The Top Ten Treasures in the British Museum - An In-Depth Museum Tour

[Music] welcome to the british museum i'm jessica the museum guide and today i'm going to give you a tour of my top 10 must-see items at the british museum we're going to see some of the most famous and most controversial items on our tour today which starts off with the sutton who helmet followed by the statue of tara the ife head the lewis chessmen the vindolanda tablets the aztec double-headed serpent the parthenon sculptures the egyptian mummies collection and finally the rosetta stone if you enjoy this video make sure you like and subscribe very soon i'll be releasing another video on the controversies of the british museum of course there are countless items that i could have included in this video so let me know in the comments below what i missed we're going to start our british museum top 10 list off with a bang let's look at the sutton who helmet the anglo-saxon ship burial at sutton who in suffolk is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in british history today we're going to focus just on the spectacular helmet which was discovered by archaeologist basil brown on the land of edith pretty in 1939 the entire horde has since been dated to around 600 ce that's during the anglo-saxon period which is chronicled in the epic poem beowulf this discovery rocked the world because until this point a lot of people still thought of the so-called dark ages as a time of isolation and ignorance however this discovery shows us that this time was anything but the people who made this helmet were sophisticated trading with cultures all around europe and asia now this helmet here is designed to show us what archaeologists think the original would likely have looked like when it was first buried let's move over to the real helmet in more depth which had to be pieced back together looking at the eyebrows the end of each one depicts a wild boar and then look at the dragon's head that's formed at the intersection of the eyebrows combining them all together the mustache nose and brows make the shape of a large flying dragon the eyebrows are lined with dazzling garnets but only one of the brows is backed with gold foil reflectors picture yourself around a crackling fire in an anglo-saxon log house with the light of the flames hitting this helmet and reflecting off of just one eye you would feel that you were in the presence of the one-eyed god woden now who does this helmet belong to clearly it was someone important but we don't know who that said we have some good guesses sutton who was likely the final wrestling place of anglo-saxon king riedwald who ruled east anglia around 600 at the time that this was buried some theories say that it was never there in the first place and this was a burial in absentia while others believed that the acidic soil ate away at the body of course i always try not to pick favorites but i'd be lying if i said that sutton who wasn't my favorite object on this tour if you'd like to see a tour just of the sutton who i think i could talk about it for at least half an hour so let me know in the comments if you'd like to see that coming in at number nine on our list we have the statue of tara we're lucky to be able to see her now but for the first century she was here she was kept in something called the porn room which i'll tell you about shortly this is a three-quarter life-size statue depicting the meditation deity tara and she dates to around 700 ce that's almost the same time as the sutton who she was discovered buried beneath the ground in sri lanka in the 18th or early 19th century she's an aspect of the bodhisattva avalo takeshivara and meditating upon her kind gaze is meant to make us realize our most compassionate selves discovery shows us that there was an ancient tradition of mahayana buddhism in sri lanka and that's only one of the reasons why she's so fascinating sir robert brownray the lieutenant general of ceylon which was the colonial name for sri lanka sacked the king's palace when the british took the mountain kingdom of candy this statue was his stolen ps de resistant brownray gifted the statue to the british museum in 1830 but the museum curators didn't know quite what to do with her because well just look at her figure now you and i know that this is not an object of titillation but rather for deep meditation but curators knew that tara would stoke controversy so for tara's first 120 years in the museum she was stored in a special museum within a museum called the secretum also known as the porn room only men who were known to be of a suitable moral character were allowed in and no your eyes aren't deceiving you yes that is an ancient roman winged phallus windchime which was in the secretum thankfully the objects in the secret dome were incorporated back into the wider museum in the 50s if you want to watch a video about the strangest items in the museum including a pornographic plate that was in the secretum click on the link in the top right corner for object number eight we're heading downstairs to the africa galleries to look at one of the most contested items in the british museum it's one of the benin bronzes and it's the magnificent ife head made