Treasures of the British Museum

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TREASURES OF THE BRITISH

MUSEUM

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TREASURES OF THE BRITISH

MUSEUM

The

Museum

British

the largest

and

the world.

houses and displays one of

permanent exhibitions in

finest

visited

It is

by over two million

people every

year,

specialists in

almost any subject one could

mention.

from school children

The purpose of this book

Museum and

the reader to the

found in

objects that are to be

departments. writers

To

this

is

to

to introduce

to the fascinating its

various

end, a team of illustrious

—some, though not experts in the — have been persuaded to all,

fields

they here represent

own

convey in terms of their

enthusiasm a vivid

impression of the remarkable range of treasures

housed by the Museum. In his Introduction, Sir John Wolfenden

expounds on what

what

Museum,'

the

Museum

John Betjeman,

serves.

it

is,

and who and

in 'Building the

takes us behind the scenes to

Museum works and how

how

the

J. E.

Morpurgo

escorts the reader

it

on

show

us

grew, while a voyage of

chairbound exploration through that most marvelous of institutions, 'The Reading Room,'

company of the

in the

and

'Prints

and Drawings'

the

scholars

Museum's

glorious ghosts of bygone

who

writers

have inhabited

vast collection are

Michael Ayrton; the

glories

examined by

of 'The Egyptians'

treasures

are unearthed for our perusal

The

it.

as they are represented in

by Fleur Cowles.

of 'The Greeks' are described by the

Tyrone Guthrie and those of 'The Romans'

late

by Robert

Erskine. 'The

RomancBritish'

fragments of the past are bound together in an

by

essay

Gwyn Thomas,

followed by a review of

'Medieval and Later Antiquities' by Antonia Fraser,

Peter

and of 'Western Asiatic Antiquities' by

Young. The

Antiquities'

is

MacDonald.

Museum

rich variety

described by

Essays

are those

'Ethnography,' by

of 'Oriental

Malcolm

on other

aspects of the

by David Stafford'Clark on

Asa

Briggs on 'Manuscripts,'

and by John Hale on 'Coins and Medals.' This rich store of information

is

supplemented by a

wealth of illustrations in color and black and

white showing outstanding pieces from each of the

Museum's

spectacular collections.

The book

provides a valuable

who

visited the

will

have

memento for all Museum's collections, and

whet the appetite of those who have

yet to

venture into the world of interest and splendor represents.

it

Treasures of the British

Museum

TREASURES OF THE

BRITISH With an

A

MUSEUM

Introduction by Sir John Wolfenden

Studio

The Viking

Book Press

New York

© All

1971 by

Thames

Television

rights reserved

Published in 1972 by

625 Madison Avenue,

The Viking

New

York,

Press, Inc.

NY.

10022

SBN 670-72656-7 Library of Congress catalog card number: Printed and Jarrold

bound

in Great Britain

and Sons Ltd, Norwich

by

77-169579

1

Contents

The

Introduction

British

Museum

John Wolfenden

I

Building the

Museum

2 The Reading Room

John Betjeman

J. E.

Morpurgo

14

21

3

Prints

and Drawings

Michael Ayrton

34

4 The Egyptians

Fleur Cowles

5

5

The Greeks

6 The Romans

Tyrone Guthrie

70

82

Robert Erskine

7 The Romano'British

Gwyn Thomas 96

8

Medieval and Later Antiquities

Antonia Eraser

9 Western Asiatic Antiquities

Peter

Young

125

10 Oriental Antiquities

Malcolm MacDonald

139

no

7

II Ethnography

David

Stafford' Clark

12 Manuscripts

Asa

Briggs

168

13 Coins and Medals John Hale

Departments of the

Biographical Notes

Museum

220

187

207

156

Introduction

The

Museum

British

John Woljenden

I

would

not claim that the British

and

galleries

But

I

Museum was

among

unique

the

museums

of the world. That would be presumptuous and very un^British.

do claim

that

The ground

is,

it

for that

1753, to grant funds

at least,

claim

is

unusual. clear

When

enough.

Parliament decided, in

purchase of the collections of Sir

for the

Hans Sloane and

manuscripts, the nation became the owners of a remarkable

the Harleian

congeries of objects, antiquarian, historical, scientific, and of reading matter, written, printed, ancient

the British

Museum

and modern.

And

ever since then this double nature of

has persisted. True, the natural history collections were

'hived ofF to South Kensington in 1881 and result

of the British

secession,

which

Museum Act

No

a separate institution as a

of 1963. But apart from

this

wholly reasonable

the parent took in her enlightened stride, the British

Bloomsbury has continued library.

became

to live a

double

life.

Museum

in

We are not either a museum or a

We are both.

other

museum

in the world, so far as

I

know, has within

its

walls

its

country's national library of research and reference (containing six or seven

No

million volumes). lished within

museum

other

national boundaries

its

receives

- to an

two'thirds of a mile of shelving every year.

comparable with the Codex far as

I

know, no

Sinaiticus or the

Javanese puppets. In short,

we have

class (or in the international league) it

is

which,

in

our case, demands

Lindisfarne Gospels. Conversely, so

national library has within

Roman and

not a boast;

extent,

No other museum contains documents

Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek,

is

by law a copy of every item pub'

its

walls major collections of

medieval objects, or of clocks or of

the responsibility of being in

both

as a

museum and

a simple statement of historical fact

world

as a library.

This

and present responsi'

bility.

But there

on

us two.

collections

two

is

a unifying thread. This double nature

hundred and more

years

may have been wished

ago by the accident of the nature of the

which were then acquired. But

consistent

practice

over those

centuries has developed the accident into a policy, the fortuitous into

a principle.

There

are

two

sides to this,

one of theory and one of practice; and

as

is

right in

8

INTRODUCTION

any coherent

and

situation, each justifies the other.

The

theory validates the practice

the practice proves the theory.

The

basis of the theory

human

days of

earliest

simply the unity of knowledge. Right from the

is

speculation and inquiry

down

to the times

of Sir Hans

Sloane, knowledge was regarded as one interconnected unity. Diversity certainly

was assumed.

there was, but an underlying unity

example, was

at

the

same time a metaphysical and moral philosopher and a from

collector of everything

And

were

so

Europe.

The two

Middle East and

plants.

Western

and a

specialist

and then miraculously joined the two specialisms

together.

was

separately a specialist metaphysician

were not separated. That was the general background of

activities

and

intellectual activity until very lately,

which engagingly describe

universities

and

his successors in

not that he

It is

constitutions to animals

political

his predecessors in the

natural scientist

Aristotle, to take a familiar

there are

the vestiges of

still

it

in those

Natural Philosophy what the

as

rest

of

us call Physics.

tied

up

this

was, in

found

in neat parcels

out, in

and given

were snipped

that bits of this unity

distinctive specialist

day, desirable or at any rate necessary.

its

names.

It

off,

may well be that

So much more was being

an incredibly short space of time, that the unity could not, from

the sheer weight of

new

information, be held together. Especially was this so

where we

in the natural sciences,

what might naughtily be

was

memory

almost within living

It is

now

have divisions and subdivisions into

called 'microscopic' detail. Clearly, this specialization

necessary for the pursuit of detailed

knowledge and without

it

the scientific

advances of the past century could not have been made. So the polymath went

Or

out of fashion, even out of existence. lisms together in his

own

if he

did occur

it

was by joining specie

thinking and experience, not by moving outwards

from a basic unity.

Today

there

a

is

swing back, a search

for

something which will transcend the obvious increase in interdisciplinary studies as well as to discriminate.

which tions.

is

a blank, dull, null,

The

element in intelligible

Does it is

not.

This

unity it

is

rich

illustrating

and

At the

a

is

symptom,

amorphous sameness

all

every aspect of the

and

policies

experience. it is

Museum's

It

is

may

is

the

more

rest.

Museum?

this insistence

Believe me,

on the unity of the

come to the surface every pumping life-blood through

not

there all the time,

activities.

comprehensive, each

the others, so that each

of the

for the presence

human

day - nor does a heart - but

The

an overriding of distino

or

diverse, living and, ideally,

heart of our lives

specialisms.

the attempt to synthesize

seem a very long way from the British

glorious diversity of

and

diversities

not an attempt to reach the kind of unity

and illuminating

and appreciable

all this

is

unifying principles, a desire for

For pedestrian purposes of organization

Sir

Hans Sloane (1660-175 3)

Vf

V

^

10

INTRODUCTION

we have to divide our collections into departments and exhibit them accordingly. But each specialist knows perfectly well that practically every other department in the building can shed some light on his own special studies. The Rosetta Stone

only one

is

The

example.

literal

outward and

practical side of this, the

we

ments' and what

countries

shapes, sizes

all

and continents,

is

call the 'antiquities depart/

departments'. Here are these scores of

call the 'library

thousands of objects, of

of the essential unity,

visible sign

same building of what we

the presence within the

and

from

materials,

dates

all

and

by side in one building with seven million

side

volumes of printed books and thousands of manuscripts, Western and Oriental,

new and is

and ephemeral. The

old, priceless

sheer proximity of

the practical manifestation of the theoretical unity.

write the definitive

When

book on South Indian temple sculpture

these things

all

you come here

canoe prows or medieval clocks or Assyrian lion/hunting you can

and then, a few yards down the passage, you can

relevant objects

to

Malayan war/

or

see the

find all that

has been written about them in English and a great deal in other languages as well. Clearly

is

it

more convenient

to be able to

from the museum pan of your work library

pan of

There

is

it

at

the other end.

and between

what

the British

is

Museum's

pan of the question

the British

Museum

purpose

the

is

But the convenience

essential

the second

many

I

is

purpose and

shall return.

than to have to

move

New York

to the

whole

point.

not the

is

My

for

I

whose

answer

to the

am

often asked

benefit first

many people, but for me human achievement. It does

things to

documentation of

whether the document

this

of them and the books about them.

all

is

do

one end of Paris or

of the interrelation between objects and other

also the recognition

objects

at

book

a manuscript or a printed

or a

Egyptian mummy/case or an Easter Island carving. Here

its

To

is it.

pan

is

that

essential

not matter

Greek

statue or

an

evidence of human

is

achievement, of the work of man's mind and eye and hand.

And

it is

that sort

of documentation, the collecting of it, the conserving of it, the exhibiting of it, the publishing of

it,

that

we

are here to achieve. That, to

me,

is

our essential

purpose.

Let

me

return to the second half of the question

am

For whose

benefit,

exist? Is

for the scholar, the specialist?

it

ordinary man,

I

asked

woman and

at least

child?

I

which

I

asked a minute ago.

once a day, does the British

Or

refuse,

is

it

Museum

for the general public, the

with both honesty and

logic, to

Museum does not exist either for the scholar alone or for the general public alone. Our job is not either/or but both/and. There is a very wide range of people who legitimately have an

accept this either/or

way of putting

it.

The

British

interest in the place, a

broad spectrum which contains almost exactly

bands

itself

as the

spectrum

contains colours.

as

many

INTRODUCTION

own

our

Firstly, there are

ments. Each of them

resident experts, the Keepers of the various Depart-

a scholar of world/ wide reputation, one of the recognized

is

authorities in his subject.

his business,

It is

to publish learned catalogues

The Keepers

collection.

which

are their expert colleagues

who come work on

and

critical

among all the other things he has to do, works on the material

in his particular

provide the fundamental basis of scholarship without

Museum

the British

could not continue to be what

from

all

it is.

Secondly, there

over the world, devoted and exact scholars

from everywhere, Tokyo or Nebraska, Uppsala or Melbourne,

the collections, with the collaboration of our Keepers.

It is

recognized what an international workshop the so-called 'British'

We

are

activity.

proud and glad

to

much scholars who

be the centre of so

Thirdly, there are the individual

Chinese jade or the sociology of Indonesia century poet.

Not

every one of them

Shaw. But they occupy

is

a

Marx

or a

life

articles they are writing.

in the area

which

And

or a

Reading

who

Room

this object or that.

over

my

They

are in

in the

week

many ways

in their

Street,

or Brussels or

I

look

tons

at

Hanover,

from Detroit

or

the back/end of buses,

as well as those

to

in for

look

at

and

And

then there are the coach/

artistic societies

my window on

any

from Caterham or Darlington

London/based ones which bring delega/

Dubrovnik. They may be

for a deliberate purpose.

member with

Mum

who come

the salt of our particular earth,

voluntary self/education.

their

be archaeological or

each

or

who work

lunch/hour just

loads of what might be called 'ordinary visitors'. Outside

day of the week

Museum

who want to

programmes

dead body will the imposition of admission charges prevent them

from continuing

tions

on any

are not writing great

are relevant to the particular

of Bloomsbury or Kingsway or Oxford

on

George Bernard

then there are the people, bless them,

twenty minutes a day on four days

is.

of an eighteenth/

tomes but are television producers, or feature/writers, or journalists, facts or fashions

not always

Museum

are writing books,

Lenin

there are the individuals

to

peaceful international

or the private

the majority of the seats in the

morning of the week. Then check on

I I

'sightseeing tours', or they

from the provinces

Or, again, there

is

may

visiting the British

the Great British Public,

a greater or lesser degree of knowledge or previous experience.

Dad with one child in a push/chair and another in arms; or single/ who know what they want and do not wish to be either instructed or and

disturbed

;

plain straightforward sightseers.

