes
man from
original
human
known
form of life
Ethnography
is
Actual
human
culture go
back
may
traces
of
weapon
either a
human
little
and
is
limited by
as a separate species.
and
or
cultures,
man's evolution
eoliths,
dawn
stones
is
chipped
from rocks.
What
does
all this
cosmic time
in
gogue
in
It
means
that our
it.
human
history
beginning of time
whole of the
as
we know
it,
is
but an eye^blink
recalcitrant class
the
mean?
astronomers reckon
as
to inspire his
this
stubbornly
which surround
a mere three
it,
days ago. Given that explosively vivid condensation of conceptual time, where'
man emerged
then
life
as a species
whereby
as
is
at
noon
that
you read
this,
midday
after
and
in this context,
it is
years.
no more than an
Ethnography
infinite
decimal
half'tninute of existence.
man's emergence
as a
thinking creature, has come to pass in such a minute fraction of the history of
the universe. All
chance
to
we know
is
we can
present,
after,
but with the history of our past and the probabilities of our future.
thing
ago.
is
Long
man
had conceived
The
strange
years
Mi
Mexican
ETHNOGRAPHY
158
Know
The
then
thyself,
presume not
and
them
God
to scan,
Man.
memorable observation
that
is
still
in his
circumstances which they were studying, and influencing the future which we,
over 200 years
later,
would
inherit.
for
shape and use tools and weapons, the recognition of the power of
learning,
cultures of
as the
and
and eighteenth
tribes
and
(As recently
American Indians used hoops as
centuries,
One
nating rewards of the study of ethnography has been the recognition that
are
still
we
is still
present
somewhere
living in a Stone
Age
in the
culture of
in Britain
until
some of the
Acheulian hand/axe
from Gray's Inn Lane
oldest
and
as
greatest civilizations
Late Period
Africa, Asia and the central and southern parts of the two
nents,
as
world, such
American
conti--
as they
had
arisen.
Ethnography
Perhaps the
first
is
indication
travelled to Greece,
of
human
culture
still
squares of Athens,
Airlines
which
Civilization'.
with
which
my
intact.
saw
Nowadays,
My
a large
said simply
was when
I first
and unequivocally
for
in
Egyptian National
Cradle of
Mexican
or
Saron demong, an instrument (with metal keys) from the Raffles Gamelan; 395 in
The
question
first
to
to
confront us in looking
Museum
be capricious,
set
is
why
upon
arbitrarily to a
the last
5000
to miss the
and of the
on which
We
basis
capricious, although in
field
first
of their
to
whole
selection
for
which
it
must
necessarily be
interest.
home. Their
some
cases they
field in
made.
all
terms of the
British
Museum's own
potential collect
in themselves;
and
relics are to
and
to lean, indeed,
This would be
the ethno/
at
appears to be so random.
it
be found.
and complete
men
venture,
ETHNOGRAPHY
But
if
much may
inexorably
be learned, and of
at
the
and
is
an inkling of
to give
surprise
l6l
how
work and
emerges
human
as a spec*-
tacular triumph.
Look,
for
example,
at
the exhibits
mankind
political
illustrating the
technique whereby
has sought both to have an unassailable order in his tribe and culture,
for
showing Bima
as a
young man
and
thereafter
who was
real,
ETHNOGRAPHY
62
human and
an acknowledged
alive as
becoming
risked
ephemeral chaos.
Divine kingship
is
precisely
pan
in
and
Europe
is
it is still
Over
infallible
known
documented
ceremonies of our
for
as
beautifully
for
an eternal
reality as the
Roman
Catholicism
coronation
as intimately
Catholic concept of an
for close
human
on 2000
years.
activity that
and moon
astronauts
gatherers
shots in
remind us of our
past,
is
not
less real
NASA,
which could
might conceive
Armageddon,
If
to record
we
that
it,
as
still
The
A future British Museum might well find traces of minis, maxis, jumbcjets
and Jehovah's Witnesses,
all
of equal
grist to
To
its
perceptive mill
if such traces
we
as a tiny tribe
stand
at this
of some 800
persons living in an area of about 1000 square miles to the east and west of Lake
own
terrifying selection
The
human
of contemporary
priorities.
have
equip and
staff
hundreds of complete
accompanying homes,
the future of
terrifying
mankind
and
yet
to
:
and money,
to
endow,
and
yet
we seem
to
have chosen so
far to
their
totally
round
the earth,
to the surface
of the
moon.
Pre-Columbian
Museum, simply
and Mayans,
are repre/
civilizations
whose
traces
can
first
wounded
still
be found
at
mounted
Zimbabwe
at
in
perhaps brought
the
Rhodesia.
make such
art possible,
beyond
who
An imaginative love of art for art's sake, as well as the crafts which
and
Ibo,
(left)
Gamelan,
home
a great
for the
first
in Palestine,
The
Art
Potter's
create
it
still is,
in Africa,
the traditional
and
essential
in a far greater
lyres
and
lutes.
accompaniment
to
puppet/shows.
The
essence of ethnography
lies
in the patient,
persistent
and systematic
of Sir
when men
Hans Sloane
that
and
yet so
all
balanced a cross'section of
way of
the explorers;
history.
and Hilaire
motley collection of
to give so sparkling
of Western
as a
showed
What began
and
it
Not only
Belloc, in his
intellectual superiority
up
in a sentence:
'We
ETHNOGRAPHY
164
Much
relics
of the collection
of the Benin
war with
a result of
that a divine
is
the British.
on Divine Kingship
One
Oba
to a great
men
the
must be
Pope can
still
of the Benin tribe could and indeed did demand, as part of his
within the
The
last
hundred
human
years.
sacrifices
Hence the
on
punitive expedition in
massacre; and hence the vivid impact of the reconstruction of the royal
and mounted
as the heart
and
graphic exhibition.
