The Natural History Museum is on many a person's bucket-list to visit.

Now THIS is what I call a museum entrance!

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After all, it's arguably the best place in England to view dinosaurs and few people have managed to avoid adopting a childhood fascination with the massive reptiles that carried on into adulthood. So, being a fellow dinosaur-enthusiast, I could hardly walk past it when I spent a few days in London.

I'm happy to report that the museum was well worth the visit. As we went mid week in the morning, the crowds were very manageable: when they did turn up it was mostly school groups of primary school children, so we could easily peek over their heads - win! As with all the London museums that we visited, we expected to be in and out in a couple of hours, but it sucked out the best part of the day. While our feet were complaining our brains were humming, and there's a surprising amount on display for any curious traveller to explore...

Pachycephalosaurus gives new meaning to the phrase  'thick-headed'

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'THE' Dinosaur and the Amazing Building

When you step into the Natural History museum the first thing you notice isn't Dippy the Diplodocus in the centre, but the building itself. With it's striped stone, intricate nature-themed carvings and the cathedral-like height and use of light, I found myself gawping up at it all, completely stunned. It is - in a word - beautiful and is a perfect setting for the more traditional collections that you find inside. It feels eminently victorian, which sits well with the marble statue of Darwin who (currently) sits front and centre, welcoming you into the place. But, of course, the real celebrity is Dippy and it doesn't disappoint. Smaller than the Brontosaurus images you often have in mind, it is nevertheless both imposing and graceful, stretching out its head above the crowds almost close enough to touch. You start to get a real sense of the scale of dinosaurs, though if you wander to the sides and peek at the other isolated displays - such as a vast mammoth skull - Dippy seems quite modest in comparison.

"We're just a pair of charming fluffy cuties. Pay no attention to the teeth."

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Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!

Naturally, with Dippy at the helm, the most popular exhibit was going to be the dinosaurs. It's arranged in a long snaking moody corridor (a little like a queue at Alton Towers) and holds an impressive number of life-sized casts of famous dinosaur fossils as well as a couple of originals. It's well supported by displays that talk about dinosaur evolution, breeding practices, combat, behaviour and more. Being the most popular exhibit, you have to be prepared to be patient and walk at a shuffling pace, but there is plenty to look at and plenty of places to step away from the flow and take a bit of time. The iguanodon is especially impressive in its sheer size, as well as the hefty triceratops, T-Rex and the Ankylosaurus partially encased in rock. There were also fun animatronics on display, such as a T-rex and a pair of feathered raptors. If anything, it's as if they are swimming in the things, with some dinosaur skeletons even hanging from the ceiling. It certainly gives you plenty to look at.

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Further proof that babies are eldritch horrors.

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The Terror-Fetus Teaches Us About Human Development

With the dinosaurs under your belt you might be forgiven for thinking that most of the museum is over, but it's only the beginning! Drift around and soon you will come to the exhibition on human development. Here the museum very much shows it's age: while it's a great interactive experience especially for children, the exhibits themselves are very long in the tooth. The displays often feature videos with narration and an abundance of dubious fashion and haircuts that marks them as being filmed somewhere around the 80s at best. Even the accents seem dated. It's a little disappointing for such a prestigious museum, but there's still plenty to be learned and the section about the brain development of babies and small children is especially intriguing. Also, being the liberal that I am, I really appreciated the frankness and openness of the sex education on offer, including anatomically correct nude sculptures and illustrations. With this exhibit (and the museum in general) being so focused on children, it was heartening to see that science trumped prudishness in this case.

On a less serious note, this exhibition features a massive horrifying model of a fetus that is nestled in a cave-like section, so if you're a fan of the bizarre you should give it a peek.

You need to get yourself to the whale room. It's immense.

So. Much. Taxidermy.

Any museum about natural history worth its salt has a well stocked taxidermy section. As a kid it was what I loved most about our local museum, because it allowed me to see so many beautiful animals up close. So it's no surprise that The Natural History Museum has these long-dead creatures in spades all throughout the museum. One long corridor is dedicated to  walls of floor-to-ceiling fossils of ancient sea creatures. Another corridor holds cabinets of eggs, displays of various wings and feet, and even a case full of hundreds of species of beautiful humming birds. Mammals, reptiles, insects - you name it and you can see them here in the museum and they will suck hours of your time into studying them all. Perhaps the most impressive room is the 'whale room' which displays the evolution of horses, deer, elephants and more, all with examples of modern and ancient animals in full scale. Hanging above you and in the centre of the room is the marine life, showing the sheer vastness of whales and their marvellous anatomy. Climb up onto a balcony and you can learn about them as well as dolphins, manatees and narwhals. It's enough to take your breath away.

