"DodO iS noT dEAd"

A punk Naturalist

Tuesday 29 December 2009

Ancient Greece at the British Museum


Black-figured amphora with frieze of dancing satyrs and maenads.
Black-figured amphora with frieze of dancing satyrs and maenads. Athens, 540-510 BC.

Terracotta female figurine with bird-like face and pierced ears.Stuck in London for almost three days – it is fortunate that the Eurostar terminal is not located in Reading - I decided would do some tourism. Very conveniently the British Museum had placed itself within walking distance of St Pancras Station.

Taking the tube costs four pounds, and you have to pay to enter a famous cathedral, but in London, all public museums are free. Like, free. The British Museum even offers various workshops and discovery tours of sections of the Museums for free, every day at fixed hours. Apparently you can also borrow art materials to make sketches for a small caution.



Terracotta female figurine with bird-like face and pierced ears.
Cyprus, 1450-1200 BC. Tomb 93, Enkomi.

Pottery crater with bull and egret. Mycenaean 1300-1200 BC, Cyprus.
Pottery crater with bull and egret.

Jug with sprout in the form of a griffin’s head.Given the sheer vastness of the place, in two days I was only able to scratch the surface of the Greek collection (in a manner of speaking), and visit the following rooms:

11Greece: Cycladic Islands
12a Greece: Minoans
12b Greece: Mycenaeans
13 Greece 1050-520 BC
14 Greek vases
15 Athens and Lycia
17 Nereid Monument.

Jug with sprout in the form of a griffin’s head.
Cyclades, 675-650 BC.

Bronze figure of a running satyr.

Terracotta scent bottle in the form of a squatting man.
Terracotta scent bottle in the form of a squatting man, perhaps a comic actor.
Corinthian, 600-575 BC, Rhodes.





Bronze figure of a running satyr. Greek, 6th century BC.




Vase. Athena with a symbol of naval victory. 5th century BC.

Vase. Athena with a symbol of naval victory.Nereid Monument Nereid Monument 390 – 380 BC
Vase. Rhapsode.
Vase. Rhapsode. Athens, 490-480 BC, Kleophrades. “Once upon a time in Tyrias”

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