'Nature
friends.'
is
cruel;
Man
is
and
it
sickens
Man
can never be
thirst for
fast
blood until a
creativeness.
man is part of nature, and nature's cruelty is man's as well. Man is the only
creature who has perfected weapons for his own destruction as a major exercise
in his own cultural development. And when the Benin thought to repulse the
But
they
on
their spears
the guns to
indifferently massacred
Tangaroa
Upao Vahu,
which
them they
the creator
and
sea
and mankind
god
Two
and
early (left)
later
were supposedly
their
King's
unlike the
the
Red
the
in
of military advantage;
who
who
Lord intervened on
utterly
when
arm of the
for a battle to
earth's rotation
allies in battle.
tales
up
were capricious
whom
GraeovRoman
in their response to
On this occasion at least they did not come; and the Benin were
but
later
gave
Calabar.
at
But should we become sickened by the mixture of awe, authority and bloody
splendour implied in the
exhibits
sacrificial
for his
own
we can
origin,
turn to the
and
its
divine
inspiration.
The
Tribal Image:
most striking
wooden
of a collection
made
life, is
'Tangaroa up in the
some admiration of
represented by
its
one of
Tangaroa
and
sea
their
meaning, origin
in the act
of creating gods and men. All over him, like warts or papillomata, are small
it
was given up
figure
is
to the missionaries,
detachable and
it
was
filled
with
(J^HW&MPjt<>*****+*mt^P'
Jk
~&
^k*: mr^ m*
#7777*17*
S"^
m^f^fW^^kr
x^
yet
ETHNOGRAPHY
167
more small images of gods and men, which may well have been put
there
have returned
to
Only
records on
that while
is
4000 or 5000
years.
It
still
men
who
Unknown
as
to
upon
world with
the
wondrous
The
that they
had
and
after.
In
flourished
now
seems
at least a
to
men had
in
and even
Europe
lived
as well
and looked
even imagined.
seven days of Genesis seemed real enough to them: more real than
Caldwell's brilliant three^day construction, or the 5000 million years for which
it
and
art
is
certain,
medieval Christians
is
at least
easy to understand
man had
was
And
yet if
nothing even
art
our leaden
man had
never discovered
wonderful,
activity.
as exciting as the
lot
terrible
From
the
and
first
this,
human
may
choice
be,
his
would have
At
the British
Museum
can be seen
wheel, the
first fire,
the
first
weapon and
the
first
carry water, his art, his culture, his tradition, his aspirations, his fears
defiant, desperate courage,
all.
and
Man's
no image at
evil in the
choice.
how
have contributed
to
what ethnography
man's
pot to
and
his
selects for
marvellous place
Pair of carved
Olowe
to start
it is
in the British
Ambrose, by
the
first
Yorubaland, carved by
British administrator,
Captain
Chapter Twelve
Manuscripts
Asa
Briggs
There
are
working
on
in universities
the Manuscripts
visit to
who
historians, indeed,
historical topics
Department of the
go there
historic
The
Chancery Lane,
is
and museum
are
one
many
British
Museum,
like the
Public
not only to
library
at least
Museum. There
British
To them the
century
and
in
who
Record Office
first
centuries
international
in ancient
B.C. but destroyed in the seventh century). (Indeed, one precious manuscript
Museum
after
however,
in
it
the nineteenth,
is
as delicate as lace,
The
and
century in which
want
it.
to
understand
am
it
particularly interested,
and
the people
who
lived
when
the
Matthew
Paris, the
in
Museum
(1)
- but
history
had
came to be
approached
which
During
spirit as
it
They
documents
as the
some people
raw material
wanted
else
they
and
at the
same time
this
way of doing
same
Above all
seemed
to
The
best
i.
Map
(Royal
MS.
14,
C. vn,
f.
5 b)
/-<7
vjLkp^jfc
-<r
';*?"OClU'
A*,..,.
2. Letter written
Vespasian F,
3.
by Henry
iii, f.
First,
had
to
in
many
to read
and,
if
necessary translate,
that they
all
had a duty
had
8) (fo/>)
to
and
them
work of a high
before going
on
order.
Next
to interpret
Then
was
easy,
and
difficulties often
what we
call
letters
of
None
of
and
them,
they believed
these tasks
they
the illustrations in
scripts).
what we
call 'illuminated
manu'
MANUSCRIPTS
scripts' (6), written texts
in the
171
historians,
however,
who
in themselves.
times
at
that the manuscripts they were studying, including not only those in the
'secretary
and
diverse
politicians,
first
highly
often
idiosyncratic
in the
handwriting of nineteentlvcentury
But the
first
last
started
larger
and
We cannot under'
which continue
to
be produced
we
in
under'
The
and we now
sources
of a non'documentary kind -
more
historical
We can
from
learn
landscapes and portraits as well as from manuscripts, from songs as well as from
chronicles. Yet without the study of written sources there can be
was during
British
Museum
really
Departments of the
4.
Conclusion of a
came
Museum
letter
into
f.
1 1
ib)
own.
It
43689,
its
was
at
to
no
history.
Department of Manuscripts
and when
at
three original
the
Museum
work on The
Pickwick Papers
It
the
(Add. MS.
StaueS&eH
},'/"<.
^rwrfC
///
>'
''.'-,;
/y fa,
</
5.
A6*.
A,.,; y'/yi,
'A.
//it
/e
opened
.^-/y,l
^W<^
tl<ccs ,/ <i{
its
}l;..\-,\.,,
&
./,.,{,
C^^iiiii//,-,-
f/r/c.,/
/>/.
it
c,y<<-/
''
"<.<"
*'""'/?
,/// r
terry
J r, e/.- !>>*
'
/'*
,V
London Corresponding
doors in 1753
many
member
/,/,
,,; t 6.t
first
S<<>/<* it
/i<r*'
..y'!t ,.-/
Society
/,;,.
(Add.
many
already possessed as
.'<:*./(<//;.!,.
'
as
yr< //'W
rj
MS
27813,
f.
136)
15,000 manuscript
volumes,
Cotton, a
who
still
deserves
to
letters. It
who
was during
when Queen
some of the
Victoria
Spain
as well as Britain.
scripts.
up
to
spent
sums of up
to
3000
100,000
to the
scripts
Madden
Madden,
came
like Italy
a year
yet
it
and
on manu'
would
require
as that
of Madden, assuming impossibly that the same kinds of materials were available.
Again we must be
they are unique.
of first
6.
resort
careful of statistics.
It is
(Arundel MS. 83
II,
f.
