When I was in London with Vicki and Marty, we went to the British Museum one morning. Who knew?! The British Museum is the coolest place on earth. It's beautiful, visionary, airy. It has the most wonderful, decorative, relaxing massive library. They had a special exhibition about every single drug a person takes in her life from birth control pills to cancer pills. They had a special exhibition about the costumes in Star Wars. And, of course, they had the Rosetta Stone AND the Elgin Marbles. The Elgin Marbles have their own specially designed Duveen Room. They are amazing and wonderful and sexy and awesome and inspiring. They make you glad to be a human being. Glad to be alive. Glad to be in the British Museum. And their home in the British Museum is controversial. When they were on the Parthenon, they were intended to celebrate the Creation of Man, and were supposed to show a pantheon of the Gods, holding a discussion about whether the creation of man was a good or bad thing. Among things they represent, they show Centaurs in battle and devotees of the Goddess Athena. They must have been beautiful at the Parthenon. But in 1806, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin received permission from the Ottoman Sultan (who was holding Greece in his power) to take the Marbles. He removed them and in 1816 they were placed in the British Museum. 2/3rds of what's left of them are now in London and about another 1/3rd are in Athens -- though fragments are scattered across museums around the world. They were damaged in the 1930s, irreparably, by shoddy cleaning work by museum staff. Those staff were fired outright. I don't know what to say about whether they should be returned or not. But I will say that seeing them was one of the most truly amazing, humbling, joyful moments of my life. I can't describe it. One more thing about the British Museum, and this is a disappointment really. I learned that they had many, many sarcophagi of cats, so I was thrilled. I thought, "How cool. The Egyptians really had it going on. When their pet cats died, they turned them into mummies and gave them their own little tombs." The little mummies were fascinating. However, the uncool reality is that when a famous important Egyptian died, his pets were killed to join him in the next life. How uncool is that? A significant disappointment. I didn't dare tell Tea Cake, Jackie, or any of my other dear ones. You can read more about the Elgin Marbles and about the continuing controversy of their questionable vandalism at the following links:
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