A timeline of our ancestors

A Hidden Gem of Human Evolution

Carry on through the museum and you may start to flag. You may wonder whether you're anywhere near the end. Fool! There is still plenty to see!

Towards the 'back' of the museum you come to the section on human evolution. For me it was a complete surprise, so to stumble across a wall of human skulls really caught me offgaurd and packed an emotional punch. They were beautiful to see, with our oldest ancestors at the bottom and homo sapiens  at the top. Follow the entrance through and it took you to a relatively modest exhibit in size that was packed with quality content for anyone who is fascinated by 'cavemen'. There were even more skulls, and plaster casts and two stunning models of a Neanderthal and modern human. Again there was no shyness in nudity for these models, which made them all the more striking, and the ability to stare each one in the face was quite magical. They were intelligent, perhaps a little standoffish, perhaps a little dangerous. Serious kudos to the sculptors for these.
A surprise find inside was also 'the hobbit' skeleton - a tiny and fascinating human species found in a cave some years ago - in complete form, stood up to their full (diminutive) height. For me, this exhibition was a gem.

"GAZE UPON ME AND HEED MY WARNING, FOOLISH MORTALS!"

Take the Escalator to the Terror-Dome and See How Our Planet Tries to Kill Us

Apparently glowing, womb-like caverns of terror are a theme around here.
Next to the human evolution section was the surprise of a stunning glowing orb with an escalator attached going, apparently, nowhere. Take the escalator up and you move through a gorgeous sculpture of magma and tectonic plates to emerge a floor higher to a massive exhibit all about our planet's geology. Personally, we were flagging at this point and geology isn't a personal interest of mine, so we moved through it quite quickly, but it was a quality exhibition with plenty of interactive displays about various rocks, minerals and sediments. There were plenty of examples that you were allowed to touch, including a pillar from the giant's causeway. The most interesting section for me was the one on earthquakes and how shifting tectonic plates cause them. They even had a display set up as a life-sized japanese grocery shop. Step onto it and it showed a video of a strong earthquake in action in the real-life version of the store, while the floor beneath you shifted and jerked around to simulate a real earthquake, clattering and shaking all the items around you. While I've no doubt that it was toned down a little so that it didn't actually injure anyone, it was still a striking simulation that helped you get in the mindset of the people affected by the catastrophe and to appreciate the raw power of the earth beneath our feet.

But Wait, There More...

 By the time we left the earth section we were well and truly knackered and perilously close to being late for our train home if we didn't get our timings for the return journey right. But if we had stayed on and been prepared to spend more money there were even more exhibitions that we could have explored. When we visited there were a couple of exhibits closed for renovation, but the paid exhibit on colours in nature looked impressive for anyone interested. Also we left the Darwin Centre largely untouched, where real science is being conducted every day. To get a sense of what's on if you want to make a trip to the museum, make sure to check their website.

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So What's the Final Verdict?

In conclusion, the Natural History Museum is a brilliant collection of Mother Nature's best work, curated throughout the years by keen scientists who are in awe of her. It's far more than just a dinosaur museum and, should you visit, you need to make sure you give yourself all day to get around the place. If you do, you won't regret it.

Dont' worry. There's a cafe ;)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm a big Night at the Museum fan, so when the third film actually took place in the British Museum I knew it was a travesty that I hadn't been there yet.

Yes, all the exhibits were alive,I grant you, but they were so cool. The sheer variety on display was more than I'd ever thought about. It reminded me that the place existed, basically, and I had a hunger to get my backside down south and experience the real deal: arguably the biggest and best museum in the country.

And I was not disappointed.

