ESH5005 London’s Art Histories

Week 3: Visit to the British Museum

 Welcome to the British Museum! You may stay in the museum as long as you wish, and please feel
free to continue your visit after the designated seminar time concludes. There is no need to sign off
upon your departure.
 I need to remind you for field trips that, in the unlikely case of emergency, the UK emergency
services number is 999.

Otherwise, I wish you all a wonderful and enlightening visit to the British Museum!
~ Angie Dunstan, ESH5005 Convenor

A) Activity: Contested Objects

Many people and art historians believe a vast number of the objects in the British Museum should not
be there. What do you think and why?

1. Find one of the contested objects you might be interested in (eg. Egyptian mummies, Rosetta Stone,
Parthenon Marbles, Benin Bronze Plaques etc).

2. Locate the caption for that object and evaluate whether you think this is a successful representation
of this object and its histories.

3. Write a brief alternative caption for the object. Share this with your group.

B) Activity: Parthenon Speech Bubbles

Visit the Parthenon Marbles and spend some time thinking about the way they are displayed in the
British Museum. How does their display within the architecture of the museum suggest their
importance?

1. As a small group, find a section of the Parthenon Marbles that shows a visual narrative you find
interesting.

2. As a group, imagine what is going on in this part of the frieze?

3. Write some speech bubbles for that part of the narrative. How do your words relate to the visual
scene being depicted?

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C) Activity: Speaking Objects

1. Can you find two objects in the British Museum that are in dialogue with each other in some way?

2. How do you think the two objects relate to each other in the world?

3. How do your two objects relate to each other in the museum?

'Collecting the world’: Room 2 in The British Museum

The British Museum was founded in 1755 and opened its doors to the public in 1759. Its collection is
made up of a series of collections. Room 2 explores the collectors, and their collections, which have
formed the museum. As you look around the Room 2 think about:

 What systems of organising knowledge do different collectors adhere to? Choose one collector
and make notes on how they systemised their collection.

 If collectors, through the objects that they choose to collect, become 'cultural influencers', what
are they trying to persuade us of?

 Does the exhibit explore the ethics of how objects were acquired by the collector and how the
collector gained their power or money?

 Does the curatorial focus on the collector obscure our appreciation of the objects themselves?

 How do the two readings for this week reflect on the psychology of the collector and the
museumification of the collected object?

Suggested Rooms to Visit: Contested Objects of Interest

Greece: Parthenon
Room 18

The Parthenon was built as a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. It was the centrepiece of an
ambitious building programme on the Acropolis of Athens. Room 18 exhibits sculptures that once
decorated the building. The pediments and metopes illustrate episodes from Greek mythology, while
the frieze represents the people of contemporary Athens in religious procession. Rooms 18a and 18b
feature fragments of the Parthenon sculpture and also pieces of architecture.

 How would you describe the objects in this room?

 How would you describe their condition?
 How have they been displayed and to what effect?
 What kind of information is provided about these objects and where they have come from?
 Why are they in this particular part of the museum?
 Are these objects related to other objects in this museum and how?

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The Rosetta Stone

Room 4
The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a larger stone slab (or a temple stela) inscribed with three types of
script: hieroglyphics, Demotic and Ancient Greek. The importance of the stone to the study of
Egyptology is immense. When it was discovered, nobody knew how to read ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphs. Since the inscriptions on the stone say the same thing in three different scripts, scholars
were able to use the Ancient Greek on the Stone as a key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.

 How would you describe this object?

 What was the purpose of this object?

 How has it been displayed?

 What kind of information is provided about this object?

 Where it has come from and how does it come to be in the British Museum?

 What is the relation of this object to the other objects around it?

Brass plaques from Benin

Lower Floor, Room 25
The brass plaques that used to decorate the Oba's (king's) palace are among the most well-known of all
the royal arts of Benin. They date from the 16th - 17th centuries. Europeans visiting the city in the
period described the size and scale of the palace, its complex of atrium courtyards and galleries with
wooden pillars supporting the roof. Brass plaques, possibly made in series, were fixed to these pillars,
as a form of traditional West African palace decoration. Some of the plaques portray historical events or
commemorate successful wars, while others are a vivid depiction of Benin court life and ritual.

 How would you describe these objects?

 These objects are usually described as 'Benin Bronzes' but what are they made of?

 What was the purpose of these objects?

 Why are they displayed in the British Museum?

 How have they been displayed?

 What kind of information is provided about these objects and where they have come from?