And,

finally, the

thousands a week

of school/children, tumbling out of their coaches, charging round the flattening their noses

on the

cases, greeting the

mummies

galleries,

with contemporary

some awe), and chattering like excited monkeys all the time. Across that band - and I have tried to present it horizontally rather than vertically - who shall presume to say for whom the British Museum exists? It laughter (and

is

not for any one of these categories to the exclusion of any of the others:

it is

for

INTRODUCTION

12

With one pompous. None of the of them.

all

proviso

- which may seem pedantic and even a

other categories could get

what they want

little

unless there

were an absolutely firm foundation in the scholarly qualities of the Keepers, the resident academics. For

on

work,

the quality of their

objects, in the proper display of the exhibits, in the free

in the acquisition of

books about them,

in the

play of interpretation, the value of the place to everybody else must, in the

long run, depend.

Again,

am

I

asked about once a day what percentage of our possessions are

The

not on view.

answer,

one

if

is

be accurate, varies enormously from

to

me to be based on a we had enough room we should put on public exhibition all we possess. But this is not so. If we had all the room in the world we should not display to the public everything we have for the simple reason that the public would not be interested in it if we did. Display is a comparatively new art, and we like to think that in our recently reorganized exhibitions of Greek and Roman, Assyrian and ethnographical objects we are using that art to some effect. The impact on the general public Department

to

Department. But the question

misunderstanding.

It

itself seems to

seems to be assumed that

if

of a comparatively few objects from each Department, attractive possible

can be immense.

labelling,

along a wall,

cuneiform

and

make

tablet

very

striking

out in the most

Greek

Fifty

discreet

vases, set out shoulder to shoulder

impact on anybody; and a thousand fragments of

little

ranged mutely in a glass case would bore any ordinary person

Display implies selection, and in

to tears.

set

way, with appropriate lighting and adequate but

this case selection

examples of human achievement. All the

rest

of a few beautiful

of the collections are

available to any scholar or antecedently interested person, in the secondary collections or in the stores.

we

It is

not always recognized that the

possess increases every week.

day something new comes does not

at all

on show

at

in,

Ours

is

not a static or

by purchase or

gift

number of objects

finite collection.

or bequest or exchange.

Every

But

it

follow that each of these newly acquired objects ought to be put

once -

or,

statue or a tribal object

indeed, ever.

from Africa

It

as

is

important to acquire a coin or a

for the use

of the scholar in that

field as

it is

to acquire something which will have popular appeal for a few weeks. So

suitable for public display

acquisitions. Scholarship

That

which

is

I

only one of the its

needs

a very quick sketch, from

this

because

is

and

book

is

about.

I

have

and understandably have

which determine our

and quite independently.

personal point of view, of the institution

member

will each of the twenty^five persons

Museum.

criteria

in too,

to stress that this

fully recognize that each

will rightly

my

come

his or her

who

is

my

personal point of view

of each of the bends of my spectrum

own

point of view too, and so

constitute the Trustees of the British

3

INTRODUCTION This book introduces

1

yet

another dimension. For each of the contributions

comes from what we have

rather starkly regarded as 'an intelligent visitor'.

The

adjective

in

is

equally intelligent

And

others.

much more

one sense an insult, because, of course, all our visitors are - though perhaps some are more equally intelligent than

noun

the

than

too

may

be an insult, because

'visitors', if that

word

all

these contributors are

Each of

suggests the casual dropper /-in.

them has

a deep personal interest in one particular part or aspect of our

complex

personality,

would not

set

though

themselves

up

preters; they have, each of

enough

to be able to

interests

of those

We

are, if

their personal

you care

to put

it

so, inter'

enthusiasms; and they

know

honoured

less.

that such a distinguished

company of

'intelligent

world.

to the

perhaps just worth adding to Sir John Betjeman's appreciation of Smirke's

building that to

them,

They

whole

modesty they

has been willing to take the time and trouble to interpret the British

Museum It is

as experts.

collective

understand both the interpretations of the experts and the

who know

are greatly

visitors'

and

in their individual

Smirke's

to be built

it

will not be long,

we hope,

own work. Mr Colin

on the

site's

St

before a considerable addition

is

made

John Wilson has designed an extension,

only remaining piece of building land, on the south-west

corner immediately to the north of

what

known

is

as the 'Director's Office'.

Here, beginning in 1972, will be added a four^storey building containing two galleries for

temporary exhibitions (which

the King's Library), a centre for the

and badly needed

at

present can be

Museum's developing educational

restaurants for the public

and

Future plans, on the basis of a survey done by tions to the

Smirke building

use of the space

And

there

Great Russell

is,

itself,

which

the

Mr

are intended to

of course, in prospect a great

services,

for

adapta^

make more economical

violation of his principles.

new building

to the south side

house the British Library of the future. But that

our immediate concern.

in

staff.

Wilson, provide

which Smirke provided without any

Street, to

mounted only

is

of

beyond

One

Chapter

Museum

Building the John Betjeman

To

enjoy this mighty building to the

inmates as well as rather as the

its

two older

universities,

Museum was founded

time so

far as arts

for the display

From

and

its

nature in terms of its

probably look on other museums

staff

Oxford and Cambridge, look on

'We were here first', and

brick and plate^glass universities. British

appreciate

full, is to

The

architecture.

the red/

indeed they were.

The

by Act of Parliament in 1753, a highly civilized

antiquities are concerned.

of a republic's treasures

as

is

It is

not a Royal Palace taken over

so often the case in the rest of Europe.

the time of the Stuarts, private persons in Britain collected manuscripts,

monastic records, State papers and books. Sir Robert Cotton in the

pictures,

sixteenth century

and

Sir

which were of national becoming

difficult to find.

One of the Museum a College. Because trustees.

Hans Sloane in the eighteenth, made famous collections importance. The space to house big collections was

Had we

staff said to

me

'In the

we were founded in

Middle Ages we would have been

been an Institution.' Trustees incursions have been principal trustees, ex

still

this century,

govern the British

made on them by

officio,

we are governed by we would have Museum, but many

the eighteenth century

been founded in the nineteenth or

the civil service. Until 1963 the three

were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord High

Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons. There were also family trustees representing

hold

office.

The

owners of the big

only ex

officio

trustee

These

collections.

who

survives

the

is

no longer

trustees

one appointed by the

monarch. There

other officials. their

an eighteenths-century

is still

book

is

The Keepers

a lifetime's

subject.

to the

Museum

tury they

wore

and

its

are dedicated specialists. If they write

livery

books

work, probably a catalogue, but anyhow the

on important occasions such

to the

Museum where

Superintendent

at a

the porters

monarch's

characters,

and

at all,

last

word

they refer

called 'the housemaids'.

Until well into the twentieth cen/

officials are called 'warders'.

enormous entrance hall',

about the Keepers of Departments and

The members of the staff are very much as 'the House'. The lady cleaners are

on the

The uniformed

air

visit

This hierarchical feeling of a country-house

as Trustees meetings. sit, is still

wears the Windsor

in the British

The

called the 'front

Museum

livery.

goes back

A

night view of the British

to the days

when

it

Museum's entrance and

forecourt

was a country House - Montagu House - in the

flat fields

of

Bloomsbury, then outside London.

All country-house owners of education and pictures

and

antiquities,

and

the public

until

Montagu House,

see

1879 was the general public admitted on every weekday.

come in on Sundays too, and there is electric light. The Montagu House which housed the original front of the present building

Duke

assembled collections of

was admitted on written application.

Similar written application was necessary to

Not

taste

and where

of Montagu whose descendant

British

the cars are parked. is

the present

Duke

It

until 1810.

Now

Museum, had been

it

can

stood in

built for a

of Buccleuch.

It

was

designed by Robert Hooke, a friend of Sir Christopher Wren. Colvin, in his Dictionary of English Architects, dates

it

1675-9.

Old

water-colours of

it

show

a

red/brick house with stone dressings, rather like Kensington Palace. Inside there

was a painted

staircase,

and

at

the top of this

some

stuffed giraffes. Stuffed animals

were often part of a gentleman's collection in a country-house. That in the

Museum grew so unwieldy that the trustees caused a Natural History Museum to be built in South Kensington museumland. What brought about the destruction of Montagu House, and the erection of the present building in 1823, was the presentation by George IV of his father's, British

George

Ill's,

enormous

collection of books to the

Museum. The Trustees conv new building. Smirke

missioned Robert Smirke (1781-1867) to design the himself, as a

young man

in 1803,

had watched the marble

frieze

being removed

Sir

Robert Cotton

(left)

Entrance gate of the old building, Montagu House, servant wearing the

Windsor Livery

at

about 1840 showing a

Museum

(right)

who had

from the Parthenon with crowbars. This was sold by Lord Elgin, caused

it

to

be removed, and bought by the nation in 18 16, and

housed in a temporary shed

until

Smirke had increased

Robert Smirke was an adventurous fellow and a

man of few

words.

of twenty he had gone with his elder brother to France to look

brought back

Greece, where he remained until to

Battalion of Infantry,

able

805.

artist father,

an

which continued

illustrated

manual

still

in this

survives in Herefordshire, he designed for

style

A Review of the

was becoming

Lord Somers

He built many churches and public buildings in He was well known for his rescue work, that is

Wykeham Archer

Montagu House

seen

time

so well that he

called

c.

1800

in the

to say

(opposite above)

from the north/east; anonymous,

fashion/

Anglo/

different parts

Front quadrangle of the old building (Montagu House) in 1842;

by John

later to

manner, and Eastnor Castle,

style.

the country.

and

as

in use in the regular forces until 1840.

he returned to England in 1805, the Gothic

Norman

At the age antiquities

to fight off the other brigands, as at this

and Smirke designed Lowther Castle

which

travelled to Italy

be

He and his companion, William Walker,

was dangerous. Smirke managed things

wrote, with the aid of his

When

1

employ an army of brigands

travelling in Greece

at

to

Museum.

by Napoleon. The brothers disguised themselves

to Paris

Americans, and only just escaped capture. Smirke

had

had

it

the size of the

(opposite below)

of

when an

SfcKKSi \ft!5ESk&

I

A

I

BUILDING THE MUSEUM

8

was

architect

in difficulties over the construction of an edifice, or if the foundations

gave way, Smirke was called

He

building material.

and

He was one of the first people to use concrete as a He was honourable

in.

used iron plentifully in construction.

and

precise about accounts,

tracts'.

said to have originated 'that

is

custom of employing Surveyors

proper

to prepare

His character was calm and

He was

serene.

bills

sound and useful

of quantities for con/

knighted in 1832 in recog'

Board of Works, which then controlled public

nition of his service to the

buildings. It

was natural

that in his design for the British

employed

his favourite

architect,

though

examining

style.

He

and such a sound constructor. Several days of

so reliable

such

scaled to the

it

Museum, have shown me

that his

calm

decided, but honest and unostentatious originality. All

woodwork,

as

rooms

Museum, Smirke should have

has sometimes been dismissed as a dull

the architecture of the British

assurance had with details

Greek

doors, handles

or saloons in

which

and ironwork,

they are placed.

most carefully

are

Colour

plain

is

and sober

but not sombre.

The most scale. It

is

impressive thing about Smirke's architecture in the

not until one comes

the south facade of the

up

Museum,

to the gigantic series

that

one

Museum

is its

of Ionic columns along

how huge they are. The jointing

realizes

of the Portland stone in the pilasters and the walls behind, and in the columns themselves,

is

so

meticulous and neat, that the building seems almost to have

The same

been carved from the solid rock.

and plain strong.

'front hall'.

The

chief emphasis

Oblongs and squares

and the columns,

delicate

of horizontal

front hall,

produced

verticals

woodwork

The

in the magnificent

and those

this

are

and

wide and

in

its

walls,

only curves are the flutings and

marble urns on the

and

horizontal features in his interiors ate effect

on

are the chief shapes in the front hall,

or coffers in the ceiling.

Doric columns, and the

effect is

is

makes

stairs.

itself apparent

Smirke disliked by the unfortun/

recently introduced across the front door in the

making nonsense of what was one of the grandest

whole

spaces in the

building.

Smirke's

no walks

work

in

is

when viewed

best

its

any public building anywhere

procession one can

and turning

seen at

left

make down

the

to the great extent

The enormous

length of the

wider than the

rest

room

main

to

stairs,

cleverly

falls

all

along the

east front.

broken by a central square is

slightly

of the plainest, but

from windows placed about two/thirds of the

way up

the walls, so that

light. If

one compares Smirke's design

it is

know

through the Grenville Library

of the King's Library, is

I

equal for serene simplicity, the

of the library. Decoration in ceilings

emphasizes the plan. Light

Sir

exactly from the middle.

possible to read during daylight, without artificial for the British

Museum

with,

let

us say,

Aston Webb's Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington (1909),

Robert Smirke; a drawing by George Dance dated 30 July 1809

one notices the reticence of Smirke and the ebullience of

Sir

Aston Webb.

Smirke's galleries are unobtrusive backgrounds to the exhibits; Sir Aston

Webb's

architecture intrudes into the exhibits

and today has

to be screened off

with hardboard.

Smirke

retired

in office at the

from practice

Museum

by

in 1845, but lived until 1867.

his faithful

He was

succeeded

and competent younger brother Sydney

(1799-1877). Sydney designed the iron railings which shut off the south front

from the road, and which seem

Sydney was equally

as

to

me

to

be too near the great south facade. But

bold an innovator as his brother Robert.

When the great

BUILDING THE MUSEUM

20

new

Panizzi put

Museum's Department of Printed Books, an

into the

life

enormous reading room was required. Robert had designed

Museum

his

in the

form of a square enclosing a rather gloomy stone courtyard. Panizzi made a rough sketch and

showed

this to

Thus he

Pantheon

after the

designed the great dome,

Rome,

at

over this courtyard.

famous Reading Room. The spandrels between the dome

created the

and Robert's

who

Sydney Smirke,

world

the second largest in the

Museum

he

filled

with cast-iron book stacks. Sydney Smirke's

galleries,

notably the Assyrian and those on the upper floors of his brother

Robert's

Museum,

designed

to display objects.

man.

spirited

are reticent, practical,

He founded

and

Sydney Smirke,

unassertive.