of a copper and bronze alloy and created using the lost wax technique just like tara was this head was excavated amongst 17 others in 1938 buried on palace grounds in ife nigeria the archaeologist was called lyo frobenius remember that name this was in the former royal center of the yoruba people a place of rich culture both then and now just look at the peaceful expression on the statue's face he's calmly powerful and serene and he seems to be regarding us from slightly above as you can see his face is decorated with ritual scarification which would have been considered exceptionally beautiful his crown would have been painted red and black this piece of art dates to the late medieval period around the 14th or 15th century however leo fraubenius simply refused to believe that this was the case and he came up with alternate theories to discount its nigerian origins including that it was ancient greek we know that this is not true but it shows you the mental gymnastics that early 19th century archaeologists were willing to go to to deny the existence of african antiquities like so many other objects in this museum the ife head and other benin bronzes are controversial and were acquired through theft which the museum does not deny let me know if you'd like to see a video specifically on the controversies of the british museum here we are at lucky number seven with these delightful louis chessmen these are located in the medieval europe gallery one of my favorite places these strange and wonderful little game pieces were discovered on a beach in the isle of lewis in the outer hebrides in 1831 and they soon became a beloved exhibit here at the museum however the chess pieces date much earlier to the 12th century that's not too long after chess was first invented which was in india in the 8th century 93 pieces in total were discovered in lewis most of the pieces are made from walrus tusk ivory and a few of them are actually made from whale's teeth so they were discovered on the isle of lewis but where were they made the most likely theory is that they were brought by a norwegian merchant to the busy isle of lewis and then stored away for safekeeping and forgot let's take a closer look at the skilled artistry and craftsmanship of the paces you might recognize many of them from the modern game of chess but there are also warters and these strange men they're berserkers this is a knight ready to go to battle and he's so amped up and filled with rage that he's biting the edge of his shield to bare his teeth at us berserk is one of the few icelandic loan words that we use in english it means to go on a rampage just like this dude is ready to do you might recognize this chess set as the one used in the philosopher's stone film number six on our top ten list and we're heading into the roman britain gallery to see the window landed tablets hailing from near hexham in northumberland towards the scottish border while these objects may lack the name recognition of some of the other entries on our list they were voted the most important objects in the british museum by the british public in 2017. they're also actually from our island which probably has something to do with it the vindalanda tablets feature some of the earliest known examples of latin writing by a woman they date to the first and second centuries ce which makes them contemporary with nearby hadrian's wall and they were the oldest handwritten documents in britain at the time of their discovery in 1973. the vindolanda tablets give us a snapshot of what life was like on roman britain's northern frontier while tablets continue to be found at the archaeological site in vindolanda to date 753 tablets have been painstakingly transcribed the document written by a woman that i mentioned above it's from a woman called claudia sivera who was the wife of the commander of a nearby fort inviting her to a birthday party held around 100 ce i mean that's a real party to remember we're still talking about it today of course living in london you're always aware that you live in an ancient place but something like the vindalanda tablets really puts things into perspective for number five we're heading into a dimly lit room that's because the object is kept in low light for conservation reasons now i know it's pretty dark but it's really remarkable let me show you a brightly lit photo so you can see what i'm talking about this undulating snake is an aztec sculpture dating to the 16th or maybe even the 15th century it's made of turquoise pieces applied to a wooden base and was likely used for religious ceremonies it's made from more than two thousand tiny pieces of turquoise spiny oyster shell and conch shell adhered to the wood with resin the eyes may once have had orbs of iron pyrite fool's gold these turquoise sculptures were brought to europe by spanish conquistadors in the 1520s likely by hernan cortes it may have been looted or cortes may have been given this as a gift by aztec ruler moctezuma ii who may have believed that cortes was the feathered serpent god quetzalcoatl for all of their generosity and hospitality the aztecs were brutally enslaved by the spanish and infected by smallpox and other european diseases cortez's treasures were