I’d heard of it for many, many years. I’d seen pictures of it. But today, I got as close as I would ever get to it—the Rosetta Stone.
Before the discovery of this stone, modern man did not have a clue as to how to pronounce, much less interpret or translate the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. They were simply a mystery to us. But after this stone was discovered that had the same text written in three different languages (whereof the Egyptian hieroglyphs were one), we could finally begin to unlock the mysteries on ancient Egypt. Being that close to it was almost like being on holy ground. People were flocked to it constantly and taking pictures. I was very surprised at the number of Asian people who were so interested in it. I was also amazed at how large it was.
And what can you really say about the British Museum that hasn’t already been said before so many times in so many ways.
I could not believe that we were able to see some of the actual friezes from the Parthenon
of all things. I did not have a clue that parts of that Temple would be there.
There were also these amazingly detailed Assyrian Lion Hunt reliefs.
The Museum is just overwhelming in a lot of ways. We spent maybe 4 hours there, but I think we saw a pretty good sampling of many different cultures—Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Assyrian, Babylonian, American Indian, African, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Egyptians, Indians, early Christianity, et al.