The British museum itself is free, situated on Russel street, which is easily reached from the major stations via the tube or bus. For me, it was a 20 min ride on the Piccadilly line (westbound) from St Pancras station and a short walk. The museum itself is a large traditional building with Edwardian classical styling, but as soon as you walk through into the main hall you can see that this is no ordinary structure. The entrance hall is sweeping and beautiful in a loose circle, with the temporary exhibits occupying the upper floor of the central circle, and with all the other steady exhibits spread around it across five levels.

Luckily there are plenty of facilities and cafes (and gift shops!), so while nothing's cheap you can easily spend all day having a good explore. Personally we spent well over 6 hours there, until our howling feet and fatigue claimed us and we had to call it a day. Even then, there is plenty to come back for.

"Six Hours?! How Much is There to See, Really?"

A whole world. Despite the name, The British Museum really isn't just about the history of Britain, or even the British Empire, but exists as a capsule of the whole world's cultures. You can find treasures from the Ancient Near East, the Islamic World, Africa, Egypt, China, South & South East Asia, Japan, Korea, The Pacific and Australia, Mesoamerica, Central and South America, North America, Prehistoric Europe, The Greek World, The Roman Empire, Roman Britain, Medieval Europe, Renaissance and Later Europe, Modern Europe and America, as well as modern examples of art mixed in with each culture. Having almost all of the world's cultures in one place to seamlessly journey through is -to put it bluntly- a goddamned revelation.

This stunning mural of an Assyrian lion hunt went on for several ROOMS at full scale.

"But Colonialism!"

Yes, I know that the British Museum is at the centre of debates on colonialism in museums, and I have mixed feelings on the subject that I have already written about at length here:

http://preludesblogofwords.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/what-can-digital-heist-of-bust-of.html?m=1

But you can't argue against the sheer awe at walking around this whole world of art and history in a day and what this can teach you. Everything is beautifully curated and treated with great respect and value and by holding everything side by side, no one item is treated as being more important than another, or one culture as being 'superior' to another. The end effect is all so amazing that it makes you proud to be human.

"Ok, So What Are The Highlights?"

As well as the general feeling of awe and discovery that comes with experiencing so many cultural treasures side by side, the thing that stuck out most to me were the sheer sense of scale that the museum was able to accommodate. 

For example, there were plaques of the beautifully intricate Assyrian lion hunt, snaking through rooms in a  dramatic tableaux. There were panels from the flipping Patheon (!), in full scale, wrapping around the whole building. Huge Egyptian pharaohs stared down at you, and Assyrian gatekeepers smiled next to the storeys-high gates themselves. Noble totem poles stood as markers and full-floor mosaics decorated the stairwells. Reams upon reams of orange and black pottery, and intricate gold-work, fabulously detailed islamic tiles, ticking timepieces and curios nestled against one another in displays. I have never seen anything like it.

One of the many Pharaohs keeping an eye on us.

In addition to the scale, what really excited me was finally seeing in person so many of the treasures that I has viewed in countless picture books about history while I was growing up. It was like encountering a celebrity!

"Look! A real easter island figure!"

"oh my god it's the jade-mosaic aztec snake. I've never seen it in real life!"

"Oh Jesus that's THE Lindlow bog man!"

"HOLY BALLS THAT'S THE GODDAMNED ROSETTA STONE!!!"

In the end, It's just very hard to describe how the sheer wonder of the place hits you right in the gut. All you can do is to go see it for yourself.

A beautiful part of the African exhibit

Bonus feature: One very happy blogger.

I'm not big on military history, but you've got to admit that the innovation and design quality involved in kitting out the fighters and hunters of the past was pretty amazing.


With this in mind, I decided to go out on a noble quest to the Royal Armouries in Leeds to see some of these innovations in action.


The first thing to know about the Royal Armouries is that it's free entry, which is always brilliant to see, and open 10am to 5pm. There's easy public parking not far away at Clarence Dock for about £10 for all day and the museum is situated on the dockside and walking distance from the town centre. Often it has live demonstrations and particular workshops and talks that you can attend, as well as exhibitions that - like most museums- mix the cyclical with the permanent: on my visit the special attraction was a display of some the treasures of the Staffordshire Horde. In my case we were a little too early to see the live tournament fights etc, but if you're visiting and especially if you're bringing kids along it might be worth aiming for after 11 or 12 and going for the weekend slots when everything is a little busier.


So what's in the museum?

