Ashmolean museum

Something a little bit different for todays post. I spent the day at the Ashmolean in Oxford, Britain's oldest museum. It's a museum of art and archeology, with a large Egyptian section, an impressive collection of artwork and a lot of items of local interest.

These are a few of my favourite things, some related to wildlife, but mainly just interesting or beautiful things to look at ...


Crocodile-headed god called Sobek

 

Shows the different layers of a tomb,
like a Russian doll

Mummy of a man wearing a gilded mask, with a garland of everlasting
flowers on his head (from 50-1 BC)

Faience shabti (glazed earthenware funerary figures) from the 21st dynasty
(about 1000BC) - amazing how they have retained their blue colour

MRI of the mummy of a young boy,
showing his skull



Mummy of a young boy

 

Blue roofs by Pablo Picasso



The hunt in the forest by Uccello (1470)

Tapestry of Oxfordshire and surrounding counties. Woven in 1660, it was a
copy of an Elizabethan tapestry

Close up of the tapestry, showing part of the Chiltern hills and the area
where we live

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Engraved nautilus shells from the 1600's

Silver gilt owl, 1570

Cup made from a coconut with silver mounts, in the form of a monster,
from around 1500

Marble sculpture of Henry VIII from the 1600's

Carved wooden panel from the Ashridge Estate in the Chilterns, showing oak
and beech leaves, from the early 1600's

You can still see some of the green paint on the leaves

The Thame Ring, made of amethyst and gold (1300-1400). Above there are
three finger rings that were also found in Thame (5 miles away from us)

The Alfred Jewel - considered the single most famous archeological find in
England. Made of gold, rock crystal and enamel, Ango-Saxon, 871-899.

Cast of a male adult Neanderthal skull, from about 70,000 years ago