They

like his brother,

simply

are

was a public/

the Architects' Benevolent Society in 1852,

and was

President of it until his death.

A third architect of distinction was employed by the Trustees in was at

Glasgow architect who was trained King Edward VII Galleries on the of Smirke's Museum. They were completed in 1914. The most

John Burnet (1857-193 8); he was

Sir

the

Beaux/Arts

north side

in Paris.

He

a

designed the

distinguished feature of the Burnet design

is

neither

its

exterior nor the galleries

themselves, but the marble staircase and ornamental gilded entrance. These are in a classic

which

are

Edwardian

Thomas Brock

is

at

shoot through floors.

Smirke

is

style,

the base.

down

They

Marble to the

are

liftshaft at the

north

which would have amazed Smirke, but

at its lavish best.

marble well gives a view

stairs or

1904. This

A

King Edward VII by

bust of

stairs

ascend to the

basement.

A

galleries.

The huge columns and

wholly original

in scale

and

detail.

Sir

round

capitals

Whereas

seen best from the middle wherever you look at his saloons, halls,

facades, Burnet, because he

cal architecture best seen at

was

a Scottish

an angle, and never

architecture of distinction has yet been

added

Romantic, makes

all at

to the

his Classic

once. Since Burnet's day

Museum.

no

;

Chapter

Two

The Reading Room Morpurgo

J. E.

The Reading Room of the British Museum is the most wondrous, the greatest- if among the least'beautiful cathedrals in the world, for here all gods

perhaps also are equal

and equal too

devils, here

all

is

present

that

all

-

nation and here, whosoever comes to seek will find delay appropriate to unhurried religiosity -

some

is

if

past, nation lives

only

with

after a soul/testing

trace at least of all that

man

has

achieved in the cause of beauty, vice, hate, love, entertainment, science - and

downright

silliness.

Given

a lifetime free

from

all

other diversions

ledgeable and pertinacious scholar might compile a

list

English language that are not here; a century scored,

as

balls.

and

know'

a

of a hundred books in the it

were, exclusively off no/

normal fortitude that goes with more humble scholar/ reader's ticket - the ordinary explorer can sit at his desk, divert

Equipped with

ship - and with a

the

himself with speculations about the masterpieces that are being written

around

all

Museum's store, and in due course - in very due course- he will have brought to him almost any book or pamphlet in English any book published in Britain since the passing of the Copyright Act of 1842, and most of what he might conceivably require in printed form in languages him

to be

added eventually

to the

other than English.

Embraced, even smothered, by such awesome omniscience that he tion.

who

And,

attempts to describe

because the

and, even were sion,

it is, I

it

hope,

totality

is

it

is

inevitable

driven instead to illustrate by personal select

of all that

in

is

susceptible to definition,

books

would

at least forgivable if I slink

back

is

too

still

much

for

accounting

be beyond comprehend

into the

most convenient and

most cowardly of all methods of expressing significance: autobiography. ever, if

from

this

not only because

How

moment on, unashamedly I use the first person singular, it is I know of no other way of reducing to reality the superhuman

comprehensiveness of this collection, but also because hundreds of thousands of first

persons singular have used the Library and each of them, in his

must have drawn from frustration that sings I

it

some

rhyme

have always been more

than by

its

computerlike

the Library that have

to

benefit,

own way,

some experience, some pleasure

or

some

my own.

easily

moved by

infallibility.

meant most

to

It is

the creative electricity of the place

the ghosts of the

men who have used Some

me, not the vastness of the collection.

Sir

Antonio Panizzi; an etching by

have been here creators too.

J.

after a

painting by

G.

J.

Watts,

R.A.

Museum and who served the

moonlighters, employees of the

pluralists,

as

Outrim

There was Henry Francis Cary,

for

example,

Library well in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the period when, both in an architectural and in a bibliographical sense,

forms

that, to a large extent, persist to this day,

that he

handed on

lation of Dante.

Print is

to a century

Room, whose

ghost, unless

gown

setting to the

it

it

was

of English readers a poetically acceptable trans/

unforgettable affirmation of remembrance of the

inscribed in the walls of the

spectral

was

There was Laurence Binyon, an interloper from the

main entrance

fabric of the consciences of millions.

no

it

but whose greater glory

hall

of the

staff of the

war dead

Museum - and

into the

There was Angus Wilson, happily

as yet

be thought to be living death for a novelist to take on the

of a Professor of Literature.

THE READING ROOM Others came here

labour but not to be paid by the Trustees - not even by

to

that temporally benevolent

They I

sit

me

by

and

even long the

magniloquent Trustee, Lord Macaulay.

eternally

Reading Room, and pre-empt

in the

must have from the open

sometimes

shelves. In accord

after their deaths,

custom of the place

some smile

that

at

who had

Vanity Fair or Henry Esmond,

his 'grace at the table,

lish birthright, freely to

minds of readers and

The

poet

yet

way

my

days

no

his

less

after

for this

to

my Eng/ The

I

remember

hour consulting some

book because

I

shrank from

heavy volumes of the catalogue.

him, strange companions

playwrights and novelists,

to the poets,

by their very incongruity, symbolic of the catholicity of the place, all

Lenin and Marx, unspeaking collaborators

find

my

on the way

own puny

- and

as his 'place

-

lesser

that

is

but

still

easily diverted

form

immortal spectral

mind. Just

that

is

an

imperative to whatever

some other - and

to

call for that instead

shatters the fragile vessel

labours

for their great

title

upon my

to filling out the

some book

eye caught by

ineffably fascinating

Thackeray

in preparing

most seismic revolution of all time.

for the

requisite to receiving

Room

work on

Museum, and must,

at the British

spent

finger the catalogue

or

at

staggers by:

All these gigantic ghosts, and many of their

I

is

recognizable radios-rival, G. K.

think, have been very delicate, for

colleagues, have a diverting effect

hand,

as

same vision before me and owned

I

Mazzini, and above the

glower. Most often,

have thanked Heaven

to

I

lifting the

and

have written about them

no notice of me. Thackeray,

this

and

Shaw and W.B. Yeats

necessary

after

I

me and some

partake of these beautiful books'. His greater twin in the

putting off hour

and,

their earthly dispositions, or,

what

the compilers of school syllabuses, Charles Dickens.

unmistakable Bernard Chesterton.

the reference^books that

acceptable alike to the bustling dead and to the

is

egocentrically absorbed quick, they take

having said

with

like to flatter myself, in response to

I

23

;

as

when

I

essential pre'

work

I

have in

me entirely irrelevant but so when Yeats, or Shaw,

of my concentration

my mind

deserts

my

John Ruskin referred always to the Reading - and I set off an eager (or is it a servile;) search

incidentally

of business'

achievements in print.

Presiding over

have come here

all

the glorious ghosts,

to establish

all

and maintain

the eager living, over the great

who

who

have

their greatness, the rogues

used this huge encyclopaedia of villainy to prepare their crimes, over the merely curious,

and over the many poor

have nowhere figure

else to go,

and

it

is

devils

who

have come

in just because they

cold in the bookless world, there

- huge both physically and

in spirit

- who has been dead

is

one huge

for almost a

THE READING ROOM

24

who

century but

in this place

creativity

no ghost

is

Room

Reading

every practice of the

was designed by him.

He

at

No

all.

and

in 1971

this

to

symbol of virtually

unknown

man and

I

the Library itself

one that

most appropriately

member of

Books -

papist

.

.

attempted

two copies

in the British

from 1856

also a Protestant

is

series

of

Museum's huge

collection

cannot read, that was

I

all

the accepted creeds

extant, one in his native Italy

Museum

Library.

from 183

in this country 'a

a

to suppress; so successfully in fact

scholar

The man 1,

the

Antonio

Keeper of Printed

and unhonoured

and

is

and

in his

own'

a poet of European reputa^

clergyman and a Tory - Principal Librarian

1866. The book, Dei Processi, Graham Greene/like existence

to

Conrad'like,

name

was thoroughly organized,

it

the staff of the Library

promoted over the head of Henry Cary,

who was

to

one instance acting against later

unknown

.

is

we now know

the

his

complete the

and even

British

end but not all

believe, only

Panizzi, a

to

would choose from

I

that he himself, in this

that there are,

and

to the public,

of respectable librarianship,

tion'

Library - the institution which,

- was not himself

written before the Library as

'a

Museum

British

Britain's greatness

to represent the

other,

murder of a 'Chief

has had no equal, except possibly the Royal Navy, as representative

paradoxes, the book that

book

to the

and to any sturdy chauvinist, most humiliating,

all,

paramount genius of the

my mind,

and

too was, by the judgement of his country/

men, a revolutionary, a conspirator, even an accessory Constable'. Strangest of

ghost, because almost

centrality to learning

its

is

as

his

own

account of his early

what we have come

to call a

Resistance worker, fighting from behind the mask of respectable law-officer and

an even more respectable position resisting, the brutal

Modena. Dei

and

by

to

him

a death sentence

years of enforced exile.

written not so

sought his

cause.

Civil Servant to the very power that he was

Processi tells of the vicious trials

to the scaffold,

and

as a

oppressions of his fellow

much

to liberate

to

damn

As

which brought many of his

in absentia, flight

who had as to

persecuted

with Panizzi's

friends

him and

book was

the people he

defend himself from accusations levelled traitor to their

bloody, spy^thriller prologue seems unlikely and inconsistent

later pacific career in the

beauty, un^Christian despite the supreme

seems an inconsequential prelude

Bloomsbury and

of

in the night, terror,

one-time fellow conspirators, he had been both coward and

The whole

Duchy

not unusual in such stories the

is

those

from persecution,

officials in the tiny

to the

Museum. Modena, beastly behind its Romanesque loveliness of its cathedral, ponderous

respectability of Victorian

the bloodless battles over the future of the British

Library. Yet Panizzi remained a revolutionary for the the revolution that he

wrought with

graphical ingenuity was

far

more

idea, speech,

successful

and

rest

Museum

of his long

life

and

wordy paper and biblkv

far

more enduring than

his

youthful membership of secret societies or his cloak and dagger attempts to

Entrance hall of the old Building (Montagu House), 1845; by George Scharf (abov e)

The

old Reading

Room; by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd

(below)

/'

THE READING ROOM

26

He

overturn a tyrannous princeling.

it

was who brought

Act and,

sion the deposit clause in the Copyright

to a successful

win

he failed to

if

conclu' for the

Library the right to a second deposit copy that he coveted because he wished to

due course,

his

public library system which

we

use duplicate copies as the basis for a lending library,

vigorous

now

efforts

had some

effect in creating the

way to receiving from Government adequate buying books old books and foreign books - not covered by the

for

He

deposit arrangements.

He

Iron Library.

reader, even of frustrating

introduced a

was when

It

- though,

that

the

even

alas,

him beyond endurance.

staff

after several revisions,

it

dedicated to the task of delaying the

is

It is

said that

it

was Panizzi

canteen into a public institution!

was working on Charles

I

and

invented the method of labelling books, and devised the

seems today to be an anti'System that

first

Room

suggested the designs of the Reading

truly systematic catalogue

who

in

enjoy. Panizzi did argue his

funds

first

still,

Lamb

and James Henry Leigh Hunt

used the Library. Both were schoolfellows of mine, though a century

I first

and a half

my

Lamb, though somewhat

seniors.

suspect, a familiar figure to all

and most courageous of

who

Shelley and Keats,

who

read.

editors, the

out of popularity

Leigh Hunt,

man who

first

in his

is

day the

still,

I

greatest

recognized the genius of

encouraged Byron - and went

to prison for his attacks

on the Prince Regent -

is now almost forgotten and if he is remembered at all is known only for two of the worst poems in the anthologies, 'J enn y kissed me' and 'Abou ben Adhem'. Both disliked the villain of this chapter in my story, Thomas Carlyle. Both were attacked by him. And Carlyle, that sour Scot,

turned his considerable ability for abuse also upon Panizzi and upon Panizzi's Library. the

first

Lamb, though

he did not

know

Panizzi and did not

live to see

even

of Panizzi's great labours, loved the old Montagu House Library,

fruits

recognized that

it

could be developed and almost certainly would have sup'

ported enlargement and improvement. But the triangular tournament, though it

can only be deduced from the characters of the three

wrote,

is

not as simple as

such was his capacity

it first

appears.

for loyalty,

Lamb

was

men and from what

me when

I

far

too

I

Lamb and

laid before you,' said

which

am

to this day,

reluctantly forced to give the verdict to Carlyle

Panizzi.

scarce to ask for a

so Carlyle. For

facilities for

private

and however democratic

lower on the scale of scholarly It

'You have

Lamb. Not

crowded and lacked

of the world).

And, what is worse comment into

attempt to act as referee by transposing ancient

modern observation against both

Cary and,

a close friend of

undoubtedly would have sided with him

against Panizzi in the struggle for appointment as Keeper. for

they

utility

than

him

the

volume

Reading

and continuous study its

It

it is

was

(a shortage

inspiration, sets the

many of

also lacked a sensible catalogue.

before

Room

Museum

the other great libraries

does

still.

THE READING ROOM Back

Charles

to

Lamb,

my

to

private pleasure in the Library -

me

those unimportant discoveries that are all/important to

whatever direction

sensible time^waster,

time^wasting

may

Because

take).