very famous in europe at first but after a few centuries they fell out of favor in fact many of them ended up in florence jewelry shops where they were soon dismantled to make newer jewelry pieces 19th century british archaeologist henry christie was horrified by this and he purchased as many of the aztec turquoise sculptures as he could get his hands on in italy and then he bequeathed them to the british museum the craftsmanship is breathtaking and so too is the symbolism according to mexican author and poet adrianne diaz and ciso the two heads in this snake is the symbol of dualism which was a fundamental part of the aztec religion all the deities have a dual nature male female birth death night day generation and destruction oh man talking about the parthenon sculptures on youtube i must be crazy because nothing and i mean nothing in the british museum and i'm even going to say in any museum in the world is as polarizing as this display here let me tell you why the parthenon sculptures are also known as the elgin marbles named for lord elgin the british ambassador to the ottoman empire he claimed he had permission from ottoman authorities to be able to draw measure and remove figures from the parthenon although some people believe that this was not adequate permission and others doubt the permissions existence completely they are a collection of decorations stripped crudely from the temple of athena known as the parthenon located on the acropolis in athens where they had been left to the elements for millennia the sculptures were carved between 447 bce and 432 bce there are three main sections from the temple that are on display here at the british museum that's the freeze which depicts a procession for athena's birthday a number of metapiece which depict a battle between centaurs and lapis at the marriage celebration of pyrithrus and the temple pediment sculpture i could talk at length about all of the freezes pediments metapees which are all fancy words for elements of the temple so let me know if you'd like me to do a video just on this fascinating and controversial gallery though badly damaged by the ravages of time and the elements the pediment tells the story of the birth of athena as she springs forward fully formed from the head of her father zeus here's an artist's interpretation of what this pediment may have looked like when it was on the temple we're heading on to number three in our top 10 list so we're in the home stretch and it is another controversial item so this is one of the museum's most famous objects comes from the isolated polynesian island of rapa nui it has a more common name easter island so named because the first dutch explorers landed there on easter sunday in 1722. the dutch and then later the spanish and the british encountered many people living amongst the toppled moai by the way moai is the name for this type of sculpture the moai date to the 12th to the 16th centuries and they represent specific ancestors that means they're not just sculpture to the people of rapa nui these are living beings their creation was incredibly labor-intensive relying a lot on cooperation and the advanced artistic and technical skill of the rappanui people however it also heavily relied on resources and a lot of trees so it's likely that the felled trees of the island were used as a conveyor system to move these moai from one part of the island to the other gradual deforestation of the island led to an agricultural tipping point and soil erosion by the time european explorers arrived hakananaya had been repurposed for a new religion called the birdman religion which worshipped a bird god called makemake you can clearly see the change in the carvings the front of hoax is deep it's incredibly evocative and complex that required a well-organized and a well-fed society but look at the more recent carvings on the back of his torso these are kind of birds and you can even see himself up in the top right corner these are shallow relief from a less organized and sadly less thriving society by the way the crescent in the circle they're part of the original design they're a ceremonial felt the british ship the hms topaz arrived in 1868 and ho hakanania was in a ceremonial house however the british sailors so interested in him dragged him down the beach and there were locals crying and begging after it as a result this is one of the most heavily contested objects in the museum and the information panel details that the british museum is in talks with rapa nui delegates for resolution the delegates visited hoax here in 2018 and they brought soil from rapa nui as an offering it remains to be seen what happens to this iconic sculpture in the future but in the meantime he's marvelous i'd love to one day visit hoax in rapa nui upstairs to number two on our list and this time i really couldn't decide so i've actually chosen two galleries the egyptian death and afterlife which is rooms 62 and 63. i never get tired of exploring these rooms these galleries are the most famous and most visited in the entire british museum they explored death and the afterlife death and afterlife held a deep important meaning for ancient egyptians after all we know about their love of magic ritual