The main displays on offer were War, Oriental, Hunting, Tournament, Self Defense and the Staffordshire Hoard. But it would be a crime to review the museum without talking about THAT entrance hall...
The museum is arranged vertically over a few floors and linking them all is a wide spiral staircase that surrounds a stunning display of historical arms and armour. War has always been a game of numbers and this is clearly shown in the sheer amount of items arranged in a grimly beautiful piece of gleaming art, perfectly regimented like the armies that bore the equipment.

Impressive, to say the least.

The level of attention to detail, pomp and circumstance follows through the whole museum: there really are some very important artifacts on display that belonged to very famous figures in history and the museum knows just how to present them so you can appreciate their full view. The tournament section is perhaps the most star-studded, displaying armour from Henry VIII to the Holy Roman Emperor, as well as the Armouries' famous mask that appears on their logos. But the War section does a fantastic job of showing a timeline of quality items from wars throughout the ages, and manages to inspire a little of the awe and fear people must have felt when facing down these warriors due to their fantastic model displays. One, for example, sees a full-sized pair of armoured soldiers facing off against soldiers with lances. Another, in the oriental section, shows the largest example of animal armour in the world - a 17thc almost fully complete set of war elephant armour. And you'd better believe that they've mounted it on a fully-scaled model of an Indian elephant, complete with rider. Intimidating stuff.

   The museum is set perfectly to help visitors appreciate the level of skill and craftsmanship involved from practical pieces to the decorative gifts that were given to great leaders. One element that I found fascinating was when they deconstructed armour or turned it inside out so that you could see the clever construction of an armoured jerkin, for example, or the intricate embroidery on the inside of a helmet. Image was everything in war, but the hidden details had real value to them too.


Does the Royal Armouries museum glorify war?

Miniature commoners caught in the fray.

It's impossible not to be struck with awe and an appreciation for the beauty in these instruments of protection and death, but does this mean that the museum glorifies war in a way that's distasteful? For my part I would say no. It's important to appreciate the beauty of these items and the skill of their use, both for their own sake and also to enable us to get into the minds of our ancestors and how they responded to them. Tournaments, chivalry, bravery and pomp were all huge parts of how mainstream masculinity was (and is) constructed, and how nationalism and many symbols of each country's culture are expressed. The important thing is that even in the rooms where the idealism and romance of war is most expressed by the exhibits, the curators are careful to include important details that impress upon you the reality of war. Those large imposing figures aren't just picture-bait, but put you in the position of someone facing them in person - looking up into that killing machine on horseback. The insides of the armour show the realities of living inside of them. And even in tiny details - such as the miniature representation of a great battle - they take the time to show common people fleeing in terror.

Finally the 'self defense' room, which pulls us into the modern age, acts as a sobering example of what war and violence means for us now. Here you can find testimonies of people affected by gun violence, different types of brutal common weapons throughout the twentieth century, and a display case swimming with examples of real weapons seized from every-day people by the police. Oddly, at the end of this exhibit there is also a display of the different swords from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, further emphasising the conflict between the fantasy and reality of violence and battles, even in the modern mindset today.
In the end I appreciate the blend of realities: the good and bad sides of these battles in our culture. And neither side is turned into melodrama.


So....should I visit?

Absolutely! Not only is it free, but it has some seriously important and valuable artifacts, all beautifully presented. Definitely worth your time.




When you visit, keep your eyes peeled for these...

I wonder if king Henry noticed...

• The craftsman's mistake on the patterning Henry VIII's duelling armour and his rushed-job attempt to fix it. (We've all been there, man!)
• A very cool demon's-mask for a horse in the oriental section.
• An unsettlingly anatomically correct realisation of a lady boar's nether region on one of the models. (That's..uh...good attention to detail there, buddy.)
• Armadillo-scaled armour in the oriental section
• Tiny, tiny full-plate armour for children.
• The biggest codpiece I've ever seen.
• A completely adorable chinese dog/demon face on a sword hilt.
• The most badass elephant & hunters vs tiger model you're ever likely to see.

The Bust of Nefertiti

In the Neues Museum in Berlin there is a very special artefact that is so prized that the public are not even allowed to take pictures of it. 