Christ's Hospital in Sussex

that

felt

1

own

his

had been

I

and

one of

to

hope

I

to

any

particular enthusiasm for

school in the spaciousness of

at

must attempt

I

(as

27

to rid

myself of the sense that

Lamb's schooldays, and Leigh Hunt's, had been passed in similar surround' I knew that it was not so, that the pre'1902 school in New gate Street, London was at once more beautiful and far more like a slum. I had ings. Intellectually,

Ackermann's Great Schools of England but never the whole Christ's Hospital set. sent for the volume -

seen single prints from

whole book, not even

and it,

was seeing

I

too, as another

of English

now

the

I

Lamb

the school that

had known

it,

literature far greater

Coleridge that

Having passed

to discover.

times a day during the seven years of adolescence, his face

own

in the mirror.

I

was

not, for the

things that, so often far

more than

might help

I

not even

Literaria,

man's

trivia, the little

life,

who had

thought of

I

and

thought no vastness except the

of his family (thirteen - of whom Samuel was the youngest), had also been a

ridge

had

also written a

Museum's

I

book. In the North Library, the

rarer bibliographical items,

revised Latin print,

was

Grammar.

for the

first

It

came

to

and perhaps

I

wrote out

my

me, and though for the

left

John Cole/

luggage room for the

John Coleridge's never read one word of

slip for I

my

only time in

life

in direct contact

with the great Romantic by ways of a signature in browning ink on the book. For a

awakened I

to

any

He

who

listened

hope he

moment

my

took the book

to

that, in

his vast scholar'

considerable Classical scholar; remembered too that the Reverend

a

my

wonders of

explain that reiterated snapping/off of

to

that his father,

was

as well as

the

was chasing

the great, transform a

of superlative achievement.

remembered

ship and size

just short

life.

It

his portrait several

moment, concerned with

in Coleridge's troubled

the case of Coleridge,

endeavour

was seeing

I

but in the canons

knew

I

The Ancient Mariner, the superlative ramblings of Biographia with the major events

seen.

closest friend

even than Elia: Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

sought

I

and Leigh Hunt had

Charles Lamb's

I

sat

awed by

the

immediacy of

responsibilities as a citizen but

to the

still

it

be handled? Should

with some patience

will forgive me, but

me forever. 'Oh, we Any bookman or for that

missed

I

to

my

like to

it

rarity as this

who

incoherent expostulation, and then

think that he was

have thousands

Angus Wilson)

him

(I

dis'

like that.'

matter any book/lover

practise the book^arts,

will have demonstrated to

be available

not be kept under glass?

who

frequents the

although he must accept without question that the Library property of those

then,

trembling with excitement,

guardian librarian. Should such a

asked? Should

fly-leaf of

and

the past,

and although

that the Library's

is

Museum,

not the exclusive

his everyday

prime function

is

custom

compre--

THE READING ROOM

28

hensiveness and not the preservation of beauty or

time

to

time worship

at the shrines

berg Latin Bible, the

makers more than competition,

it

first

rarity, will

of the book'Crafts.

substantial

seum

The Library owns one of each. They

pieces;

I

look

at

them with awe;

I

Guten^

type, took

examples of typographical

finest

from

less

its

520 years of ever/increasing

are but forty^eight copies in existence. Thirty/six printed

vellum.

none the

forty'two'line

book printed from movable

a year to prepare and, even after

remains one of the

The

There

skill.

on paper and twelve on

are, in the

most severe

sense,

mu/

dare not touch; they do not belong

me. But the pocket editions produced in Venice by Aldus Manutius just

to

century became the sixteenth: these are mine; these are the

as the fifteenth

humble'seeming books

true predecessors to the ten

appeared on 30 July

that

1935-

Those

Penguins, published

first

at

sixpence each, seem in retrospect an un^

likely prelude to a revolution in education, reading'habits

tion of nowforgotten or but dimly classic, there

was among them no

political or social

comment

science,

was

that

appearance of the books was

remembered

titles

and

taste.

A collect

with only one indisputable

no scholarship, none of that

later to

make Penguins famous.

as unsensational as the selection of titles.

instant

And

the

A simple

colour code - orange and white for the novels, green and white for the detective stories,

and

blue and white for the biographies - was the only break with parsimony

austerity.

Museum

Yet

in a very real sense these ten

Library, for they began a

country in the world and which has

own

sitting-room his

my

able part in

own polymathic library.

me from

However,

if I

Penguins were

August Bank Holiday of 1935,

book^reader

to the

to play a consider^

professional career but for me, as for millions the

that Friday before the that turned

books were the obverse

movement which has reached almost every made it possible for every man to build in his

*s

world over,

tne day of the miracle

to book/collector.

have been fortunate in that

I

have been allowed

to

make a

career

-

several careers - out of my passions and pastimes, and all of them have brought me frequently to the Museum - even at one time to membership of one of its

highly technical ancillary committees -

my

principal scholarly interest

America. For,

as

steps outside, the

I

have been doubly fortunate in that

me and the Library to my second home, North hear who chooses to listen to the voices on the

ties

anyone can

Museum and especially the Library is international much an American as a British institution.

and,

particularly, almost as I,

and thousands before me, have sought

in vain for

some answer

to the

mystery of what happened to the second British colony in America, the City of

Raleigh

in Virginia,

Dare's birthdate

unaware of her

and

to the

we know,

existence

first

English child born in America. Virginia

the 18th of

and

August 1587, but

for the rest history

the existence of most of the adults

who

is

were of that

>k

'

The modern Reading Room 'Discomfortable

Company'

for

only another eight days passed before they

disappear into the mists of speculation and tragedy.

But Virginia Dare's grandfather

left for

England on

the ninth day of her

life

to

and supplies for the tiny colony, and through his eyes and pen what they saw - and perhaps saw in the last horrific moments before

seek reinforcements his

they were massacred

Some

-

is

historians argue that the massacre

the second colony

- did not take place

before the arrival of the first

revealed in the uneventful calm of Bloomsbury.

King and

if

massacre

it

was

that destroyed

almost another twenty years, until just

group of English men and

permanent settlement, and

great Indian

for

-

that their death

father of Pocahontas.

women who

created the

was ordered by Powhatan,

Any

mention of Pocahontas

the sets

man who was saved from me knows that John Smith was a great romancer, much given to exaggerating his own importance and to embroi/ dering his own escapades. But the addict in me is aroused by Pocahontas. She married John Rolfe, and Rolfe has his place in history not so much for this essay

most minds

to

thinking of the romantic story of the

death, Captain

John Smith. The

sceptic in

!

THE READING ROOM

30 in

miscegenation as because he was the

table to

European

Museum

me

drives

grope

tastes. I

first

out of the Library,

the great portico, if it

summer

is

if

- and

upon

back from America

find, like her, that

death of cold

England. Their dress

to

which Rolfe encased

in

who

When

was

I

I

hope

Now am Now; They If

And It

odd

years

glasses

me

that

come

to their

Gravesend.

gave

me

strange looks

have plenty.

I

when

them

see

I

I

-

quite well,

have wasted

What

my knowledge

to

the

Museum,

I

set

off

American mystery which had saw

who

to notice the girls

its

in the

more

at

irreverent of the two.

in the

for

origins at the

dead

life,

the only poet to have written

on the quest

the 'Nonpareil of Virginia'

my

a pity

companion

regular whispering

ago

so

to

are exceedingly pretty,

two poems about

who was my

go

and weary of books. think)

there goes the bell.

Thus, Sydney Carter, lished

my

some

occurs to

And

and

most of them round about twenty.

polish

I

(I

I'm beginning

are

treacherous,

that they will not

just didn't see'em.

ninety

I

Of knowledge

under

sins

Museum.

In a place called the British

I

my

used to read books

I

There were plenty of women But sometimes

pala/

have followed her

hope

that they will not even

young man

a

is

it

scantier than the ridiculous

is

his wife. I

summer

even an English

Gravesend.

at

make

those sins by lascivious study of

the latter-day successors to Pocahontas, the pretty girls

Jacobean garments

as to

the implacable rule of the

winter to shiver for

it is

to enlarge

tobacco so

to cure

for a cigarette

and pub'

He

it

was

Reading Room, twenty'

an answer

another

to

Angle

end of the same century that

Gravesend, and

in a place that

is

less

than ten miles from the place where Pocahontas's husband founded the fortunes

of Virginia against The Counterblaste of his royal master. There,

at the

continuous use tourists

College of William and Mary, the oldest academic building in in

North America

who gawp

their

is

confidently described to the millions of

way through Restored Williamsburg

as the

Wren

Building, the only building outside Britain designed by the architect of St Paul's Cathedral.

contemporary

The

who had

ascription

reason to

is

based on one remark

know, but though

have scurried through everything that

is

in this

I

made by

Library (and a dozen more) that

should, could, or conceivably might, affirm as historical the fable that like to believe, after

twenty years

my

faith

is

a near'

(and hundreds of others)

failing. True, the

Wren

I

would

Building

THE READING ROOM some family resemblance

has

Wren's and

the likeness

rumour. But,

as

I

Chelsea Hospital; the Hospital

to the

was commented upon by

have found

to

my

public building designed about 1700 look as It

no

is

if

it

so does every other

staff

were by Wren.

from one of the founders of the Royal Society

great leap

man who

Wren's dome

regards

inspiration that has led

him

started the

delight but to the increase of mystification

and of the physical labours of so many of the Library's

Fellow, a

undeniably

is

man who

the very

to devise, for

our

own

to a living

Paul's as a source for the

for St

century and the next, engineer/

And, if may jump the Giant's Causeway Coleridge and Lamb, stayed on to consider

ing marvels that are also, like Wren's, aesthetically magnificent.

seem the foolhardiness of a pygmy attempting that

who came

I,

here

first

to study

ancient explorers and then bustled after

much is

which

The

it

to

Wren, have

time in the Library, seeking material

a logic behind the boldness

?I

for a life

Sir Barnes

in the last

few years spent

of Sir Barnes Wallis, there

would be

the

first

to grasp.

Antonio Panizzi, which favoured always

personal prejudices of

the

against the sciences, for a long time held back his Library from achieving

arts

comprehensiveness and even today, because post/ Panizzi legislation has

up

set

in other places libraries specifically for the sciences, there are collections that

are of

more immediate

Happily, the White Paper

utility to the scientist himself.

published in January of 1971 proposes the return nation's central library resources, but even

now

to

Bloomsbury of

before the reunion takes place,

Copyright Act, the geographical

the deposit clause in the

the

all

centrality of the

Museum and the very fact that here all science and art is under one roof- may they perish who would fragment the collection - makes this still the best/ equipped storehouse for the student who seeks knowledge of the sciences and of their relation to politics,

was not

economics and the whole

I

ship or

bouncing bomb.

test

a

I

was not

variable geometry; not even to discover

and of

for

his

much more

I

had

superb didactic

social structure

of this

visiting the Library to prepare myself to design

other nations.

called

what

upon

that theory

is;

What

I

of

air/

to utilize the theory

the freedom of Sir Barnes's papers

skill.

as

an

of

for all these things

and

the assistance

needed, and to a considerable extent dis/

covered within the Library, was some understanding of the reasons that lay

behind a long history of unique originality

frustrated, of ingenuity thwarted,

of

opportunity, offered to Britain by an Englishman, forever being seized and exploited by other nations.

I

cannot suggest that even

historical or biographical project, the printed

Again, the papers of others, the

collection

book can

Sir Barnes, recollections

for this or for

any major

ever be the major source.

and documents provided by

Public Records Office - and, incidentally, the Museum's newspaper

which

important than

is

all

not housed in Bloomsbury - were to the

books

in the Library. But, as

me

in

many ways more

an example within an

The Ceremony of removing

a piece of sculpture in the

Museum;

by Randolph Caldecott (1846-86)

example,

when

magnificent

R

I 1

came

to consider the

on

tragically destroyed

I

its

bumbling

a French hillside, the Library

memoirs, biographies and reconstruct,

hideous story that ended with Wallis's

00 in a breaker's yard and with

perspicacity,

which brought some men

Wallis a premature

finish to

hideous death

to

what

have come

I

at

for

him by

Sir

Museum'. But,

if it

experience and reason, then the authors to

lunacy than the

rest, for, as

they read the reviews

most important. life

of Wallis,

is

I

all

am no

for this

that

even so his greatest

Swallow

state

of imbecility

be madness to believe what

who come

or the

it is

who come

is

denied by

here to write, are even closer

;

cloak of glory.

believe and, until

all

the latest of their

exception the freak addition to

moment my

could

I

Michael Redgrave.

most authors will admit,

must hope,

With

value.

Beauvais, and wrote for

to regard as

Carlyle claimed that 'there are several persons in a to read in the British

101,

and downright incompe/

achievement, greater than the indestructible Wellington,

bouncing bombs designed

R

the sad record of unnecessary

opposition, misplaced ambition, political chicanery, tence

was beyond

of those years that ended in 1930,

histories

hope with some

rival, the

books which

my

is

the

bibliography, the

THE READING ROOM

who

But any author

him

has in

a grain of honesty will confess that he aspires

given two grains and then he must accept that the very

to immortality;

3 J

statistics

of this Library are against him: 7 million volumes in the collection, and, from

new

Britain alone, almost 30,000 life

time for his books

to all

sure

memorial

is

is

titles

added each

only

as a tiny digit in those horrific statistics; his

here in the catalogue of the British

nightmarish in his day-dreams, there

Still,

His only certainty of a

year.

the one indubitable masterpiece that

Museum

the

is

was never

book

Library.

that he did not write,

finished.