Many
124)
De
resort
manuscripts are
- you go
to those
two
of last
England
priceless,
categories
resort if
c.
because
- those
you cannot
300-20
BBB
174
MANUSCRIPTS
find your
books somewhere
however, holds
is
nowhere
The
for the
proportion of the
during the
like the
You go there,
or there
else
manuscripts
else: the
fell
total British
it
last
Codex
Sinaiticus,
an
early Bible
for
; 00,000 in 193 3. have been very expensive- several have been given. Indeed,
it is almost as prestigious to have a collection of your manuscripts in the British
1
Museum
as to
is
actually say,
He
is
interested in
vital
which
interest
include not only the Peel and Gladstone papers, remarkably large and rich
collections, but the equally impressive collection of
7.
London
tailor,
Iffiaruarbrn
Castle,
(ftrjcaler.
to
life,
though always
f.
102)
MANUSCRIPTS
through Francis Place's
own
and
they
the
(5),
would almost
maker,
Letters
in the
Books of
the direction of
Thomas Hardy,
Radicalism
had not
its
the
The
London popular
owes much to
historian
if at
company.
cannot drink.
in
many
London
75
which under
of Radical
politics
cannot
for
'I
hate taverns
to
cannot, like
and tavern
converse with
fools.'
We can be thankful for these qualities, and also for the fact that though he would
not willingly converse with fools, he was prepared to keep in his collection
whom
he believed
to
know', and
The Gladstone
were presented
8.
Papers,
had
which
to the British
good
Museum
in
171 2
to Stella,
Y.&
f.
Hitherto
58)
i
.
k-*nw-<4.
relatives in 1930.
fji.w
'in the
by Gladstone's
'
he was
assembled
are
to feel that
**,>. ^j^j.j.
tuT
'
'
"7
S8.
to
fas*
""
'
^O
* u
k,
9.
The opening
and
first
lines
published in 18 16 (Add.
MS. 50847)
The Papers
of
interests
Hawarden
Castle.
was
far
matter, nineteentlvcentury
written, Gladstone
account
was convinced
thought,
that
word and
God would
call
him
personally to
end of the
the
Gladstone the
as a
same way
He
else.
story,
He
Department
volumes.
tell
He
first
what papers
Museum
began
to
are not to be
which
are.
found
Among
story, a
at last,
it
is
Manuscripts
the crucial
documents
is
keep
Now,
not quite
it
in
1825
when
old. Since 1928 the journal has been kept in the Library of the
ally safe.
is
as well as at those
anxious
politician
must
historian anxious to
as a historian
must
however.
it
was thought by
being published.
And
to
Archbishop of
his relatives to be
especv
in the office of
u
dull
fuiti
bi
'.>,'
.>/i c
<^ U
Alia
*f
o.//
is/ J,
<\/
"-^
was
c>,
'' ,,
'
wr "
<j*sA,l
/own
looked.
tny poor
far otf^'ok
A*
rood" try*,,
>/i.
///4 v
io
'
creed.
cur-t'oUSt-r
Speak good
tA-ey
ij
<
surprised^
rvei
}erf
htr
u{
or
;;
to
Ao\*
Uial
(rle^'ope
"
way
*
j
wus
>^<
thu
/-o
a -w <
4)
>
fv r
or;
quite fofairt
CoraTTi
cA-e
'V<
171
*cu.ptA
iriol
"3C
'
5 C ^"'
/.///f
:>
//,
W^
:./i<
/>i <"
.V"
^OnJer wAo
and stocking fo* V" %*, 7 a
At a a
>/' a//
can/
J
'
you
far
loo
-s
V-<
>"--<
'
'
to
ofj
leal
"
(>thv mjs*$
'""^^
uJrou/
A< :>/
'
Vies
io
a
"
//,,..,
/( ,
tLoa.*hi
wculk
vx/orit
to
/W
j^ei
:'
new pan
J\.t> </
Jo
io. Extract
ne r>*
?j-
Alice. ," or
Me
Wc
mt
(root*
of-
she.
/u?w 5e
Wf
-.iv
ril
per ko.ps
f
wa I
*'
give
then
twery Christ,
rrt
>j
/,
would
(>/-/
^lu^.
>>;n..>?.<
given as a Christmas present to Alice Liddell in 1864 and published in 1865 as Alice's
Adventures
in
Wonderland (Add.
MS.
46700,
f.
7)
w*:: _u
rz*=-
.-
"
'
Eg
LIS
=i
=f
*..',-
'
of the Concerto in
ii. Part
MS.
29801,
154b)
Macmillans, the publishers, has recently been discovered. The papers were
studied by
problem of
Museum. The
historical research
first
outstanding biographer,
were exceptionally
and
disciple
life.
secret
and covered
at last,
been
Papers which were in the hands of the same knowledgeable cataloguer, Arthur
after
they were
to
London.
The
and
State to
sent to
Church
perished
there.
To
12.
The
as a basis for
at
at
Runnymede
in
~v-.
June 1215
-~
t~-
FT
V n jLy X.O.
i
{*.
.<V.,i^^.=
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V MS. h-n*A*
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,-.
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AL-f U Xw ^ ft
**
,\ ,.
..rr
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vtv^: v.,a.A.a
-r'-
Iks s..p,
r .|^.v. .,.. ..
N_,,\tANVtUv,JW^^ Vi
>
MANUSCRIPTS
180
- and
to assist historians
Keeper, three Deputy Keepers, two Assistant Keepers and seven Research
Assistants. In terms of numbers of staff, therefore, the
Museum.
the
in
largest
Department
is
the second
Modem
It
Historical Papers, created in 1948 to deal with the vast mass of nineteenth'
twentietlvcentury material
to
swamp
and
whole Depart'
the
ment.
One
of the
effects
the
Modern Sub/Department
War
Second World
there
was
in particular to
Department
immense
as a
whole and
attendances a year, but by 1970 the attendance had risen to over 20,000:
been continuing
the
number of letters
of the
rise in
There has
some
it
has
an increase in
as great
The
been
also
sixty readers
and
Students'
Room
at
the
Museum
to
And although
most of the manuscripts predate the use of telephones and typewriters - and
is
now
at
Department and
The
There
- modern tech/
ten years.
last
manuscripts
is
in
still
its
historian will have the chance not only of taking advantage of the
in dealing
recordings
social historian
From papyrus
from paper
to
to
and
to celluloid
to
papa
his piles
will be followed
by
method.
It is
no longer
of paper.
fanciful to
Room
but in
medium.
