We're in Canberra for Xmas and yesterday went to the National Museum on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin to see an amazing exhibition of artifacts lent by the British national museum in London. They are all connected with the Roman Empire and especially Rome itself. That said, a disproportionate quantity of exhibits came from the UK dating back to England's incorporation in the Roman Empire.
The display was of great interest to me especially, although Dot and Max, who were also in tow, seemed to find it riveting. Why me? Well, I have traveled over much of the territory embraced by Roman empire. I have for example been to Spain, Portugal and Morocco at the western end and, indeed, I have two pieces of Roman pottery I took from a Ruined roman city in Morocco siting on a shelf in my study. I have visited many Roman remains in France including the famous Pont du Gard and Italy itself - especially places like Rome and Ostia Attica. In the east, I have taken in Turkey, Romania, Israel, and even on one occasion visited the border between Iran and Iraq - the eastern-most extent of the Empire. Back towards the middle of the Empire, I have explored much of Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland. Moreover, I studied Latin at school for maybe 4 years and reached a language proficiency that enabled me to read some of Julius memoirs of his Gallic wars in the original language. The Roman Empire also turned up many times in our history classes.
So, perhaps unexpectedly, the exhibition reminded me of how much I know about, and have seen and visited personally, of the Roman Empire. In short, it was a ramble down memory lane.
The exhibits displayed provided many insights into the Empire's history, cultures, lifestyles, social structures, laws, administration and governance, religious beliefs and practices, technologies, products and services, and even handling death. The following pictures demonstrate some of these themes.
Let's start with the commemoration of famous people. The exhibits included busts and statues of a heap of prominent people - emperors, explorers, generals, and so on.
I cannot recall the names of the people whose images you can see, but those readers with eyesight or magnifying glasses might be able to read some of the inscriptions provided. What I can say is that you can see the likes of Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Hadrian. By the way, back in my days in England I spent considerable time atop Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria.
There were also numerous exhibits of artifacts from daily life. These included pots, pans and cooking implements; coins, military weapons including daggers; wall hangings; commemorative tablets of one kind or another; piles of money and jewelry; and figurines.
We might add to these three other pictures: two of lovely mosaics and the third which is remarkably a census return. Yes! It appears that Rome counted the numbers of inhabitants in various cities and regions.
The census return is on the right!
There were also several maps of the Empire and how it expanded over the years. Eventually the exhibition came to a 'dead' end. I mean that literally. We discovered the means of storing people's ashes - individually and as families - or their bodies. We saw caskets and tombs of these kinds:
What a way to go, and no doubt very expensive.
AS
The display was of great interest to me especially, although Dot and Max, who were also in tow, seemed to find it riveting. Why me? Well, I have traveled over much of the territory embraced by Roman empire. I have for example been to Spain, Portugal and Morocco at the western end and, indeed, I have two pieces of Roman pottery I took from a Ruined roman city in Morocco siting on a shelf in my study. I have visited many Roman remains in France including the famous Pont du Gard and Italy itself - especially places like Rome and Ostia Attica. In the east, I have taken in Turkey, Romania, Israel, and even on one occasion visited the border between Iran and Iraq - the eastern-most extent of the Empire. Back towards the middle of the Empire, I have explored much of Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland. Moreover, I studied Latin at school for maybe 4 years and reached a language proficiency that enabled me to read some of Julius memoirs of his Gallic wars in the original language. The Roman Empire also turned up many times in our history classes.
So, perhaps unexpectedly, the exhibition reminded me of how much I know about, and have seen and visited personally, of the Roman Empire. In short, it was a ramble down memory lane.
The exhibits displayed provided many insights into the Empire's history, cultures, lifestyles, social structures, laws, administration and governance, religious beliefs and practices, technologies, products and services, and even handling death. The following pictures demonstrate some of these themes.
Let's start with the commemoration of famous people. The exhibits included busts and statues of a heap of prominent people - emperors, explorers, generals, and so on.
I cannot recall the names of the people whose images you can see, but those readers with eyesight or magnifying glasses might be able to read some of the inscriptions provided. What I can say is that you can see the likes of Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Hadrian. By the way, back in my days in England I spent considerable time atop Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria.
There were also numerous exhibits of artifacts from daily life. These included pots, pans and cooking implements; coins, military weapons including daggers; wall hangings; commemorative tablets of one kind or another; piles of money and jewelry; and figurines.
We might add to these three other pictures: two of lovely mosaics and the third which is remarkably a census return. Yes! It appears that Rome counted the numbers of inhabitants in various cities and regions.
The census return is on the right!
There were also several maps of the Empire and how it expanded over the years. Eventually the exhibition came to a 'dead' end. I mean that literally. We discovered the means of storing people's ashes - individually and as families - or their bodies. We saw caskets and tombs of these kinds:
What a way to go, and no doubt very expensive.
AS
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