I

have mine: a

life

of

A

plaque on a house in Bath, a lonely memorial not far from Sing John Andre. Sing and West Point, an American folk'ballad in his honour, a casual mention in

an

essay

by

Lamb,

among

a place

the regimental heroes of British regiments

monument among

that no longer exist to honour their heroes, a hideous

of hideous monuments that deface Westminster Abbey, and a

series

the

litter

of foot'

memory of the soldier/poet'actor'secret agent/painter^engineer who died in the fading moments of the War of Independence at the end of an American rope, and was mourned as much by those who condemned him as by his own countrymen. When I began to work on his life in the British Museum Library I saw Andre as the epitome of eighteenth/century dilettantism, saw him too as the strangely off-centre notes by authorities on military law are

that

all

remain

two

focus for the struggle of conscience that separated the nations. Certainly

the major

great English/speaking

- and many of the minor but still'remembered

American Revolutionary period and from both

characters of the

Atlantic,

all

to the

sides

of the

were intimately involved with Andre: Washington, Lafayette,

Alexander Hamilton, Arnold, Howe, Erasmus Darwin, Dr Johnson, Lord North. The story had everything - that I knew - romance, espionage, treachery, courage, wit and,

at the last, tragedy.

But

if I

knew

so

it,

author working in the British

Museum and the

settled to research a publisher

somewhere announced

Either the rival

book did not appear

at all or

with inaccuracies. There were two films books.

My own

it

seemed did every other

Library of Congress. Each time

when

- even

a

it

life

of Andre.

appeared

further

from

it

I

I

hesitated.

was

rich only

history than the

ambitious project degenerated into a radio play.

Perhaps these are the true ghosts of the Library the books that have never been :

written. I I

watch

am

at

for there

that

the eager readers, the busy scribblers at the desks in the Library,

once both comforted and pitying. The

must be

spectres

more

restless

statistics are

on my

and

I

side after all,

even than the unfinished books the books

have been written but never published and never read.

:

Chapter Three

and Drawings

Prints

Michael

Ay Hon

Nearly everything

I

do, or have ever done, stems from the practice of drawing.

It is

my

am

one of the principal ways by which

making

painting, or

Like best

the

I

all

way

Drawing

is

Museum

in the British

sweeping statements, that

could, just as

Louvre

I

like

is

and

many

my work

some

is

method of thinking and

a

Print

I

I

sort

of

learned to

Room.

only partially

learned to draw, in

in Paris,

Vienna and,

thoughts, and whether

sculpture, or even writing, all

extension from drawing.

think that

order

I

all sorts

true.

I

of places.

in the Uffizi in Florence,

and

another aspiring draughtsman,

I

I

learned to think as learned to

draw

in

in the Albertina in

learned from looking

me and drawing from nature. I truly believe, how ever, that I learned my craft from my predecessors as much, if not more, than from 'life'. It was they who taught me to see, for the simple reason that they did it so much better than I ever shall. I arrived in the Print Room, with my father, when I was twelve years old, and very hard

at

the

world about

down, in great awe, at a table in the Department. There I was given a box of mounted drawings by Albrecht Diirer to examine. I turned them over slowly, under the eagle eye of the great A. E. Popham, one of the foremost scholars in the field of Master Drawings and later Keeper of the Department. I remember

sat

the occasion with piercing clarity.

made me

hold of the drawings

It

In the school holidays thereafter,

was granted Scotsman.

with

And

was

It

to

me

from the Print

infinite patience,

pocket/money.

It

was

I

wish

block.

I

had It

important

it

now.

was a to

me

was

in 1933.

like

being taken on to the footplate of the Flying I

used to go to a print-shop near by where

I

bought

it

was an

the proprietor as to Diirer's

how

to

spend

woodcut, St George

early impression

on

Bull's

my

(1), for a

Head

paper,

from the original wood'

not a mechanical reproduction, and this was as

genuine Cape Triangle would have been

stamp-collector. Paradoxical as

it

most a drawing made

I

in a

Taking

every day and went to - a special concession of which I was

a print, but an original print

real Diirer,

as a

November day

my hand shook. the Museum almost

was advised by

there that

It

I

Room

saved/up ten shillings and, since I

a dark

Room

a ticket to the Print

inordinately proud.

was

nervous that

so

form

may

seem, the print was to

could afford, and

this,

to a

me

schoolboy

first

of course,

is

and

fore/

one of the

i.

Diirer, St George;

Woodcut,

c.

1505

1

z.

Michelangelo, Reclining Male Nude (Study for the Sistine Chapel Creation of Adam);

Red

chalk,

c.

1

5 1

why

primary reasons

were and

prints

are

made. They circulate images

that letterpress printing circulates writing.

was not

It

in the

way

the expertise of prints

-

the stamp-collecting angle, with the special

knowledge of states and condition

and watermarks of the paper, which makes crazy - it was the image that concerned me.

the true collector so

except haphazardly. instinct.

where

The ings,

also

I

me what

I

where

Print

was

work

their

is

Room or, to give It

to

does.

I

am

not a collector,

it its

that

no one

contains. But certainly is

this

it

is

need

Room

at

the British

who taught Museum and every-

be found.

Department of Prints and Drawmany thousands of examples of drawings

full title, the

houses so

and water-colours and of prints

then,

still

an image-maker, by vocation, by profession and by

have, in the Print

created in 1808.

and lithographs

What,

It

so

have a keen awareness of my superiors, those masters

mastery

else

am

I

happy and

in the

really

form of engravings, etchings, woodcuts

knows even now

just

how many

items

it

the world's greatest collection. to

draw and why have

so

many, during

so

many

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS centuries, sought with such

agony

marks on

very old, this need.

is

surfaces?

flat

It is

to

master the

skill

much

concerned with 'beauty', but not as

of making significant graphic

It is

certainly 30,000 years old.

many

as

cerned with recording visual phenomena, but not

assume.

pan of 'self-expression' -

It is

37

people think.

It

is

It

con'

consistently as people

as

that popular excuse for

an - but

less

self/expression than with the visual examination of forms outside the

self.

with It

is

everything from the absent-minded doodle to the masterpiece of the concentrated

mind and cannot

what nature

the matchless hand. Aristotle said that 'an completes

and

finish',

unmanageable.

as usual

It is

with Aristotle, what he said makes

sense.

cope with, unless he can create order in

To make

it.

peripherally a matter of aesthetics.

much

order appearances.

It

combat with

beyond man's

as

is

It

is

to act out the

threaten man's well/being, as

reality

and

It

is

all

thanks

All

this

is

for the

and

opposing

the natural

It

to

forces

menaces

struggling to hold, to grip the

is

by means of handmade marks which

it

magically control the measure of man's power over his environment. to give

only very

to master

is

to celebrate the joy of that well-being.

it is

mum.

subdue

to

is

to

most ancient of combats, the

coming of winter and

not sketching to please one's

appearance of

an act of power.

is

control, to contest with such

in nature as weather, growth, the

which

It

man

images, by drawing, by

sculpture, by painting, by print^making, or by any other method,

forces

Nature

too rich, too seemingly disordered, too protean, for

It is

also

benevolent aspects of that environment.

pretty sententious stuff, but

it

is

truer than the notion that peculiar

individuals spend, and have spent, their lives in this onerous and endless specialized activity in order to

connoisseurs.

Drawing,

the imagination to alter intensely 'like'

like

make

fame, or fortune, or soothe and placate

any other

art, is

what things look

what they

are

than they appear

Faced with heaven knows

how many

every

known

from

portraits of notables to portrayals

to

paranoid

and

fantasies,

infinite

to visions

on paper. Regretfully,

I

to classical allegories,

of marvels, from pedestrian topography to stornvtossed seascapes,

of God, and from minute studies of grass and

flowers to grand designs for royal processions in all this plethora of what

how many

number of subjects covering

from rural landscapes

spectacle:

the result of using

to the casual eye.

from architectural extravagances

from sober townscapes

It is

make them look more

thousands of images and

hundreds of ways of making them, with an sight

an invention.

like in order to

men have

seen

have decided

Turner's water-colours which he

left

-

1

must make some

and thought

to pass

it

sort

of choice

necessary to represent

by the tremendous collection of

to the nation, the

wonderful group of

Watteau's chalk/drawings, and the landscape^drawings of Claude Lorrain. Instead

nudes.

I

I

shall discuss only a

handful of drawings and almost

choose nudes because

I

all

of them are

myself belong to the tradition which

sets

the

3.

Antonio

A

Pollaiuolo,

Prisoner led before a Judge;

undraped human form - man

Pen and brown

God's image -

in

at

ink,

c.

1460

the very centre of the act of

drawing.

The Greeks

'invented' the nude.

They did

so because of the nature of the

Greek mind, making of it an abstraction which was to the proportions

of the

argue?) to be the most

human

'true'

and

ships of form to be the

human body to

Greek

human

as a relationship

one another,

conform the

them more

figure,

it.

to

which

Of course,

which

body.

It

they believed (and

and the most

was

who

will

Man, being man,

satisfactory

of all relation' of the

this ideal, the Classical ideal

of units, 'perfectly' and harmoniously reconciled

the Greeks gave preeminence.

naked

'invention', but such

figures

was

They made

figure into the cardinal

their

gods

were drawn, painted and carved before

the

power of the Greek imagination and

such was the weight of their power as image^makers, that they

human

more

real,

mathematics

relating

perfect of divine inventions.

inevitably considers the most important

to

to

and more divine than nakedness. This they did by

timeless

measure of excellence by which

made all

the

naked

other things

might be seen and judged, including architecture.

There

are all sorts

China and opposed

to,

the

of other kinds of drawing. There are cultures, like those of

Muslim world, which

are quite

unconcerned with,

or religiously

any concern with the nude. There have also been long periods

in

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

39

Europe- one of some 1 300 years - when the nude was more or less outlawed from the arts. It crept in when absolutely necessary, as in the case of Adam and Eve, but

was

it

about the

generally a cypher. Nevertheless, so powerful

human body that

and suddenly,

From

that

during the thirteenth century

early in the fifteenth century in Italy,

day forward, the nude re/established

it

was

the

gradually

Greek

idea

demerged,

returned in splendour.

it

the core

itself as

and heartbeat

of the Western European tradition of drawing.

Drawings we have, of one son and another, from in caves,

Palaeolithic times scratched

carved on bones and incised on pottery. But for the period before the

fourteenth century drawings in the special sense, by

on paper housed

do not

exist,

different

and

in the British

special fields.

And we

development. The nude

Greek

in the

another, drawing as mostly

whether anyone firmly

likes

it

we

is

a very

odd

in

Renaissance

sense

was

tend to think of

or not,

and predominantly on

The nude

marks

have precious few drawings produced

Thus

rests

the

of Prints and Drawings,

except as papyrus and manuscript illumination, which are rather

early as the fourteenth century.

tion,

which we mean

Museum Department

thing.

is

ours.

it

Italy there

restored and,

today,

Drawing

was

as

a twin

one way and

was born. That tradv

as a discipline

and

as a joy,

the nude. It

4.Dlirer, Apollo and Diana;

Pen and brown

5.Durer, The Fall of Adam

(Adam and

has, of course,

ink,

c.

1

501-3

I

am happy

(left)

Eve); Engraving, 1504

(right)

to say, close

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

40

association with sex.

we to

all

has also a great deal to do with the fact that as individuals

It

inhabit, each to his

own,

a nude. In

my own

case,

it is

a

wearisome and,

me, an unattractive sack of tripes with dreary demands and various chronic

aches and pains, but

structure

its

me.

is

shapes the desirable body as readily as consistency in

which

varies

its

It is

timeless since, although fashion

does the dress

it

disposition of the parts, the units of

more from

the condition

and age of

we

wear, there

which

it

the individual's

than from any fundamental change in their form. In

this respect

is

yet a

combined,

is

it

anatomy is

art that

completes and reorganizes nature's inadequacy.

The Greeks admired For them,

the bodie make'. is

what

The

the athlete,

Spenser put

as the poet

much

as

for the

Elizabethans, 'soul

we

do, but a very great deal more. is

forme and doth

And form in its relation to the spirit, no less than to the physique,

the art of drawing greatest

it

of

is

about.

masters of the

all

with practically nothing eighty/nine, virtually

else.

nude

There

is,

no landscape, no

is

Michelangelo.

in all his stilMife,

He was

concerned

work, and he lived

none of

to

be

the myriad natural

phenomena which

so

obsessed his older and equally great contemporary

Leonardo da Vinci.

He

could and did contain his genius in the structure of the

6.

Michelangelo, Crucifixion;

Black chalk,

c.

1560

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

human

frame, and

when

he clothed or draped his figures,

For him and that

for

him alone among

it is

human

the

which determines and shapes

existing within or behind the clothing,

the giants, the

human

frame

41

body,

the form.

itself

was

all

was needed.

He

began, because he was from the outset a sculptor and concerned with the

weight of forms, by drawing copies of the paintings of

when

Giotto and Masaccio who,

his great predecessors

the Renaissance itself

was

womb,

in the

brought weight back into painting, weight heavily and magisterially draped.

Then

for a

human

long lifetime he described the

and

into the form,

aiming

to establish

body,

When

of the pen and then more fluidly with chalk.

with abrupt strokes

first

in

doubt he drew across

boundaries and to depict the illusion

its

of its weight, moving his eye and hand over and under the taut or slack muscles, each dependent in

which,

as

its

tension or relaxation

bones and sinews, make

it

upon

the

possible for the

complex

interrelated forms

human body

to act.

