A History of the World Objects

During the trip to the UK last year, I made a very brief visit to the British Museum to see a six of the History of World in 100 Objects.  All of these are very creative objects -- the details in the reindeer using stone tools, the ornamentation and similarity in patterns across the backgrounds.  I see lots of quilting patterns in those details.

The first on my list was a pair of swimming reindeer carved from mammoth tusks during the last ice age.

The next was to see the Benin Plaques.  The museum has a wonderful collection of these.  The one in the History of the world shows the King of Benin in Nigeria with some Europeans in the background.

TVO showed a series last year about the Lost Kingdoms of Africa and one of them was about the Benin Plaques.

The third was the Lewis Chessmen carved from Walrus Ivory and Whale bones. 

The fourth was the Chinese Bronze Bells called a Bo Bell. 

The fifth was the David Vases which were originally altar vases, commissioned by a man called Zhang Wenjin, and presented as an offering to a Daoist temple in the 1300`s as a prayer for his children.

















I also had the Holy Thorn Reliquary on my list of objects but it had been removed from its usual place and included in a special exhibit. 

I would have like to see all 100 but there was only the morning to spend at the museum and I lazed away so much of the morning I was pressed for time to see these ones.  As it was I was late meeting Karen for lunch before heading to see the Railway Children.  She had given me her cell phone.  I tried to text her to let her know I was coming and managed to send the text to her work phone number instead of her work blackberry.