All
this
is
in the future.
materials
which
ment who
When I work
am
Museum as a modern
aware that I am handling
at the
always well
- and those
may
visitors to the
historian
precious
Depart/
most interesting
wu_
tap
13.
The
94b)
w aA Ji
je^> ^*v
J&
14. Letter
/
fi
jju p
jbe$ ******
f.
- of the possessions
history, the
1766.
Duchy
>
in the
I,
which
are
Department also holds texts of poems and plays, all of which require
- just as close critical scrutiny as any letter from a politician or a
to
It
Stella (8)
is
was presented
only one of
many
The
to the
original
Manuscripts Department
literary treasures
It
is
which take
fascinating to
as early as
the reader
to the
back
to
modern poet
century manuscript as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground (10), the
author's
first
own
in 1865.
the
spires, as
and
as a
W.
*a ^
receive
memorandum
Journal
jfWA'
21)
- and
part
at least
up Oxford,
be able
<
e4
**
1/
mnr
yio
ft,
view'-
fiuo
ti<mpxw*ir$foru'
j
**
,#
'
ll
">
\v.
ft'-
''.'It'
'
fljuayana?> fcnmmiOF~~'
V-
-r'*
"
iiop2C^<wf^m>tair|^n<^trmtS^6ykctl
L~5.
itn^cuccu nu^^9-cwcmfeatf|Uufacto/Tatt^|fc
15.
'Summer
is
icumen
in', a
f.
11b)
at
MANUSCRIPTS
184
to
go
Manuscripts Department
to the
contemporary English
to study
1962 the
Museum and
Council
the Arts
some of
Another
office
materials,
the
and
historical
and
felt
Department
the Manuscripts
literary,
and
who
all
enthusiasts
novelist,
George
compare with
if
written
also collects
beautiful, revealing
how
our
exploration, manuscript
its
can learn
as
as other
Eliot,
for
It
wrote in 1855,
'for
the
common
in his
its
experts
later
An
Museum
As
eye there
Museum'.
'guards
its
is
nothing to
Thirty^five years
jewels jealously':
though
Museum,
in our
own
am
I
I
is,
which have
life,
a special place
Museum, and
Magna
including
to
it
has
not just of
be an authority on
was
to
documents of
lesser
different generations.
importance,
But
to
most
changing meanings.
It
Magna Carta
visitors
least
it is
as
much
King John's
it is.
seal
it
as
Magna
of pondering on
its
16.
in
The
-*<
final entry
Captain Scott's
Antarctic Diary,
29 March 1912
"
t-
There
is
no other national
attention, but
few
treasure
visitors to the
which commands
The
translation
is
much
general
quite as
where the
made by
to miss
and he wrote
his translation
who
between
Bible was
and
Letters,
which
I first
and
heard about
authority.
at
like to
go back,
is
too, to the
a collection,
Paston
unique
86
in
its
MANUSCRIPTS
range and
detail,
it is
an indispensable collection
An
even
earlier
is
the
version,
icumen
do not think
In the
first
is
last resort,
after
in'
haunting
final entry:
our people.'
the Manuscripts
to
its
Department
another as a collective
mankind.
is
memory
Chapter Thirteen
The unusual
acquiring
you
are buying.
To
for
that
is
it
in
They were
Italy.
make
able to
a radical distinction
ducats and florins they spent, and the aurei, denarii and
for
example,
England
from
profited
left
sestertii
between the
they collected.
a collection
Italian experience.
3200 coins,
The
first
of the
in
many
II.
collections
by
1. It
came
to the
gift
to a range, interest
The
collection of coins
and quality
first
in space
700 B.C.
from London
to
and
Berlin.
to the latest
Tokyo and
Canberra.
There
spectrum of historical,
on
the
Museum's
coins
But
Department spans
the
whole
social,
interest in the
from which
for the
of forgeries
collectors, dealers
moment
as well as
in
let
its
role in
providing
us concentrate
two extraordinary
on
the art of
spurts; the
making
first
in the
One
some 2700 years ago. It was not, of course, the earliest form of payment. Men
had been exchanging goods by barter for thousands of years before the first
coin was struck, and in the most economically sophisticated part of the world,
in the lands
round the
soldiers, to
for centuries to
make
offerings to the
i<j.
Electrum
ib.
Gold
ic
An Athenian obol
An Athenian silver teradrachm
id.
stater
stater
if.
Athenian
obverse,
silver
Athena;
1/.
Electrum
ig.
Syracusan
obverse, the
ih. Silver
c.
stater;
silver
nymph
c.
520 B.C.
tetradrachm;
380 B.C.
Ionian; obverse, a horse
tetradrachm;
its
The
size
when
was
shaped
in fact
and weighing
its
like a
much
so
in cash
step
89
for
shape and
first
Some
of a cow.
sixty or so
weight of metal and a basic commodity turned currency into money, but
was
still
something
thus turning
A
its
coin
it
into a coin.
stamp which
is
it
like a
place of origin
or the purchasing
identifies
power of a
coin,
unlike that of a piece of metal used as money, does not have to be the exact
equivalent of an unstamped, or un/coined piece of metal of the same size and
weight. In addition to
bullion)
it
according
its
to the degree
less
introduced,
and
as
policy
down
in
man'
monetary
the attendant
all
we have become
so familiar.
Coin
represents an intellectualization of
was invented
Greek/dominated Lydia,
in
in
money and
true coins, a
side of
when
is
appropriate that
is
it
earliest
of
Lydian
an ingot
it
stater
it
But from
this start
with
the idea of a coin, the progress towards the form of a coin, instantly recognizable in
modern
terms,
was amazingly
swift.
Another very
early
marks made by
the
its
made by
against the anvil themselves carry decorative motifs; the one most clearly visible
clear, if
rudimentary,
stag's
head.
It
not yet round. For some time, indeed, coins could be irregular or positively
its
stater
bull
struck by
and
King Croesus -
lion confronting
the
Rich - of Sardis
his
gold
future, for
stater exactly
190
make change
Gold,
silver
most used
in a straightforward
and electrum
wages
or to hoard
was
of gold and
Thus
time
was possible
it
wages
a month's
for a
for the
fifth
The demand
and then,
century,
And
power of bronze
became adept
at
in their
was
it
(ic).