All the

underlying structure of a great mountain landscape could be read into the torso of one of his drawings (2); the rock hardness of the bones which

and

legs

just

below the skin and

lie

jut out at the knees, the fallow softness of the great

relaxed muscle suspended like a rolling hillside below the thigh. Disdaining error,

he would

restate a

contour, in this instance the line which marks the

turning-point of the top of the

where the form moves out of sight,

leg,

ing three times. This he does because, in the act of drawing, he exactly

where

that contour

should

He

be.

is

sinews, strung on a frame of bone. else

Given

He

and shapes of

himself, and for himself alone, the boundaries

he would know, as no one

exploring.

is

definitively be set

animated by

flesh

known, how, on

the

small piece of paper, the components of that envelope of flesh

may

discovering

is

finding out for

seventy^five years of continual

has ever

correct'

drawing,

surface of a

flat

we

all

inhabit,

down. Or you might imagine he would. But it was not so. power (he was carving marble three days

In old age and with undiminished before he died) he

came

to

doubt

and most mysterious drawings tentative strokes of the chalk,

the contours, but

(6)

no longer concerned

drawn from

and breathing. Such drawings

built

to

like a mist, a

are miraculously

They

from a deeply humble uncertainty

seem

at

is

no

God knows how the flesh holds in the spirit.

exemplifies that 'soul

forme and doth the bodie make'.

The kind of drawing which was developed disegno. It

was

of doubt,

real stillness in

nature and because only

Florence was called

once dense

where forms begin and where they

end, because they breathe and endlessly move, because there

is

limbs,

remote from the tight and precise

are indeterminate concretions as to

latest

cloud of

map the limits of the

inside them, so that the forms

delineations of the youthful pen.

His

these exact dispositions of form.

emerge from the paper

in fifteenth'

a clear, tough

This indeed

and sixteentlvcentury

and very

specific

approach

to

A

Woman

7.

Rembrandt,

8.

Rembrandt, Study for

Pen and brown

ink,

c.

bathing her Feet;

the Etching:

1639

The

Etching, 1658

(left)

Artist drawing from a

Model

(detail);

(right)

form, and the nude, energetically but carefully studied, took the

Greek and

time.

Roman antiquities being enthusiastically excavated in

Roman

marbles gave the mandate for Renaissance

match Antique

Age.

And

even

The long century, but to

ideals

now

this tradition

took some time

it

move

north.

human body unswathed

One man, more than

German, who

draughtsman outranks

Classical nude.

It

He

it

it

there.

and whose genius

in the

Albrecht

in that field

his ability as a painter, learned to master the

took him half a lifetime of concentration to do

began

with draperies

had both been born and

any other, took

trained as an engraver,

hend the undraped human body needed.

seek to

Golden

continues.

for the

Diirer, a

it

to

hibernation of the concept of the nude ended in the fifteenth

and

as a

Italy at that

lost

artists

unearthed in the recovered fragments of a

extend from the Mediterranean area, where indeed

reborn, and

form from

its

to the degree

it,

to

compre^

of harmonious certainty he

Gothic tradition of the North which had long

felt

dis^

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

43

penscd with those geometrical canons of proportion by which the Greeks

such

store

and which

the

He imposed

remembered.

had

Italians

form of geometry on

a

on human proportions seeking

nudes and wrote a book

his

that just relationship, that 'rightness'

which

book on human proportions. nude by Antonio Pollaiuolo

Diircr studied Italian engravings of the

who

by Andrea Mantegna,

were

among

the

Renaissance nude and the pioneer engravers

of their work and then adapted the

wood-block, the

Without

At

it.

came

print, really

into

its

packaged and

Prints could readily be

means

proportion could be transmitted from the greatest, least of

Durer did,

They were

artist to artist

copying.

to

Venice

to

also cheap.

in

1507.

By

those

Europe, and the

fetish in

hundreds

in

fact that they

still

left

and no

those days

shop

his

do enabled me

to

and

Rubens, disdained

or

his prints.

circulate

to

buy one

or

to

shame

false

The fame of Durer himself travelled with

Engravings and woodcuts

through

two when

I

was

school.

From my schoolboy

addiction to Diirer,

I

turned elsewhere.

adolescence, so earnest, noble and precise an an and turned, natural enough, to

what seemed

whose genius

deep that he

is

so

9); the

huge

straightforward, but to his close study as to his

trasted

artifice is

buried.

is

They look

naked people

like

'true' in

what seems

way, but they owed

of arts which had come out of Italy and from

and

look-(7,

a most

as

much

as far off as India,

unsurpassed mastery of natural forms described by strong light con'

I

was

right

how

artists

at

me

but

it

was,

thought, simply a

I

people and things in that son o( light and dark

and wrong.

have, in every age, unblushingly taken

their predecessors.

wide

my

suppose, was

turned to Rembrandt,

had not understood then the implications of the point

about

rejected, in I

were simply produced by

in fact a very complicated,

matter of his looking hard

I

I

I

as,

the most intricate, calculated

as if they

with deep shadow. This fascinated

context.

'natural'.

Rembrandt's nudes look

ing, not at art, but at nature.

and

me more could make to

images look

intellectually considered

8,

to place unless

across the Continent

Rembrandt

all

use of them. Originality was not a

was attached

at

from place

travel

the inventions, the developments in composition, the refinements of

no one, not even

make

sent.

careful copies

own.

could not

the artist himself travelled with his work, as

and

engraved copper plate and

this point the

prints the vital information

He made

in Italy.

(3)

draughtsmen of the

great

first

his

Rembrandt owned

Florentine predecessors had called ccrtezze: the 'certainties'. a copy of Diirer's

set

dimly and then triumphantly

first

Nor

did

variety of images to

I

know,

despite the

I

huge quantity and seemingly

have been built up since the Greeks,

mainstream of forms had been.

am making now

what they needed from

how

constant the

44

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

Like any aspiring young I

artist, I

wanted

my

need not have been so shy about

copying Mantegna. Rembrandt,

to be original,

too, did so

tory of

book of Mantegna' which

Rembrandt's property made

this

drawing

and

so far original

and the drawing,

in 1655, he

in 1656.

was no aspiring

myself.

here illustrated,

owned by Rembrandt,

of the Calumny of Apelles (10) was once leaf in 'the precious

and uniquely

borrowings. Diirer was not alone in

art

for

it

was

a

figured as Item 200 in the invent as

If,

seems

likely,

he copied (11)

student but a master aged forty/nine

and uniquely himself that he had no cause

seeking what he needed from the history of the

art

to take

shame

in

He

he so greatly enriched.

used what he required from his carefully assembled collection of prints and

drawings by Mantegna,

and Raphael, but he took

his prints after Titian

as

much and more from his fellow human beings. That was the equation, and the nude is central to it. The human body is both to be drawn and to be embraced, and

drawing

the

is

in itself an

embrace.

By then I was, I think naturally, much concerned with real human bodies. I was fifteen or sixteen at the time. Those bodies, although highly attractive, were very often far from ideal and whatever other relations I had with them, I was drawing them every day, year in year out, from 'nature' in art schools. It took

me

years to discover that, contrary to precept, nature

complex and enlist the

whole

powers of the great masters

away

You

have

what you

are

borrowing.

student, inundated with visual information.

Europe. Influences,

styles,

I

have

to

any part of nature. The

to imitate

an and

you do

this

As

I

grew up

was lucky;

I

I

I

was, like any

travelled

gulped away

remember, and

at

it

all. It

about

in.

Art

was confusion of the most

much of it was as half-baked as I was. know it, I needed it most, the British

point when, even if I did not quite closed

down

for six years

enemy hands. There was,

as

study must have been

and the museums of Europe were

all

in

people relentlessly pointed out, a war on.

Before the nineteenth century the

artists. If

You

contemporary manifestation, came rushing

to proliferate; I

intoxicating kind, as

At this Museum

simply too clever, too

you develop, but not always very wisely. Nor do you inevitably

or understand,

books began

is

to art students.

in order to master

history of art demonstrates this.

naturally, as

know,

too secretive to give herself

number of

fairly limited for

great

drawings available

for

any but the most fortunate of practising

he had access to private cabinets of drawings, he was indeed lucky. If

he became successful he could collect drawings, as did the painter, architect

and

historian,

Giorgio Vasari

in the Florence

of the Renaissance, also Rem/-

brandt and Rubens and, in England, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir

Lawrence.

He

could haunt the an dealers and

visit

Thomas

the print-shops to take his

material at second hand.

What

is

certain

is

that to further his personal education

and

learn his craft, he

I

I

9.

Rembrandt, The

had

to

Artist drawing from a Model;

gain the necessary access to the

Unfinished etching,

work of other and

and more experienced draughtsmen. The most natural source of this material

was

the

greater those contemporaries were, the

1648

preferably

readily available

work of

more

c.

more

his contemporaries,

fruitful

was

skilled

and the most

his inspiration

and

the

and

the

better his education.

The coming of the Second World War, because it shut down the great museum collections, shut one off from their contents. It took one back into the position of one's predecessors. True, betters

- who were of great value

not think

I

benefited as directly

to

I

had contemporaries -

from them

as

perhaps

books of reproductions and

just as artists in the past

these reproductions served

my

course, give

me

the physical

my

elders

me, but except in landscape^drawing I

might have.

I

had had recourse

and I

do

had some to prints,

continuing apprenticeship. They did not, of

life

an original achieves - and

I

mean

physical.

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

46

Apart from activity

intellectual

its

and

I

am

and formal

not sure

how

qualities,

often people

Rubens

much

a

copy

differently, to left

as

an adaptation.

make him

leg several times.

model

serve as the

is

for a painting.

He

to

is

not so

make him labour

has modified the position of the

establish the pose he has

He

He

This drawing

changing Hercules

stand on Discord.

To

through the right arm.

He

how

made while in Italy is here making a

utilized copies he

of the famous Antique statue called the Farnese Hercules.

drawing of a marble

an intensely physical

is

don't draw, recognize

drawings. For instance, in drawing

clearly those physical factors are revealed in

Hercules standing on Discord (12)

drawing

who

drawn

the front of the thorax

how

has been very uncertain about

to place the

arm

a private matter;

it is

holding the club.

This process of feeling

his

way

is

be expected and

to

Rubens's problem. The drawing shows him working the physical action

- not

hand has moved

his

it.

What

the action of Hercules, but of Rubens?

fast.

There

those final

commitments of

down

legs.

both

is

at

is

It is

his

mind,

tentative, questioning lines

These

legs.

not

strikes

after

running abruptly

most of the modelling had been

hard and

which propose

alternative statements are

know how

to

read of

this. Firstly,

shaped and then established. Those strong contours are the signs of a

having made up

I

speed in the touch of the chalk, especially in

the line such as the contours

These were made

can

draw. The form

sure.

Those heavy

felt for,

man who,

lines eclipse the

pose of the

earlier alterations for the

by no means evidence that Rubens did

is

stated

knowledgeably; the bulk of the

The heel of his hand has not touched the paper, because chalk smudges. The movement of his wrist was all important. Except when he placed the accents, his fingers would have been relatively relaxed. The accents, in the eyes, under the nose, on the left draped forearm and shoulders and the twist of the trunk.

right leg, are the result of hard'clamped fingers tip.

heavy

as

when

he

Rembrandt's hand behind the reed

came

to deliberate the

never finished (9).

of

and strong pressure on

the chalk

But the degree of pressure on the chalk would have been nothing or quill

pen he had cut

like as

for himself,

composition of an etching which,

in fact,

he

Drawing and incomplete etching demonstrate the procedure Rubens, the movement of Rembrandt's hand is

his thought. In contrast to

here a matter of finger control

and pressure and not of wrist movement. Every/

thing comes out of the tension created between the finger-tips and the opposed

thumb and

this

resultant line,

needle point

is

is

true of his etchings

where the touch, however black the

very light indeed. Etching requires precision, but the

which

delicately scratches

away

the thin

wax ground on

steel

the copper

to expose the line to the acid can be as light as a feather. Those dense blacks and no other medium can give such stygian darks as etching - come from re^

peated cross/hatching to build the shadows, touch by touch.

It is

the acid that

\

V

Ik

-

•-/->•

£

? b -'

S-

^

:.

"^ .V*

1

'^

io.

Mantegna, The Calumny of Apelks; Pen and brown ink,

11.

Rembrandt, Copy

does the strong the metal

which

is

after

work

r.

1504 (above)

Mantegna's 'Calumny ofApelles'; Pen and

where

for,

it

can

through the

get

exposed by the hair^thin drawn

will eventually hold the ink.

line,

it

brown

wax

c.

1655 (below)

to the copper,

eats into

Copper engraving

ink,

it,

is

where

creating incisions

another matter.

needs controlled physical strength because the implements used are

sharp gouges which directly and forcefully cut the line into the metal. laborious and precise. There

brings I

me back

come back

finally to

to

him

level,

no I

my

method of correcting an - to Albrecht Diirer.

easy

started

here, rather as

quarter of a century of

emotional

is

where

I

have come back

I

am awed

The famous drawing,

him

neglect, not because he touches

but because, increasingly

mind he had, and

to

by

I

have come

to

It

little razor--

error,

It

is

which

personally after a

me

deeply

at

an

understand the kind of

it.

Apollo (4),

is

an engraver's drawing, slowly, laboriously

and minutely wrought with a sharp pen. Even the name of the god, inscribed

V

%>

13. Diirer, Study of

and misspelt copper

plate,

Three

it,

Pen and brown

drawn backwards

and read

ink,

c.

so that transferred to the

way round.

the right

1504

It is

an absc

nude, the pose and form taken from the Apollo Belvedere, a

Antique

all

using

is

will print in reverse

it

marble copy of a

famous of statue,

and Hands for Figure of Adam;

in the disc of the sun,

lutely Classical

Roman

Arms

as

now

lost

Greek bronze

original

and perhaps

sculptures. Diirer took his source

Rubens used

from a print of the

the Farnese Hercules, for his

years later, reversing the stance of

the most

own

purposes.

