The Time I Went Behind the Scenes at the British Museum

This morning it was back to the classroom at Regent's College. Whoops, I almost forgot we're here for school. During today's lecture, Dr. Sauer talked about dentition and acquainted us with four - yes, four - of the different naming systems for notating teeth. This didn't seem so bad when we found out that according to one survey, there are over 100 different systems in use by dental and anthropological professionals for identifying the 32 teeth that make up a human adult mouth. Dr. Sauer also talked about subadult age estimation - a pretty familiar topic for those of us who just finished our year-long experience with subadults in the Nubian lab at MSU. After lunch, it was off to the British Museum where we got a behind the scenes tour of the Egyptian and Sudanese department! Dr. Daniel Antoine, curator of physical anthropology at the British Museum and the man in charge of all the museum's human remains, gave us a rare, up-close look at dynastic and pre-dynastic Egyptian mummies, as well as animal mummies, unwrapped mummy heads, and mummified Sudanese human remains. In the British Museum Egyptian collection store rooms, sarcophagi, mummies, and other artifacts line the gray, wall-to-wall, hand-operated sliding shelves. Although many things are wrapped, the whole set up looks almost casual; not exactly the airtight, plexiglass boxes we were expecting. The whole place smells musty and vaguely chemical-y, hallmarks, we were told, from the substances the ancient Egyptians used to preserve their dead. There was an entire shelf full of mummified animal remains, including falcons, cats, and snakes. In another store room, we saw the mummified remains of a woman whose inner-thigh tattoo was still visible thousands of years later. We also saw the physical anthropology lab where scientists were collecting the same types of skeletal data we've been taking in the Nubian lab! Dr. Antoine also showed us the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, a document explaining different pyramid constructions and containing the first known reference to pi. Something interesting that Dr. Antoine shared with us is that anyone, even the general public, can have access to the British Museum's libraries as well as physical access to any of the artifacts in the British Museum's store rooms, so long as they submit a legitimate proposal of study and that proposal gets approved. Maybe some day I'll need to look into that! After the tour of the museum store room, we briefly explored some of the Museums other exhibits. Some exciting ones: the Rosetta stone, the Elgin Marbles, and many, many Greek sculptures. Oh, and several Spartan helmets. Go State! We didn't get much of a chance to look around, but I'm not too worried since we'll be back at the British Museum after we get back from Bournemouth. At 5, we all met up at the Museum Tavern across the street from the British Museum for dinner and drinks. Some twist of fate made our table the "grown up" table... Dr. Sauer and his wife, Dr. Fujita from MSU, Dr. Antoine, two PhD students who were working in the museum, and our TAs Amy and Carolyn (we just so happened to run into her doing research in the British Museum's library) joined us to eat. We learned a lot from all of them about various projects and cases they've been involved in, and we got tips from Dr. Antoine about where to get the best French wine in London. You know, typical day. Links of the day: Dr. Antoine: http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/departments/staff/ancient_egypt_and_sudan/daniel_antoine.aspx The Museum Tavern: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/r/rhind_mathematical_papyrus.aspx The Elgin Marbles: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/w/what_are_the_elgin_marbles.aspx The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/r/rhind_mathematical_papyrus.aspx