THURSDAY GROUP TRIP TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM
It wasn't a foggy day in London town. In fact the sun was shining. "Le soleil brillait", as Christophe might have said (although he didn't). And far from having lost its proverbial charm, the British Museum was exhilarating, comme toujours. By the time we arrived (18 of us in total), we had demolished the egg sandwiches, pork pies and other sundry delicacies on the train. We quickly inspected the Rosetta Stone, took in the Mildenhall treasure and Sutton Hoo before cruising through the Egyptology section on the third floor. And so to the caff. Another great trip.
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The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and one in classical Greek. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta, and transported to England in 1802. Once in Europe, it contributed greatly to the deciphering of the principles of hieroglyph writing, through the work of the British scientist Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion. Comparative translation of the stone assisted in understanding many previously undecipherable examples of hieroglyphic writing. The text on the stone is a decree from Ptolemy V, describing the repeal of various taxes and instructions to erect statues in temples. Two Egyptian-Greek multilingual steles predated Ptolemy V's Rosetta Stone: Ptolemy III's Decree of Canopus, 239 BC, and Ptolemy IV's Decree of Memphis, ca 218 BC.
Mildenhall Treasure is a major hoard of 34 Roman silver objects found in the Mildenhall area of the English county of Suffolk. The hoard was discovered in January 1942 by a Suffolk ploughman, Gordon Butcher, who removed it from the ground with help from Sydney Ford. They did not recognise the objects for what they were, and it was some years before the hoard came to the attention of the authorities. In 1946 the discovery was made public and the treasure was acquired by the British Museum in London. The treasure is believed to have been buried in the 4th century.[1] It includes some of the finest surviving examples of Roman silversmithing, including the mid-4th century Great Dish which measures 605 mm in diameter and weighs 8256 g. The dish glorifies Bacchus and is decorated with a wide band showing a Bacchic revel, at the heart of which is a drinking contest between Bacchus and Hercules, who is shown dead drunk and having to be supported. An inner band of nereids surrounds a foliated head of the sea god, Oceanus.
The dish was discovered with similarly decorated banqueting items: a large flat nielloed dish with geometric decoration, silver platters featuring Pan and maenads, a covered bowl with a frieze of centaurs and wild animals, as well as flanged bowls, ladles and spoons. Although the vast majority of the decoration is classical, three spoons bear the Chi-Rho symbol of Christ, and the Alpha & Omega, a bibical reference to Christ as "the beginning and end". The treasure is thought to be of Mediterranean origin. [2] Roald Dahl wrote a non-fiction short story about the find which was published first in the Saturday Evening Post, [3] and later as " The Mildenhall Treasure" in his short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. [4] In Dahl's story, Ford was fully aware of the significance of the find, but could not bear to part with the treasure. He kept it and restored it in secret, but a piece left out was seen by an unexpected visitor. As a result, Butcher was deprived of a large government reward due to finders of buried gold or silver.
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