The
Even
it
pocket'less
have
still
could serve
for
relied chiefly
purchases worth
less
Athe/
fifty
of
new
difficulty
to silver, small
literal sense,
for
because
either
silver.
payment of
mercenary soldier)
silver)
all
marketplace than
first
manner.
(a natural alloy
doubtful
is
it
pennies.
less
more time to
finger
and
to
look
them.
at
It is
casually,
less
and
own
was
there
came
art.
And
to
is
it
perhaps,
this aspect,
even more than the sense of contact with the past they can give or the historical
information they can provide, that motivates most collectors.
Though
and
sculpture, they
the
(icf)
superbly encapsulates
reverse
marks the
art
art
engraved
its
seals
value but of
and
much
that
move towards
artistic
is
designs,
later
from a
seal,
and
our
version of
The tendency
for the
was promoted by
stamp decoration
to
the
this taut
essential to
the
example of
Lydian
Thus
long periods.
guaranteed
for
stylistic
who made
The
early
at
odds
is
with the oval shape of the coin. Before long, however, design became completely
adapted
to the
'full',
in the sense
on
of
the
la.
Athenian
obverse,
silver
tetradrachm;
ie. Silver
owl
of Aegina; obverse,
turtle
and god
300 years
later
2g.
Gold
2d. Silver
2//.
Bronze
obverse,
Apollo
stater
III
192
is the galloping horse on the Ionian stater (if). The skill with
which the dolphins are placed between the stern head of the nymph Arethusa
and the edge of the coin on the rather lata Syracusan tetradrachm (i) of
of
design
'full'
we
Naxos
(ili),
and we have
problem of relating
the
still
Nor was
at all.
to
and
image and
to
border
customary
it
some'
letters are
have none
letters to
seldom
that has
been surpassed in the 2500 years since the coin was struck. The
it is
very
fact,
mark
Thus
Many
lettering.
little
the value
on coins except
exuberance -
charm
as
as in so
with the
to his not
many of the
'hares'
for
had
'eagle' staters
of Sicily.
of Elis, or
to their
satis-'
springy
Obverses commonly bore the image of an animal associated with the town
which
turtle
represented
Aegina
and swam along the trade-routes of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. The
that
own sake,
as the
that
fact
cow
Look
some 300
years.
meant
was constantly
two
And
that coins
turtles (ih
arts, is clear
and
as
c)
separated by
to
changes
The
c.
Apollo
series
of Catanian tetradrachms,
do with putting
these
among
400 B.C.
(2d) has
much
to
Apollo
to
is
central
to
Greek
appear on
their coins.
representations of
It
was an approach
dened
produced works of
affected
This
that
by
tired
political
aims
But numismatic
portraiture
contemporary
was succeeded
arts consistently.
a century later
by another
3.
Don
who wanted
It
most
it is
the coins of
sance
Italy.
Rome
and, above
as
art
The most
not so
and
the
and
on one
side
(zg).
War
much on
first
used coinage
sort
in a.d. 63
with
Nero,
a formal in^
There was
also a
glorifying leadership,
by striking a
was
(2/?).
much more
commemorating
sestertius
showing
his
head
symbol
Empire. This
and on
Roman
The Romans
appear
of the
functional influence.
Reverse of number
on almost new
all,
4.
to
and had
easily available
Inigo de'Avalos
sance medal'makers
at
sea'
a time
which
when
coins were
little
indeed, the besMrusted coins, like the Florentine florin or the Venetian ducat,
still
were
first
issued
two
centuries before.
had
relied
on when they
5.
obverse, portrait of
Isotta degli Atti
6.
Reverse of number
after
to artistic
Roman
95
introduction - in mid/fifteentlvcentury
its
This was
Italy.
its
partly,
of
shape, different designs on obverse and reverse, the portrait bust, the inscription
and
the coin
was that
as
differ
commonly its size was much larger than that of a coin and that it
made of bronze or lead not, as was the case of the most carefully
was
generally
circulating a likeness to
More
silver.
all
commemorative. The
a selected few -
it
portrait
of statesmen.
and
was, indeed, frequently worn round the neck. Unlike the miniature, however,
it
to a wall, or lying
on
a table,
it
played some/
thing like the role of the portrait photograph today, with the distinction that
the
it
form of
two
7.
in
from
its
association
Thanks
to
Taking
men
factors the
it
its
together a
number of traits
fairly
common
to
men and
the
8.
9.
Obverse of number
portrait
how
also
becomes
all
medals
in
that
The
had established
the overfall
an example of
set
for
more remarkable
and
of Elisabetta da Vicenza
of Elisabetta da Vicenza
of ancient
understand
it
reverse of medal
showing
artefacts
and a
artistic
to retain
throughout
its
years he
existence
never surpassed.
The
almost too
much
eyes. But,
though
judged the
like a painting;
we want
his
in fact a painter
special limitations
And
in line
detail,
it is
way as to make it as
was Don Inigo's emblem itself:
name
as
in such a
a single sphere, as in
Homer's description of
Before Pisanello's short career as a medallist was over, others were producing
work almost
mondo
medals.
The
reverses contradict
sign of weakness.
two
reverse of his.
medal
(6),
and
the citadel
the
io.
of Cardinal Francesco
ii.
Gonzaga
Obverse of number io
showing
portrait
Francesco
of Cardinal
Gonzaga
198
among
but by the 1480s Niccolb Fiorentino was producing there some of the most
relaxed'looking and successful medals of the Renaissance. Inside her ring of
if intelligent. It
is
with
intricate
its
women
of her
indeed, Pico della Mirandola himself had this reverse - based on an ancient
statuary
Such
straightforwardly
was none
tactile,
for
medal was
that to give
donkey,
this
Elisabetta of Vicenza,
What do we
so
often difficult
and
whose
sets
portrait
of armour,
And
what
learn about
The Gonzaga
is
(11)?
is
somewhat clumsy. In
this
is
is
to crack.
hammer
What
to give
does
is
hovering in the
us of
bow and
that lynx, if it
is
a lynx, looking
at,
and why?
reverse,
an
total contrast,
12.
is
this
city)
another
13.