and mummification again we could spend all day or many days in the mummy's rooms the egyptian collection is utterly fascinating there are dozens of mummies here in these rooms and i focused on two of them in my weirdest objects video so be sure to watch that next but for now let's focus in on one in particular the mummy of hanutmate these are her coffins all three of these belong to one woman that's because egyptian mummy coffins are almost like a ukrainian stacking doll there were gilded coffins and mummy covers inside sarcophagi of various sizes it's not uncommon to have six or seven layers henry was a theban princess of ancient egypt who lived during the 19th dynasty around 1250 bce we know that she was very wealthy due to the high quality of her coffins the abundant use of gold in her burial and the quality of her grave goods her mummy was accompanied by four shabti boxes which includes small models or shabti's of hanutmate herself worshiping deities included in her burial is a funerary papyrus which includes a spell from the book of the dead as well as many magic bricks made of unbaked mud these bricks were also inscribed with magic spells my favorite bot my favorite part is this wooden box which contains enough food for one meal for her in the afterlife it contains foul and meat wrapped in linen recent studies of her organs that were found inside these canopic jars showed that she suffered from a few different chronic illnesses including emphysema which indicates that she did live into old age inscriptions describe her as a chantress of amin ra at karnak but that was a title used for a lot of women however her lavish burial suggests that she was incredibly wealthy and very important and certainly worthy of such a title but actually how can we read these spells and understand all of the funerary architecture here in room 62 and 63. well for that we have to head back downstairs all right are you ready for number one on our top 10 list of the british museum that of course is the rosetta stone of course it can be really hard to get up close and personal with the real rosetta stone which is in the great egyptian sculpture hall but i have a secret for you if you come to the enlightenment gallery which is one of my favorite rooms in the entire museum you can visit this replica and you can even touch it so it's been in the british museum for over 200 years and it has always been one of the museum's most popular objects but why are we all so fascinated by this broken slab of stone so in 1799 some of napoleon's men discovered that this slab was being used to hold up a wall of a fort in the village of el rashid which was known to the french as rosetta the soldiers were shocked to see three languages on the tablet which all seemed to say the same thing though it was discovered by the french they never actually had a chance to decipher it the british acquired the stone in the treaty of alexandria and whisked it away to london however it was a french scholar jean-francois champollian who had a major breakthrough and i talked about him in my louvre video which i've just linked above he realized that hieroglyphs were both pictorial and phonetic that is they gave clues about pronunciation using this knowledge he also translated the cartouche that's the french word for bullet named for the shape of the proper nouns see here where i'm pointing you can just make out the name ptolemy but what does it actually say believe it or not it's a tax break egypt was being ruled by a boy king at the time who took to the throne just at the age of five so the kingdom was ruled by a council and there were a lot of people trying to overthrow him so the writing on the stone is a decree about the king which was then copied onto large stone slabs all around major temples across egypt at this time in history only the priests could understand hieroglyphs the average person spoke and read demotic or greek so that's why you can see both hieroglyphs demotic and greek here the hieroglyphs are giving a priestly seal of approval the demonic was what most people who could read read and the greek is also reminding us of ptolemy v ancestral connection to alexander the great the macedonian king however within a few hundred years more not even the priests were using hieroglyphs in egypt and the language was lost that's why the rosetta stone was such an incredible discovery without this stone slab we may never have learned how to understand the treasures and wonders of ancient egypt by the way here's a little parting trivia for you how many languages are on the rosetta stone three right wrong the british added this inscription in the early 19th century so there is english on the rosetta stone so there you have it that's the end of our top 10 must-see objects in the british museum tour if you enjoyed this tour please like share and subscribe and you can also buy me a copy or give me a tip with the details below i hope that you enjoyed this tour because i certainly enjoyed giving it now i'll see you the next time i'm at the museum

Channel: The Museum Guide

Views: 228,156

Keywords: british museum, london museums, british museum top ten

Id: aZv6i01De2Q

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 07 2022