British Museum Blog

Two of my favorite artifacts in the British Museum are the Young letter and the Champollion publication, where Young in 1818 explains his theory that hieroglyphic pictograms sometimes represent sounds, and Champollion in 1822 gives a detailed phonetic breakdown of each hieroglyph (photos in https://blog.britishmuseum.org/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-abou… and also in https://cosmolearning.org/images/a-letter-from-thomas-young-about-hier… They're on display in a case, easy to miss, near the replica Rosetta stone that you can touch ( https://g.co/arts/Jc9fSG2q4FfZzCPT9 ) I love these artifacts because they show a real live example of the way people did science a few centuries ago. The pace is thought-provoking -- it took 4+ years between one person's letter and another's results? we didn't even declare the translation "done" until 1824? -- and I've always wondered what was going on there. This is an interesting book review, helps fill in some gaps for me! I am a little surprised to see the author use the phrase "Elgin Marbles". This was used ubiquitously a few years back but at some point in the past 5-10 years the preferred phrase seems to have become "The Parthenon Sculptures" (see e.g. https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-… I'm not quite sure when this happened and when I looked it up recently I couldn't find good news coverage explaining the conscious choice…

Interesting to see Becket's influence on the Magna Carter (an early instigation of democracy). Even though he died, his attitude seems to have effectively changed society even till today: https://blog.britishmuseum.org/thomas-becket-and-magna-carta/

Hokusai is also the father of modern day comic books, and manga. https://blog.britishmuseum.org/hokusai-the-father-of-manga/ A prolific artist.

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/a-sip-of-history-ancient-egyptian-beer/ https://wearebeer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bottles1a.jpg

That was my first thought, too! A naïve (stolen-)antiquity buyer who sees offers on facebook would be a prime target for someone selling knockoffs. Get them made in China and sell them in Yemen! If the local authorities come after you, just show them that they're not real. It's really a win-win. See: https://blog.britishmuseum.org/fake-antiquities-made-for-unsuspecting-… From this article: > This is evidence for a side of the trade in antiquities which is rarely discussed – there are more fakes in circulation than genuine articles. It is easier and cheaper to make copies than it is to hire dozens of workers to look for originals. Fakes can also be conveniently complete, whereas almost everything from antiquity has been broken, either deliberately in episodes of destruction, or accidentally in the case of everyday items. There is also the simple economic truth of the laws of supply and demand.