Lodovico Brognolo
trust
is
God', and
in
to the
less
this
medal of the
effects for
friar
which
The
occasion
for
brated by medals
showing
on one
the patron
to
The
came
to play
it
were, as guardian
armed diversion
spirits
in southern
medal
to
Italy,
be sent to
had been
among
the supporters of
Medicean
to
policies.
his favourite
murder him
Florence by
II to aid
commissioned
Mohammed
worked
assassins' daggers
fortresses
Mohammad
to circulate
for
the other.
on
the building
cele^
motives
and
side
role.
were also
at
High Mass
initial step in
latest
from
in the
the medal's
head on the obverse (14) while on the reverse (15) Mars led a chariot on which
14-
Obverse of number
portrait
15.
of Mohammed
15
showing
II
of medal of Mohammed
II
*.
16.
17.
Andrea Guacialoti;
reverse of
portrait
Duke of Calabria
Duke of Calabria
of Alfonso,
medal of Alfonso,
rode Victory holding a rope that secured three nude females symbolizing the
Greece, Asia and Trebizond.
Sultan's conquests in
concept
is
Mohammed
an image inviting
did.
This Tamerlane^like
to
And
sea.
Adriatic port of Otranto. After a year of terror they were defeated by the
of Calabria
which has
obverse
is
who
a portrait of the
to captivity in
The
Duke
Duke
6).
back
he
answer
The reverse
who
to Bertoldo's message.
1 7)
On
the
in a
Otranto.
medal
as a
ment of
- such
was inherent
as his
later
relief.
of the
delicacy,
less
illustrative reverse.
relief,
in the use
which allowed
the other
moving
relief sculptures
by
directly
away from
their inscriptions.
it
Some
are only
fifty
years
even the inscription cannot save the reverse (18) of Matteo Olivieri's
8.
'truth unveiled'
A few years
side of a medal.
to
Benvenuto Cellini,
later,
on
lettering has
reverse
ture.
This
is
Without weight
historical events
times a whole
a long road
wish
to
the
on
if
none of the
rivals those
of the
commentary on
treaties or battles.
At
their reverses.
Museum
far
figures
who
it,
offer a lively, at
the
Renaissance, they
those
last step
like
It is
The
works of men
more than
one
rather than
of
it
And
19-
a portrait
designed
which
money could
have not
Cambi
immense branch of
the collection to
as substitutes for
turn to another
in the
labour^swamped
towns of the Industrial Revolution. These factory tokens did not masquerade
as precious
metal and they took their imagery from the needs of the day, the
its
Departments of the
Museum
Departments of the
Museum
Printed Books
The Department
which,
at his
of Printed Books
is
Hans
and manuscripts.
in
valuable
right of
Sloane,
gift that
fifteenth
priceless treasures.
right to receive a
in this country.
With
and
very
the Trustees
In 1762
and
came
had
to
available to
depend
buy books
largely
on
the
the
young George
C. M.
his
money
ment by
the
little
III.
to the
Depart'
as the
to the
Department
superb collection of books, for the most pan of botany, zoology, travel and
came
was housed
in a splendid
especially to receive
up by George
new
gallery, the
and where
it,
Department has
it
still
III
ever received,
remains.
at
King's Library, which sufficed until the opening of the present room
in 1857.
Between 1837 and 1856 Antonio Panizzi, the Keeper of Printed Books, virtually
created the modern national library. By securing greatly increased annual grants
In
of making
it
the
to a large extent
efforts,
was acquired,
Throughout
designed
circular,
expanding
grow
the later
208
By
out, during
During
and
ova two
centuries, the
8 million
old
totally destroyed
with
to replace the
with a
libraries
staff of over
books.
and Drawings
Prints
Until 1808 prints and drawings were in a section of the Department of Printed
The
Books.
the
last
Keeper
He
was
systematically stealing
Dighton, a
good graces of
vivant custodian
was
to exercise control
caricaturist
It
is
etcher,
Dighton
said that
and somewhat
the easy-going
and
The
prints
were
bon
at that
time lightly pasted in guard'books, from which Dighton was able to remove
806
to carry
them away
in a portfolio.
the dealer,
His
thefts
He
Museum
to
compare
Museum's impression
As
it
were brought
took
it
to the
missing.
ment of
Prints
stole
were nearly
all
as
first
its
recovered and
was tightened.
According
to
Room
was
'in a
approached by
was
the Portland Vase. Passing through a large apartment, appropriated for the
Room
in
with a
to
London (185
angle'
among
'collections
its
still
which
building,
Room
are not
was
new Smirke
first
thrown open
'in the
north/west
was
there
transferred to
present
its
home
in the
art
volume of drawings by
Diirer
Museum
which formed
gift,
Rembrandt
the finest
And
throughout
for
its
arts in
etchings
long history,
its
Room
notably
drawings
Sloane's
and drawings
Hans
Building.
in
M. Cracherode (some of
by the Reverend C.
209
making
the
Egyptian Antiquities
Pan of the surrender terms of Napoleon's army
over of
some twenty
in
Egypt
in
which he had
start
Museum's Egyptian
Museum
many
of
Tuthmosis
the pieces
Henry
two decades
its
III
and
Salt,
the
of the British
Amenhetes
are
From
now
the
in the
head of
III, just
Consul'General
British
outright in 1822.
obtained
two of
in Egypt,
same
collector
Third Egyptian
Room.
This period marked the beginning of the Museum's collection of Egyptian
papyri,
the
which soon
received
some
commission appointed
necropolis
and give
to investigate robberies
details
of the
trials
of the thieves.
which
and many
earliest
literary,
Among
other papyri
texts
as well.
In 1886, E.
began an important
series
of visits
to
later
its
quality.
substantially
and
Queen
of Tjetji.
210
The papyri included the Book of the Dead of Ani and the
Amenemope, some passages in which resemble very closely
Old Testament Book of Proverbs.
Towards
Instructions of
passages in the
day
its
the British
by the
Even when
vation.
ment
The
first
week
the
is still
entire staff
problem of preser/
They are
enemy
and any
it is
month, the
in every
soft
damage
if
to the
likely to
is
the worst
is
have
share.
its
atmosphere of the
city
it
When
absorbs
the
when,
Asiatic collections,
it
became necessary
immense growth
Western
in the
two
separate
Departments.
Greek and
The
British
Roman
Museum
Antiquities
Hans
William Hamilton's
fine collection
from southern
That was
Italy.
in
first
1772.
next.
Roman
The
date.