Apollo once more, he engraved on

famous Fall of Adam (5) and Apollo becomes Adam. One of the drawings I first held in my hands in the Print Room, when I was twelve years

copper

old, to

his

was a study

and

imitation,

and public

Adam's arms

meaning and

statement.

drawing, made

12.

for

me, the epitome of the drawing

Rubens, Hercules

It

has haunted

from and

me ever since.

also a lesson

representation, inspiration

Adam

after a print

(13).

to learn

is

and

In a

way it is

about originality

skill,

private thought

here derived from a drawing, taken from another

of a marble copy of a

standing on Discord;

Red and

lost

black chalks,

c.

Greek bronze. Thus

1618-22

are

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

50

But consider

the visual arts transmitted by imitation across time.

demonstrate with superhuman tive possibilities as to exactly

What three

began

as a

clarity

how

and with never a

those arms should be in the final picture.

copy of a copy of a copy

arms on the paper and three

They

his arms.

hesitant stroke, alterna^

is

here being transmuted. There are

hands.

different, separate

The

here takes

artist

possession of his subject; the copies have served their purpose. In the engraving, all is

once more reversed so that

The hand

right in the engraving.

will

become

the branch of a tree.

and arm. Each is

Adam's

arm

left

how do the human

fingers

which,

loosely grasps a pole

All the remaining

an exploration of a minute but

is

drawing

in the

to

is

become

his

in the engraving

studies are for the other

hand

problem. The problem

vital

most naturally hold an apple?

How should

it

be got

right?

Now

if

you look

at

own hand holding an apple and turn it about, you movement of your fingers will reshape, to your eyes, the

your

will see that the slightest

physical relationship of each digit to the others, the tension across the knuckles,

There

the slack of the palm, the geometry of the bones. possibilities for variations, for

to

engrave

it

or cut

it

new drawings,

in marble, or cast

it

is

And

public.

Adam's hand. Eve and

What

the

because

it

is

subtle

it,

there will be

The drawing

is

one

drawing

private, the

ironically, in the engraving, the apple has not reached

the serpent

hold

still

drawing gives us because public,

hundred

Should you come

the context. This

right in

us Diirer looking privately for that solution.

engraving

work;

bronze or paint

in

chosen solution: one solution that seems

shows

are a

before your eyes.

it

is

it.

private, that the

engraving does not

an intimate, immediate indication of Diirer's mind

is

selecting, discarding,

probing

for the

at

answer he needed. In contemplating

such a drawing you are admitted into the process of visual thought and you will be,

while you look

at

it,

briefly not

movement of

in the spontaneous

only his

at the centre

hand.

illusion of three dimensions, of sculptural

him marshal

ing

behind

that, at all the

in order to

life

his experience

do

You

are

form on a

artist's

mind, but

watching him

create the

of a great

flat

of looking not only

You are watclv human hand but,

surface.

at

the

works of art he had conscientiously studied during

his

it.

may be because the hand is my own instrument, obedient so far as I can make it, to my eye and to my mind, that these hands of Diirer's are so significant. They are no ordinary hands. But then it is no ordinary apple he sought to make It

the

hand

grasp.

It is

in the

most particular sense the

fruit

of the

tree

of knowledge.

Chapter Four

The Egyptians Fleur Cowles

me and their past seems to me to be a

Beautiful archaeological objects have always fascinated

amazes me even more. The reconstruction of the

and magical experience, covers a span of

Egyptian

4000

relics that

Museum we

do

Egypt's

particularly

years of

human

No

experience.

exist, or are yet to

be

a

past,

glittering

one will ever

dug out of the sand, but

can view an almost unrivalled collection, and

survival

mystical

story

that

see all the

at the British

for that

we

are

privileged.

The

country's rare climate and

its

rare

and lovingly buried

deliberately

Thus, much

rituals

account

Nile Valley.

in the

their treasures in

death - which, as a means to yet another jubilation.

and ancient

made

almost unmatched of the discoveries

for the scale,

The Egyptians

ceremonies connected with

ahead - was treated with ceremonial

life

remains.

still

Before the First Dynasty, Egyptians simply buried their dead in shallow trenches, the bodies being preserved by desiccation in the hot, dry sand.

When,

about 3000 B.C., the nobility started building superstructures over the sand,

some of the contents began. Still, when one uncovers a tomb, much inside is miraculously intact, unharmed. Tombs were sometimes plundered and pillaged, but were not otherwise

destruction of

damaged; everything found is in a natural state of preservation and in a perfect storehouse. Even a few hundred miles to the north, in Greece or Italy, much

would have

perished.

Imagine the

thrill

of opening a royal

tomb

Perhaps that of a queen, buried with so possessions, even her pets

!

And

of the British

monarch's

can, if we use a

we

see, re-create

This is

not

I

yet today, as

Museum and

life,

little

forte,

we walk see laid

we walk

am

the Egyptian I

an

many

straight

imagination and take the trouble

I visit

all

her favourite

casually through the Egyptian galleries

out before us so

numerous fascinating nor

with

finery,

untouched, and so often even her name

even her mummified body,

do when

my

much

In the intervening thousands of years she has lain

there undisturbed, her possessions forgotten.

sealed thousands of years ago.

details

rooms

art historian,

of the

aspects of such a

back

in time

to observe carefully

life

and

what

she led.

at the British

Museum. Egyptology

me

great pleasure to write

but

it

gives

THE EGYPTIANS

52

about the things

I

love, even

in this particular case,

if,

doing so makes

me long for

the erudition of a Robert Graves, or of an Egyptologist.

When in

think of those rooms, half my heart

I

Egypt

in the early 1950s,

is

when I wandered, exhausted and

abundant jumble of beauty of the Tutankhamen

the

Visiting archaeological

memory of days

tilted in

bewildered, round

relics in the

(Greek and Arab and Persian,

sites,

spent

Cairo Museum.

as well as

Egyptian

ruins) has been a luxury I've enjoyed for the last twenty years of restless travel,

each experience of the

Working my way from one

floor to the next

is

where

lotuses, carved, painted

papyri,

:

and jewelled, abloom on tomb, on

on paintings, and on gems;

with the

pomp

cat retriever

of the British Museum's Egyptian

being on a dreanvwalk here a snake encrusted in gems, and every'

world

like

and

of other civilizations has been enriching.

relics

eels

mummy, on

and crocodiles mummified and buried

of the nobles they accompanied the birds caught in the ;

(dogs were not then used

paw of a

such) gold flowing like water, spilling

as

;

over the images of nobles; imperturbable gods with heads of falcon, or cobra, or bird, or cat; court records of thieves (like in hieroglyphics

modern

ones, but in that period written

on papyri) jewels of devastating beauty ;

;

titanic statues

and a

massive bronze scarab.

To

such things seem almost unreal, but

use,

the customary symbols, the ordinary artifacts life.

And

they are

find their splendour irresistible

Sometimes, at

I

As

very beautiful.

all

and

to the ancient

and

an

the routine gods, of day/Kvday

artist

myself,

and

as a

woman,

I

the images they evoke endlessly delightful.

woman's world - especially when looking wood, beautiful little mummies painted and decorated with women's masks

think of these rooms as a

painted gardens, exquisite furniture, artisans carved in

seated queens or giant

one

(their cosmetic ideas not

woman

bit

could possibly overlook

Long

ago, to simplify

my

own

foreign to our

day and age).

wander through I

bear

it

in

the collections,

mind

I

am

objects that

however

Though

has taken time,

it

And

what

three

main

those feline pets?

all

made myself a breakdown of the

visits, I

divisions within this ancient civilization that interested

as

Egyptians they were

I fit

what

I

see into a

me

most. Then, as

personal pattern.

As

I

long

not bewildered by the thousands of miscellaneous

carefully

set

out and explained are not easy to piece together.

have

I

now found

dynasty, year or place, but according to

a place for most things: not by

purpose and use in the scheme of

its

ancient Egyptian society. First

of

all,

life

itself.

For

all

haunting reverence for a large see a stone falcon over a as a representation

those thousands of years,

number of gods, mostly

man's head,

I

know

that the

in

it

was

lived with a

animal form.

men

When

of those times saw

I it

of Horus, the sky god.

Secondly, death.

With what extravagance

it

was met, and how

fascinating

THE EGYPTIANS the ritual of

mummification (which

Thirdly, the obsession with

after /-life.

Egyptians expected

its

piece of furniture, each sheet of papyrus with

gory detail).

to live

were entombed with objects they expected

this reason they

Each elegant

shall later describe in

I

its

again and for

to use after death.

mysterious symbols,

each exquisite wall-painting, each tribute to a god, each jewel in a case

from these tombs)

had enjoyed on

tells

for

an

after-life

(all

came

appropriate to the status they

earth.

In each category,

- and,

of their plans

53

have gleaned

I

as

much knowledge as I need for my pleasure my favourite examples. In the limited

in every case, I've finally arrived at

space given to me,

my

do

shall

I

best to describe

them.

Life

One

must begin by describing the ancient Egyptian: he was

gentle, he loved his family

a sense of

and

One must also summarize when

history

delight in

work and

the

good

life,

was

during the thousands of years of recorded

his efforts

monumental

new

we now

metals found and used, animals domestic

architecture evolved, writing invented (leaving us superb

and

commercial organizations developed and docu/ Egyptian's technical skill was amazing - in stone/carving, in

historical records),

mented. The

controlled,

he had

administration.

giant steps were taken towards the standards of civilization

enjoy. Irrigation cated,

and

friends, he loved gaiety

humour and an absorbing

and

intelligent

the

first

weaving, in cabinet/making, in the working of metals, in shipbuilding, in mining.

And

As

a jeweller, his

all this

most of the

its

rest

unrivalled until medieval times.

occurred in a Nile Valley which was both ribbon of

a spreading delta.

culture kept

work was

Through thousands of years,

style

mud and

a tradition persisted. Egyptian

and character quite unsullied by

the ideas

and customs of

of mankind.

Although humans have given (starting in caves

and ending

fourth millennium,

special treatment to animals for 100,000 years

as jewels) animal'deity

when men on

the Nile

worship began before the

grouped into

tribes,

each with

its

own god. This was generally an animal or a bird, but gradually these beasts gave up their own bodies to become hybrid'humans, keeping only the head of one or the other to place

even look

Men

now

on

the other's body.

worshipped any

a special influence for

force,

good

that fear followed worship.

and crocodile

The

transition

was

so smooth, one

can

at a goddess with an ape's snout without shock.

as sacred as

even a baby snake,

or prevented

if

The wandering Egyptian

soon

they thought

harm. If an animal was

as he believed

it

exercised

feared,

from

regarded the deadly snake

worship would provide protection.

j

m.

*

.-

MUMMY

Of

».

CAT

..IEQ

CAT.

.

[Roman »«niooJ

i

.

Mummified

Divine to

cats,

from

status thus

cats' cemeteries, sacred to the cat

went

to

many

goddess Bastet

animals, and ultimately they were

mummified

go into the burial-grounds with the bodies of kings.

My

among

favourite

senied by a ears, fur

woman

these animals

with a

head).

cat's

the cat goddess, Bastet (usually repre/-

The

actual animal species

had upright

of a brownish/grey colour, a white underbelly, the body sometimes

and ochre,

streaked or striped in black long.

first

mousetrap.

It

animal soon divinities

From

rose

agility

the granary

it

was

length about

two and

as a retriever in

a short

walk

Wild

cats

a half

hunting but

to the foot

from the lowly position of a local deity

of Egypt.

and

its

was variously used, not only

tail

ferocity

is

feet, its

as

man's

of a throne.

The

to

one of the great

were domesticated - admired

for their virility,

- and soon became all'popular, although they never achieved

the status of a royal goddess. If a

fire

started in a house, for instance, the death

the most painful loss. at

the

kill

one (or a falcon or an

hands of neighbours before the

daughters a

The

To

cat

name which meant

was

trial

ibis)

meant death, often

took place. Mothers often gave their

'little cat'.

a goddess of pleasure.

an emergency she could be

of the family cat would be

relied

She loved music; she loved

upon

to

ward

to

dance and

off contagious diseases.

One

in

of

THE EGYPTIANS the most celebrated

and

honour, a huge animal

Herodotus

after a visit

of castanets, walked

and

in

in

statues

seem

from Greece). Worshippers arrived by barge

to

have been dedicated

cats were,

There were huge (1)

Museum,

at

This god was Anubis - a

Mummy

spirits.

Wine

to Bastet

sound

Egypt.

And

death of the same god

black jackal

freely.

than to any other god:

after a life

even the

who

which had become

Wrapping, Anubis invented

all

human dead

and

of veneration.

mummified

cat

presided over humans.

funeral

by the hand

god of death. As

the

embalming. Funeral prayers were addressed exclusively black animal always took the

flowed

in stone, in clay, jewelled, painted

of course, carefully buried

cat cemeteries all over

sometimes had the use

Lord of the

to the

splendid processions to the sound of tumultuous cheering

countless examples are in the

mummified. All

in her

her temple at Bubastis (once described in detail by

an atmosphere of buffoonery and high

More

Egypt was

orgiastic of all festivals celebrated in

fair at

55

rites

and

the art of

him. The

sleek,

to the presence

of the

to

sovereign judges where the dead man's soul could be weighed. Horns, the

ping

god of the sky wasfalcon'headed

in the sky,

(2).