This the bust of Nefertiti, a 3,300 year old piece of royal art that was removed form Egypt by German archaeologists in Amarna, shortly after its discovery. Germany has always asserted its legal right to the fragile artefact but Egypt contends that it was removed with fraudulent documents. This exquisite bust, like many objects in modern museums, had become the centre of a political struggle over the true 'rights' of historic objects and their 'owners', and two German artists decided to do something about it.

As part of their project "The Other Nefertiti", Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles aimed to encourage museums to look again at the concepts of ownership of the past and how they interact with their own colonial pasts. To achieve this, they arrived as visitors to the museum and, using 3D scanners hidden under their coats and scarves, managed to created a fantastically detailed digital scan of the bust. They then released a torrent of the 3D data to a collection of hackers who further seeded the data, spreading it to allow potentially any member of the public to get a copy of the data and create their own 3D printed version of the controversial work of art. To crown their defiance the resulting 3D printed piece of polymer resin was placed on display at the American University of Cairo as a stand in for the artefact until it can be 'rightfully' returned to its homeland.

At play here are two real issues: The first, who truly 'owns' these priceless historic artifacts and the second, why should their be any restriction in how the public can interact with their shared past? It is clear that in respects the public are getting better and better access to the treasures of museums, with museums such as the British Museum even hosting 'scanathons', but many museums like the Neus museum still restrict much access and, frankly, we are a long way off the public being able to benefit from many of these archives or academic reading materials without paying a hefty subscription. But, in the end, things are getting better.
This then leaves us with the first question - who 'owns' the originals? And do museums have the obligation to make up for shady colonial pasts?


The issue of colonialism in museums

"The Other Nefertiti"

I'm English. So far as I know my family have never strayed far from these shores (though there are echoes of a 'gypsy' or yiddish past somewhere that could either be truth or the product of the kind of romantic fancy one finds themselves in when the censuses start to crumble apart.) As such, I accept that I have privileged hugely from colonialism, being a member of the country that has had the most recent and largest empire. 
History is written by the victors, they say, and so the narrative of my own nationality - and western history as a whole - has been written from the perspective of colonial victories. Just as the Romans idealised and absorbed Greek history, ideas and mythologies into their own identity while simultaneously sniffing at the contemporary Greeks themselves, the British identity is one that sends its ties out into other cultures to bolster itself. The Victorian idea of eugenic progress never really died and my culture attached itself to the Romans and Egyptians as proof of its own civilisation, and relegates other peoples as being somehow 'other' and more fragile, violent or uncivilised. It become a self fulfilling prophecy, of course, with the wealth and control stripped away from 'lesser' nations and the British ideals pushed into the new void until those cultures started to imitate our own in order to get by. "Ah." The old Victorians would say "Look how much more civilised and successful they are now that they're acting like us. Didn't we do a good job of sorting those blighters out?"  Sure, these other cultures could be exotic and admirably so, but they weren't seen as responsible enough to look after themselves in any sort of autonomy that we could respect. 

A lot of work has gone into eroding those rather poisonous but perhaps inevitable cultural narratives since then. But the spirit of them is still within the museums due to the nature of how many of their most precious artefacts were discovered. The Empire had the interest and resources to go mad for archaeology and made great progresses, but also claimed that the items they found as their own. Instead of working with the cultures they found these items from, many took them for their own, feeling entitled to them either out of greed or out of wonder. After all they could 'care' for them better, couldn't they? The items would be safest where the country was most stable and well funded. And anyway, wasn't the history of, say, the Egyptians really the history of everyone? It was civic duty....and also surprisingly profitable.


So should we start to give back items to their 'rightful owners'?

Dr Jones: Surprisingly problematic

There are many reasons why one could argue that museums that holds such culturally valuable collections shouldn't be bound to return them. For one, they were acquired under a different system than today. Michel Guiraud - head of collections at the Natural History Museum in Paris -  explains that:

“In the old days there were far fewer rules for collecting specimens in the field....people would go exploring and bring back whatever they found of interest. It was all part of collective appropriation by the scientific community. Now, adding an item to a collection is subject to a strict procedure.”