Temple of Apollo
teenth century
was bought
consists of sculptures
in
Greece
The
in
what
is
now
for the
in
The
at
Museum
south-west Turkey.
greater
5.
Tomb
after,
partly
by
at
Xanthus
Mausoleum at
from Lord
gift
and
211
partly as a result
Charles Newton.
In
became
the
first
The
Wood
on the
and Newton
The new Depart'
Antiquities.
(Diana)
Roman
site
Ephesus (1869-74).
at
in the history
now
were
over,
of Lord
completed
in 1938,
Duveen
as the
for the
at
more
the expense
Gallery),
it
was
sculptures.
The
intact,
antiquities of the
Greek and
Roman
Greek and
new Duveen
Life
itself suffered
first
installed in their
pre-war
galleries,
were
The
sculptures of
finally transferred
to their
was taken
for a
galleries
is
and
the opportunity
to
modern
taste.
The ground'fioor
chronologically,
and
reorganization
further
of other
in progress.
Prehistoric
It
now
arranged
antiquities,
floor,
was only
in the
Not
until
in the British
Museum
for a display
step
Romano^
An
import
of
in
Wollaston Franks
as
Keeper.
to
form a
distinct
Department.
212
By 1877
to
Collection of Romano'British
British
came
Museum
spend
fifty
funds on prehistoric
or
Western
Asiatic objects.
was
that of
many from
Hod
on
Hill,
was purchased
in
An
the Iron
important collection of
Age
hill/fort
Roman
and
Klemm
the
Age
Collection of Bronze
objects
1908, and the Morel Collection containing finds from rich Iron
in 1868,
as a gift in
Age
burials in
bombing, but
the collections
Roman
British
Room
were destroyed by
was opened
first
Roman
in the
Britain
Room.
Hod
at
Museum;
was
first
major British
Durden
site,
Hod
the
Hill
Collection.
The planning of
the
destroyed in 1940 was associated with the detailed planning of storage acconv
modation,
offices, students'
for a projected
new Depart/
ment.
On
Britain were
British
to the public,
and
in
later material
and
opened
illustrating Prehistoric
being
named
the
and
Roman
two departments,
that with
made
contains antiquities
in
title,
the
Department
dates
back only
its
to 1969,
present form
when
the
Department on
its
it
own and
the parent
Its
921,
its
become
to
it
and with
Sub'Department
title
of the Depart'
and
Since
its
has had seven Keepers. Perhaps the most remarkable of the seven
the
was
Sir
first
formulated the basic policies on which the Department was to develop. His
great personal generosity led
fine collections,
such
him
to give or to
continental porcelain, in
which
1887
after the
tion
Henry
and
which he
him
to the
his jewels
many unique
so
bequeath
Department many
and fingerings,
Museum
in
Department
all
his
purchase
for the
make
the exhibit
ment
are,
Cup
(see p.
Gold
it
fitting that
is
in
Northumbria
known
as
Under
objets
The
d'art
of the
gifts
con^
Waddesdon
finest quality,
which
in 1899.
Sutton
Hoo
it
was not
Ship'burial,
M.
until
1939 that
its
houses the
Anglo-Saxon and
greatest
excavated
offered
Pretty.
the
Duke
new
tiles,
214
became
the
as a result
its
of the
acquisition of the famous Ilbert Collection. After Courtney Ilbert's death, his
collection of
presented to the
Museum;
Company. During
fully
and
the
watch collection
raised
students to
staff,
(totalling almost
2000 items)
work on
Mr
facilities for
apprentices, collectors
and
this unrivalled
history of time^measurement.
Before
the
little
more than
a handful of cylinder^seals
and cuneiform
tablets,
and some
of the sculptured
reliefs
W.
also
brought
home
25,000 cuneiform
The
eventually
and
later in the
and
successfully
inscriptions,
tablets
at
deciphered
Colonel
by
Rawlinson,
same year a
still
more
specialized
Department of Egyptian
also responsible for the
important groups of antiquities being recovered from North Africa, Arabia and
Palmyra
(Syria).
The major
Ur
Sir
by a combined British
Museum and
furniture of the
the excavation of
interest; the
excava^
civilization
2\$
Since 1945 the primary emphasis has been placed on the proper study,
conservation and cataloguing of the collections. In view of the increased specials
zation needed, the
in 1955 into
Asiatic Antiquities
is
responsible for
all
split
Department of Western
the present
Near
Atchana, the
Museum
its
own
but has given support to the work of the relevant British Schools of Archaeology,
and
School of Archaeology
Nimrud.
in Iraq's
fully
excavations
its
at
and
Oriental Antiquities
The Department of
Museum
already had
3.
The
British
south Asia and the Islamic countries of the Near East but hitherto they had
been divided
among
other Departments.
whose
field.
The
the world.
fairly represented,
K'ai Chih
As
for
The
and
result
collection of early
only
is
first
scroll
and
often advised by
is
of the Department,
Chinese
ritual
bronzes
is
also
are
world-famous
Ku
as the
south Asia, especially India, the English liked only those things which
show Western
to
influence.
last
century include the unique large gilt'bronze Tara from Ceylon in 1830 and the
would look
the British
thin
Museum, Augustus
The Javanese
842.
Stamford
Raffles.
All
who was
keenly
216
made by
finest ever
to present the
Franks
whole Collection.
objects of everyday.
ings
is
glass
The
and
on
inlaid
bound and
illustrated
and
finest in the
The
world.
pottery
the so'
paint/
is
metal'work outstanding.
Ethnography
The
Museum
British
Hans
was then
pioneer of what
included especially
curiosities
Within twenty
years of Sir
Cook's
the
fine
Museum's
unnamed
science of ethnography.
It is
became
a major attraction.
may
and
difficult, as the
fast
own terms -
number of known
becoming
Second World
all.
still
century
to visible storage.
War made
it
to
it
practically impossible.
in the spirit in
it
of cultural translation'.
approximated
develop
to
ways of life.
was
It
its
'the science
However, during
it
and began
it
be understood in
been called
the
During
this particular
The exotic
discoveries
more
exhibit
the
its
had
The
to
it
became
comprc
scientifically possible
to a shortage
be overfilled to a point
at
which
of
they
beginning of the
and
the density
number of
objects with
which each of
the
drawing
specimens.
