The Time I Touched a 350,000 Year Old Hand Axe and (almost) Sang Along to Sweeney Todd

People always say that one day in the British Museum isn't enough, and they're right. On Wednesday afternoon, our class returned to the British Museum to spend more time exploring its many exhibits. Since I, along with several of my classmates, work in the Nubian Bioarchaeology Lab at MSU, I decided to start with the Sudan and Nubia exhibit. At MSU, the remains we analyze are from the fourth cataract of the Nile, and date to the Medieval Christian Period of Nubia. Although we know and have been given some historical background pertinent to the society in our collection, the our focus in the lab is not primarily historical. Because of this, it was very interesting to find information that was familiar as well as new, as the exhibit spanned from prehistorical to Islamic Nubia. Some familiar things: when discussing burials in the Christian era, the exhibit displayed some of the shrouds that individuals were buried in. In cleaning the remains in the MSU lab, we have seen evidence of some of those shrouds. As for new information, it was interesting to learn about the history of Nubia (a region in southern Egypt and northern Sudan along the Nile River) before and after the period our collection comes from. Something I found particularly interesting was the Egyptian depiction of Nubian people. On display were several Egyptian paintings in which the Nubians were stereotypically identified by their dark skin, feathered headdresses, and kilts made of leopard skin. Apart from the Nubian exhibit, I explored several other areas of the British Museum. In the Mesopotamian exhibit I saw artifacts recovered from the Great Death Pit at Ur, where seventy servants had been killed, preserved, and dressed in finery to accompany their dead queen to the afterlife. In the Britain exhibit, which spanned from Roman to Medieval times, I saw Lindow Man, a first-century mummy pulled out of a peat bog in Northwest England. I also saw the world's most famous chess set, the Lewis chess set, carved out of whale teeth and walrus tusks and dating from the 1100's. Models of these pieces were even used in the Harry Potter movie when Ron and Harry play wizard's chess. At different points in the museum, British Museum employees had set up "touch stations" where patrons were invited to hold and touch some of the artifacts. I got to touch: a 350,000 year old hand axe, a necklace from the Solomon Islands containing the teeth of over five dolphins, and an ancient Egyptian cosmetic container. Not bad for one afternoon at the British Museum. Later that night, our group went to the Adelphi Theatre to see Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It was my second West End show in two nights, lucky me! For those of you who know the (rather gory) plot, the special effects employed in the stage production were amazing and completely did it justice. I'm not sure I want to know how many fake blood packets they go through in one show, but I imagine it's a lot. A special treat was that Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's accomplice and landlady, was played by Imelda Staunton. Some of you may have seen her as Professor Umbridge in the Harry Potter film series? The whole production was great, and I had to actively try not to sing along to the songs I knew. Well, not loudly, at least. Links of the Day: Lindow Man: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/l/lindow_man.aspx Lewis Chess Set: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/young_explorers/discover/a_closer_look/lewis_chessmen.aspx Imelda Staunton: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001767/ Sweeney Todd: http://sweeneytoddwestend.com/