In other words we have since improved ourselves. It would be a pointless and anachronistic endeavor to try to put the genie back in the bottle and retroactively correct all the more challenging elements of history. We can't, for example, give America fully back to native peoples. We can't settle personal injury claims for every single person affected by slavery - black or white. We can't trudge across to the Nordic countries and demand reparations for viking rape and pillage in the dark ages. If I am to play devil's advocate then the brutal heart of the matter is this: to the (historic) victor the spoils. If it was legal at the time, then it is acceptable. If the colonial country invested money and resources to dig up and find these items then even more so as the host countries clearly didn't have the resources or inclination to do so.

Monuments men: protecting priceless art from Nazis

Another argument for the retention of these items is one that can loosely be called a sort of 'Monuments Men' mentality. That is that all art and history belong to all peoples - they all makes us who we are as humans - and so we have a duty to protect them. Many countries just simply aren't able to protect their precious artefacts 'properly'. Recent threats from ISIS of cultural terrorism will for many emphasise the argument that items of global cultural value should go nowhere near the involved countries, even if it is their own heritage. Many a tourist have found themselves anxiously deciding whether their desire to see the great pyramids trumps their fear of getting caught up in a war that has been raging for decades. Every historian and librarian worth their salt imagines with horror the legends of what treasures resided in the great library of Alexandria before it burnt to the ground, and how further advanced civilisation might have been if it had survived.  The privilege of the empire created a certain amount of wealth and stability that still safeguards these items to this day so surely it would be right to retain ownership of these items...'for their own good.'

It doesn't always "belong in a museum"

But, on the other hand, it's hard to argue against the return of these items as being the ethical thing to do. And, frankly, all of the above issues can be cured with proper collaboration between countries and the erosion of what 'ownership' even means when applied to this global cultural heritage.
Jonathan Jones, while writing for the Guardian, makes a fine point when he examines why some items that still have this colonial past, are regarded as far more palatable:

"I realised this recently on the Greek island of Aegina. It has a superb classical temple whose sculptures were removed and taken to Bavaria at about the same time Britain took the frieze and pediment sculptures of the Parthenon. Today they are in Munich, but there is no global outcry for their return. Why not? Well, if you visit the temple you can’t help noticing the prominent German involvement in archaeology and conservation work there. German scholarship has kept up a constant, reciprocal relationship with Aegina. There is no equivalent British involvement in the preservation of the Parthenon."

The real life monuments men

The key here is the collaboration and relationship of mutual respect. Both countries work together to care for what they believe is an item that they culturally share, despite the dark past. It's this respect that gets to the heart of many of the above disputes. Often, when peoples who have been hurt by colonialism look for reparation the thing that is perhaps most important to many is the apology, the admission of guilt, the taking of responsibility and the giving of respect. The acknowledgement that these people and their ancestors are human: not 'others' and not inferior and entitled to own what they themselves created. The reason why Indiana Jones and the Monument Men are the heroes of their stories is because, while they do take historical valuable items of art and archaeology, it is because they are protecting them from a greater force of destructive evil, like the Nazis, and are working with other cultures to do so. Indiana gives the stones of power back to the Indian village when it's safe and he trusts that they can best take care of their power. The Monument Mens' works of art are returned to their rightful homes once the war is over.
Nowadays many funding bodies demand the collaboration of multiple universities across the globe as a matter of course, so there is little excuse not to take this approach in modern times. Clearly it also works for those items that historically did not have this applied to them.

But what if the origin countries still demand their precious items to be returned home? Well, is this so bad? It's patronising to assume that items are 'safest; on foreign shores and the old colonial xenophobia of assuming that other cultures aren't intelligent enough or able to rally resources to do so enough rears its ugly head. More 'stable' countries should not act as parental figures, and even if they did after a point parents have to let their children have responsibility to look after their own property in an autonomous way. It is their right to be given the opportunity to care for their own heritage. Add to the collaboration above and really, you're mitigating the risks involved anyway. If everyone is working together to care for these artefacts then what risk is there in doing the good thing and passing across the items? Aside from risk to the colonial nation's pride. Or risk to the thickness of their wallets.
Heck, even monetary risk can be mitigated - what is more likely to get crowds flocking in anew to museums then the 'tour' of a famous artefact? It's been working in this way with the Magna Carta for years.