When
the
Department
transferred to
its
new
it
way
which each
in
tribal culture
217
could be shown
was by adding
the time
dimension
serially.
to that
One room
is
now on
is
81 the
all
and another
will house
some of
exhibited.
To
this
to the
other important
section in preparing
and
exhibition - not to mention the fieldwork that supplements the collections from a
The
particular culture.
makes them
also
Museum.
Manuscripts
Proposals for the establishment of a national collection of manuscripts can be
back
traced
their
when
dispersal of the monastic libraries after the Dissolution, but attempts to interest
successive
Sir
Tudor
was
the finest,
grandson presented
had
It
to
to antiquaries
left
it
and
it
was
to the nation.
when
who had
such as
setting
collections, together
books
in the
up of a
In 1700, his
national collection
and
Of all
a passionate interest in
But the
the
was
Robert Cotton (1571-1631)10 save what they could from the wreck.
the oppor-
George
II
at
Royal Library.
The Museum
From
Museum,
21 8
Manuscripts and of Printed Books, on the other hand, have survived almost
unaltered,
its
During
its
and
to the
Room,
and microfilms
it
and ever/increasing
or a vast
is
The
evident.
scope
for instance,
From
its
art is
national,
and although
literature
of the British
the emphasis
Isles,
is
upon
necessarily
the
and
art,
inter/
history
and
neglected.
Department
is
present surroundings.
It
what
of a
it
new
fittings,
can achieve in
era
its
its
incorpora/
tion as a unit in the projected British Library, with the possibilities of expanding
and improving
its
collections
prospect of achieving
once
its
and
services
on an unprecedented
scale.
its
greatest challenge
and
its
This
is
at
greatest opportunity.
Museum
its
to Antiquities.
It
first
is
to the
Depart/
Egypt
from
all
countries
and
periods.
ing out to other peoples such as the Persians, Phoenicians, Arabians and Celts,
to
modern times
to
further developed in
traditions in ancient
China and
The Museum's
collection covers
all
these
219
portrait
day.
The
Banks
sisters
George IV
Knight
century by the
in the eighteenth
The
Cunningham
down
King
Salis
mented the
laid
in
(1 824).
Count de
was
to
up by
(1893).
series
of British coins in
and
that
of General
Edward Hawkins
the
British medals.
vastly
and
Italy.
European coinage. Purchases from treasure trove have also made very significant
contributions - for instance the Roman gold hoard from Bredgar (1957) and
the
huge
such
silver
as those
Numerous
and pur^
gifts
collection.
The
entire contents
were bombed
in 1941
space to exhibit
as
its
restored in 1959.
visit
London
for safety
empty premises
The Department
still
lacks the
the Department,
which
constitutes
one of the
Biographical Notes
Michael Ayrton
illustrator.
He
is
is
and
has exhibited in
and
a frequent broadcaster.
Sir John Betjeman, the poet and author, was awarded the CBE in 1 960,
made a C. Lit. in 1968 and knighted in 1969. In addition to his literary reputation
he
is
ture.
known
He is a
as a leading
campaigner
of Victorian architect
frequent broadcaster.
Asa Briggs
is
Professor of History
volume
on radio and
television.
He
is
UK.
and
don,
is
at
own
British
United
travels
abroad.
Lon/
London when
at
for
books
Institute.
three
Flair.
in the
Film
magazine,
;
Governor of the
history,
Author of many
she
is
Fleur
many
in India as a child.
book.
He
has also
made
on ancient India,
Persia,
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Lady A n t o n
a Fraser
is
is
an international
and appears on
She
television.
Sir
best'seller.
is
won
She
currently
the
221
and Countess of
also writes
working on
on children's
a biography of
is
with productions
Director of the
in the
United
Old Vic
States, Australia,
in the early
Finland and
Israel.
He was
Theatre, Minneapolis and the Stratford Theatre, Ontario. Sir Tyrone died in
May
97 1
at
John Hale
is
Modern
History
and
at
the Berkeley
articles
History
at
London. He was
Warwick and
Visiting Professor of
His
latest
book
is
He
is
and
lives in
Twickenham.
pc,
is
an experienced
statesman and has travelled widely in the Far East, Asia, Africa and Canada.
HM
UK
in India;
Commissioner/General
representative
J.
E.
for the
UK
in
UK
Morpurgo,
Professor of
London
American
in 191 8
and educated
at
He was
Christ's Hospital
for
many
and
the
years associated
with Penguin Books and from 1954 to 1969 was Director^General of the
National Book League. His publications include The Pelican History of the
United States (with R. B. Nye), editions of the
The Road
Barnes Wallis.
to
several travel
is
life
of Sir
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
222
Dr David Stafford/Clark
is
York
He
and
numerous medical
has held
poetry
posts,
is
two
the author of
London.
collections of
at
Porth
Grammar School
Valley and
is
and, on scholarships,
the Universities
of Oxford and Madrid. Professions: teaching, lecturing, and writing novels and
by
plays, flanked
much work on
Queen of the
Iceni,
and hatred
SirJohn Wolfenden
Museum. Educated
Suetonius Paulinus,
memory of Boadicea,
who
killed her.
at
USA,
Princeton University,
education.
is
for
Sir
He was Headmaster
Uppingham
a distinguished career in
He
ber of advisory
and
holds
special reference to
young
Education
in a
to
Changing World.
and
fluent in
is
and of
Arabic.
History, Royal
Commando
two
Academy
(1943-4) and
bars 194 3-
1st
Commando
World War
of the First
of Sandhurst (1959-69).
of Jordan,
Istiglal
in Military
Commander
Brigade (1945-6).
MC
of No.
1942 and
Other
titles
of
interest:
THE MUSEUM:
100 Years
Museum
of Art
by Leo Lcrman
Introduction by
Over 600
Thomas
P.F. Hoving
illustrations, 16 in color
$16.95
MASTERPIECES OF
THE FRICK COLLECTION
by Edgar Munhall
Introduction by Harry
Over 100
plates,
illustrations
D.M.
and 24 color
including double/page
fold'outs
$14.95
A Studio Book
The Viking
Press
New
Gricr
The jacket
on
K.
^ US
s^
show
illustrations
Roman
legionary
a frieze
figure
of
tiles
of such
figures
Guard
sbn 670-72656-7
at Susa,