Museum Treasures

Although living in Victoria makes it easy to take the Royal BC Museum for granted, a visit to the Treasures exhibit reminded me that we are home to a truly world-class cultural institution.  The exhibit spans the globe across hundreds of thousands of years of cultural evolution and contains more than 300 distinctive artifacts from the British Museum.  

Treasures is arranged geographically and chronologically into seven sections: Africa (ancient Egypt), the Middle East (Mesopotamia), Europe (ancient Greece and Rome), Asia, Oceania, the Americas and the Modern World.  Each room contains fascinating items from a real mummy to tablets of the earliest writing (from 3400 BCE) to cloisonne to jewelry, coins and chess pieces. The mind boggles at the antiquity of the pieces but almost more impressive is that, apart from a few chips and cracks, most everything is in remarkable condition.  

This is the North American premiere of the exhibit, which runs until the end of September.  All I can say is don't walk there - run!

Handaxe, 

Olduvai Gorge,Tanzania, 
Early Stone Age 1.6 - 1.4 million BC

Astrolabe, Egypt, 
13th – 14th century AD

Astrolabes were used to measure altitudes, determine the time, to establish the direction to Mecca and to solve astronomical problems. 

Letter from the king of Babylon 
to the king of Egypt, 
From Tell Amarna, Egypt, 
Middle Babylonian, 14th century BC