Conclusion

My opinion is a difficult one: I have a colonial entitlement in my blood that is hard to escape due to sheer social osmosis. I selfishly want the easy road - to have all the world's heritage at my fingertips to experience so I, like others in my country, naturally slip into a certain greedy appreciation of the status quo out of instinct. But I know this is wrong and in modern times this selfishness is frankly inexcusable.
I understand that museums are fragile creatures that already face funding cuts and jockey desperately for income, and income is created by interest. The financial risks involved in doing the right thing are frightening. But it doesn't make doing the right thing any less important.

Nefertiti, hidden in a German salt mine in the war

The handing of obviously stolen items back to their country of origin clearly works and symbolically is very important in showing what we want history to be. When Rome returned the 2,000 year old obelisk that was looted by Mussolini in 1937 back to its owners they not only did this as a sign of respect, and because it was the right thing to do, but as a political statement against dictators and the thieves of heritage. In returning it they said in not so many words "this will never happen again."

If we can create a global culture of collaboration, with items on loan across the globe and accessible to all then we really have very little to lose. If, furthermore, we can use technology to scan and preserve these treasures in a  digital and well as physical format the dangers of such collaborations are even further lessened. If every man woman and child can potentially hold and touch and marvel at their own Nefertiti, then how can it be truly lost?

Finally, the sharing and digitisation of our heritage gets to the deepest core of what a museum is.  The museum belongs to the people. It is created to share knowledge, to educate, and to put us in touch with our clever, beautiful, frightening ancestors. Collaboration, respect and openness for all peoples is the name of the game. If we keep this goal at heart then we should never go far wrong.

Keep in touch....

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Stay curious!

Sources

- Artists Covertly Scan Bust of Nefertiti and Release Data for Free Online by Claire Voon of Hyperallergic (originally found via Szembogar on Tumblr)
-The Art World's Shame: Why Britain Must give its Colonial Booty Back by Jonathan Jones
-French Museums Face a Cultural Change Over Restitution of Colonial Objects by Laurent Carpentier
-To Be or Not to Be Colonial: Museums Facing Their Exhibitions by Alexandra Sauvage
-Egypt asks Berlin to Return Nefertiti Bust
-Rome obelisk set for African return

A museum doesn't need to be big to be beautiful...

Green turtle foetus, displayed at the museum

This week marked the start of British Science Week, a nationwide celebration of everything cool about science. As part of it, on Friday was the university of Sheffield's Discovery Week, and I decided that after work I would finally do what I've been meaning to for years: visit the Alfred Denny Museum.

The museum forms part of the University of Sheffield's animal and plant sciences department and was created in 1905, back when the university was known as Firth College. It was created by the university's' first professor in biology, Alfred Denny, who pulled the collection together to aid his teaching. His lectures were engaging, often drawing in some 600 people and he was fascinated by the quirks and logic of evolution, so it paid to have practical items on hand to use as demonstrations.


The museum itself is located within the Alfred Denny building,just before the Arts Tower as you emerge from under the bridge at the students union. It's tiny, limited to only one room but when you find your way it to it instantly exudes a Victorian/Edwardian charm. The antique cabinets are absolutely jam packed with specimens in formaldehyde jars or displayed as bleached skeletons, to the point where i was quite taken aback. There was so much to see that you didn't quite know where to start.

Luckily the museum does have quite a good sense of order amongst all the variety, with each set of cabinets holding particular groups of animals. Jellyfish blend into molluscs and into sponges and arthropods, insects, fish, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and even a human skeleton, all joined intermittently by beautiful fossils. 

There's a sense of grim beauty about the tightly-packed displays, especially when you happen upon the tiny examples of foetuses vulnerably frozen in time. Or when you find the more unsettling exhibits, such as a cluster of preserved bloatfly larvae in a horses' stomach. The skeletons are especially impressive - a must see for anyone who's got a little goth in them - but you can also find  exhibits with entire organ sets spread out for
consideration, with some even bisected completely.


It's clear that Denny made a wise choice when investing in this museum and it is certainly the best collection of educational taxidermy that I've seen in my travels so far. If you're in the area it's definitely worth checking out for yourself.




The Alfred Denny Museum opens to the public on the first Saturday of every month at 10am, 11am and 12pm for guided tours. 

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Stay curious!

For More Museum Trips...

- Wax Vikings: A Trip to the Jorvik Viking Centre
- A Trip to York Castle Museum and the Amazing Victorian Street
- A Visit to Stonehenge