Like the bird soaring and dip'

he seemed to be the sky itself- a pre-eminently divine being.

2.

Horus

A

in the guise

of a falcon

56

THE EGYPTIANS

curious division of the sexes earth

was male (Geb),

was she represented ?

the

As

a

is

applied to

cow She was

and

tiptoes

studded

The

Horus was male, the was female - and how

the solar gods;

the sky

called Hathor.

!

Another sky goddess was human portrayed as a nude

all

moon, male (Thoth), in form.

Called Nut, she was usually

woman whose long, arched body touched the What men saw shining in the night was really

finger-tips.

earth at

her star'

belly.

was singled out

lady lion

for multiple attributes. Sekhmet, 'the terrible

woman', was goddess of war and

lioness'headed

was once thought terribleness also

to

have intended

battle, full

exterminate the entire

to

included responsibility

for fire (she

of vengeance. She

human

race.

could even devour the

Her

fire

of

the sun).

Egypt must be the only place on earth is

either seen in

Some

its

own

that ever

hideous likeness or

provinces hunted the reptile

as a

down and

(with fratricidal wars to decide the issue).

It

man

worshipped a

crocodile.

Sebek

with the head of a crocodile.

destroyed

it,

others

worshipped

was obviously fearsome enough

it

to

be appeased as a god ; some were even given golden ear-rings to wear, others had

gold bracelets riveted to forelegs. There was even a special sanctuary for them (Crocodilopolis)

where they could

live in

splendour. Then, as today, they became

tourist attractions.

One

legend

supposed

3.

to

is

amusing: King Menes (probably the

have been attacked by his

own

first

King of Egypt) was

dogs but saved by a crocodile,

Scarab; incarnation of the god Khepri; black granite

who

4.

Commemorative

scarabs issued by

Amenhetep

III;

c.

1417-1379 B.C.

him to the other shore of a lake. Crocodilopolis was supposedly built by the King in gratitude. The scarab'beetle god, Khepri, is linked with two functions: one, as the amulet used to protect a dead man's heart in the embalming process - when the scarab god was placed on the breast, to give the body a new source of life and movement carried

after

death; the other, to prevent the valued physical heart (which was thought

to be the seat of the emotions) from speaking against the dead

man.

Worship of the beetle came from its extraordinary habit of burying its eggs of dung, which were rolled along between its legs, giving the newborn larvae something to feed on. The Egyptians identified the scarab with the power behind the sun - which rolled in similar fashion across the sky much as the ball of eggs encased in dung rolled across the sand. From this activity, Khepri was con' in balls

sidered to be the source of power (indeed, given credit for rolling the ball of sun into the

Other World each evening and back again each morning, representing

the renewal of

life

and the idea of eternal

be the god of existence, which the

The importance of

name

existence).

He was

also considered to

Khepri means.

placing a scarab as an amulet on a dead body to give

was obvious. Such amulets of scarabs

are

found

in

thousands of

potential

life

varieties.

Eventually, the habit of the living to wear one as an ornament

into

modern fashion - and

the last Farouk).

it

eventually

became

a royal

emblem

came

(certainly

of

THE EGYPTIANS

58

The

Constantinople temple, It is

Museum's Sculpture Gallery (3) comes from a which it was probably taken in Byzantine times.

colossal scarab seen in the to

(By contrast, you can

the largest in the world.

Room,

Jewel

see in the

a

gem in a rich clear blue glass.) Under King Amenhetep III, an issue of scarabs (4) was designed to com/ memorate events he considered historic. Some are extremely rare, but the British Museum has assembled the entire collection. The events commemorated range from the King's marriages, to the giving of gifts to his Queens, to the number of lions or cattle he killed, to the digging of a pleasure lake for his chief Queen at Zarukha (a colossal feat, dug in seventy days) Though tiny, each scarab tells tiny scarab

!

the

whole

story.

Another Museum scarab has

a special history.

reported thousands of years ago.

and

thieves were captured stealing the scarab in

can

Now we It

was

come

it

which record

remarkable bird, the

the help of the four gods

sounds made by

was

the Ibis

in another. In the

own

Museum we

Ibis,

which was

sacred to Thoth.

world from an egg. This was

and four goddesses

whom he produced from

voice. Together, the nine created the

world and

later,

credited with developing manifold talents: he invented hierogly/

was

phics, he

his

The

the story.

credited by the Egyptians with hatching the

done with

had been

theft

recorded on papyri - they admitted

one tomb and dropping

to a

Rumours of a

court of inquiry had been appointed.

their confessions

scarab and the papyri

see the

A

the seat of learning

and he was

wife was her husband's 'shadow' or 'double',

the scribe of the gods. Thoth's

known

as the 'Mistress

of the

House of Books'. It

was somehow decided

that the

hippopotamus was

a female.

Thoeris

is

always seen as a long/breasted beast, nearly always standing upright and always

heavy with child

potamus red

(5).

My

and yellow

statue,

is

Heqet was a lady frog grain and

its

final

example

in the

Museum

is

a small hippo/

-a

large

also striking.

who

represented the embryonic state between a living

germination, which took place

she too symbolized

Even

favourite

in rich, clear blue glass, but another in the Sculpture Gallery

fertility,

the vile scorpion

when

fecundity, birth, renewed

was

decomposed. Thus,

it

life.

deified. Selkis's function

was

to protect the

con/

jugal union (stinging the adulterer, no doubt)

The

bull Apis,

is

Honoured through

today's best/known sacred animal.

Egypt, he was always black and easily recognizable by certain mystic marks a :

white triangle on his forehead, the figure of a vulture in crescent hairs.

moon on

He

his right flank, a scarab

too had his

own

temple, from

crocodile, his presence in the courtyard

on

his

which he was

made

flight

tongue - and a let

on

tail

his back, a

with double

loose daily: like the

the temple a place of pilgrimage.

5.

Thoeris, goddess of childbirth,

represented as pregnant, female

hippopotamus; faience

At

Saqqarah, mummified bodies of huge bulls were found

in vast

subterranean

chambers. Their burial had followed resplendent funerals on immense, moncv lithic

sarcophagi.

The

cows of Memphis

sacred

also

had

their

own

vast cata-

combs.

Edjo and Nadjet) deserves a chapter on

Buto, the cobra (also called so

complex

fertility.

is

Soon,

its

place

fear

among

became

the

the gods. In early times

it

was

overwhelming obsession. In order

away, emblems of the cobra were put on

much

its

own,

associated with to

keep snakes

of the furniture. Believing in

magic, they thought that by throwing a boomerang round a bed - thereby

marking out a of its

evil

particular territory

- no snake would dare

cross the line.

Because

power, the snake was a sign of sovereignty and royalty.

Snakes were

also

worn

as

charms and jewels, and snake-amulets were always mummified cobras. Buried in the earth - from

buried near the dead along with

which

serpents

came

forth

-

the dead were especially exposed to danger.

coiled snake that once decorated the fusion: today,

it

brow of royal

statues

is

The

with us again in pro-

appears as a jewel of sudden and somewhat inexplicable

popularity.

Khnum,

the ram-headed,

is

thought

to

have moulded

man on a potter's wheel!

But three other animal gods had the most thankless assignment of all: they (and a fourth, a

human god) were

from the corpse,

protectors of the viscera of the dead. After removal

these organs

were always placed in four special

jars (the so-

6.

The

so'called

jackaL-headed

called

;

Canopic Jars showing from left to right, Hapi, babooivheaded Duamutef, humaivheaded god; and Qebhsenuef, who has a falcon head ;

Imsety, a

'Canopic Jars' -

(6)

),

A human god watched

with heads of different gods.

over the liver; Qebhsenuef, falcon/headed, over the intestines; Hapi, the baboon/-

headed, guarded the lungs; and Duamutef,

who had

a jackal's head, had

charge of the stomach.

There

are

many

other animal gods but

I

have mentioned those that are the

most numerous in the Museum.

Death Burial

was of supreme importance.

things that no

man wanted an of

idyllic reconstruction

its

Life

on

the rich land

was

so full of

good

which did not contain an Everything to ensure it went into a

existence after death

best elements.

man's tomb. If you

were a king or a noble, in death

mere commoner - and

as in life,

you expected a fuller

for this reason, all the best

went

than a

life

Who/

into such graves.

tomb was a privilege. If nobleman wanted his name

ever he was, every Egyptian aspired to continuity, but a

a

man was

poor, he might be buried in the Nile.

to survive, his

body

to

remain

regularly supplied. Texts were

ings were also

would be

left

carried

so that,

intact left

A

and the food and drink he loved

in each

tomb

to

make

by some magic, the form of

certain of this.

life

to

be

Draw/

so deftly illustrated

on posthumously.

7.

Mummy and

coffin

of unnamed

priestess

THE EGYPTIANS

62

body (7) by embalming was so important for the after-life became one of the principal aims of funerary practice at a very early period.

Preservation of the that

it

Removal of internal organs Preparing the body

for

dates

from the Fourth Dynasty.

interment was a process which took seventy days, half

of this time being devoted to drying the body

after viscera

removed. That was one method. The other was

Only the

natron and water.

was dissolved with

and

lotions.

abdomen was

first

to dry the

body,

filled

Most

to dissolve fats

with crushed myrrh,

body was sewn up. Each

the

inside.

After the viscera were removed, the

washed with palm wine and then

and other aromatics. Then

left

with an iron hook; what was

nostrils

Natron was used

to leave the skin supple but not tender.

cassia

soak the body in a solution of

to

of understanding, was

heart, the seat

of the brain was withdrawn through the left

and brain had been

finger

and each

A

was bandaged, then each limb and finally the whole body. king's arms would be covered in jewels, his toes and fingers sheathed in gold. Across the toe

waist and body, bits of gold and glazed beads and necklaces and daggers were

Tutankhamen's

placed.

mummy

the most exquisite

is

Whatever organs were removed were animal'headed

jars in the

tomb

treated

example anywhere.

with natron and buried in the

Often the body cavity was packed with

itself.

linen (sometimes with sawdust or sand), then the incision

covered with a plate of leather or metal. put over

it

for protection. Eye-sockets

artificial eyes.

series

The body was

The

was sewn up and

eye of falcon^headed

were plugged with wads of linen or given

anointed, spiced and resined and then

of bandages not only to protect

Horus was

it

wrapped

in a

but to build up the bulk and form of the

deceased.

Sacred animals of appropriate protective genius were mummified and buried

own

in their

cemeteries, with every effort

made,

as in

humans,

to

produce a

mummy that was convincing in appearance. The Mummy Room, for me, a sombre experience- so much beauty painted

wrapped

is

on

the outside wrappings,

but with

all

those

human

T. E. Lawrence once exclaimed about a certain

bones beneath. Yet,

mummy,

'This

is

the

most

beautiful thing I've ever seen!'

Afterlife

Simple people were buried with

pottery, jugs, tools, utensils

and even baskets of

food and drink. Kings and nobles buried pieces of furniture, chests of clothing

and

all

those other objects of value

without.

Of

shawabtis

and

which such

a person

would

not

want

to

be

particular importance were the tiny shabtufigures (later called ushabtis)

the deceased (8).

which went

They were placed

into

tombs

there to

to act as slaves

and workers

do the manual work

that the

for

Egyp^

!

THE EGYPTIANS would be

tians believed life

on

as necessary in the

Underworld

earth: rehabilitating the land, irrigating

Some

the building of dikes, cutting canals.

it,

shabtis

as

it

63

had been during

carrying sand and stones in

were carved

in

wood

is

the only docu'

or stone,

but the majority were of faience.

A

new

papyrus, recently added to the

ment of its kind. nobleman: one

for

sisting often lines

explains so

and

much

figures

to

by

That

role in the

fertile

life, art

of sale,

five

inches high by nine inches wide and con^

Museum

about the origin of these 401 figures -

know for one man

green,

bill

of hieratic, just bought by the

the process by

wanted

collection,

of 401 shabtufigures buried with a

set

each day of the year plus thirty^six extras to act as foremen or

This small

overseers.

Museum

the original bill for a

It is

which magic was imparted a

hundred

papyrus -

years

how

and industry of a

to

is,

in fact, the

how

key which

they were obtained

them. Egyptologists have

about the curious purchase of hundreds of

few other plants have played so dominant a civilization!

Tied together, stems of papyrus

supported roofs of early houses. Later, they were replaced by carved stone replicas of an

together,

8.

enormous

scale to

uphold

roofs of great temples. Papyrus,

formed boats. The outer bark made

A shabti of Amenhetep

III

crates, baskets

and even

bundled

furniture.

—

"

—

w

I

«^yt 9.

Fowling

And

in a

fresco

from the tomb of Nebamun;

c.

1400 B.C.; XVIIIth dynasty

from the pith of the stems came the writing-paper

Papyrus leave the first

marsh;

coffin^texts insured a

tomb when

necessary.

good

life

Among

and

for the scrolls.

also gave the

dead the power

those displayed in the

insurance policy in the world, a document belonging to a

and guaranteeing him protection against accidental

would have been tomb'papyrus

is

the broker,

no doubt enjoying

illness or

harm.

a lucrative sideline.

the oldest mathematical treatise, telling

volume of a pyramid. The oldest crossword puzzle on - dated about 1 100 B.C.

how

earth

is

to

Museum is the Crown Prince

A

priest

Another

to calculate the

there

-

or

is it

an

acrostic?

Of the

painted frescoes which decorated the tombs of noblemen, the most

beautiful in the displays:

I

Museum are somewhat hidden

in

urge you to go behind to see them.

quisitely painted

window on

an upper room by a corridor of

One,

nature: rows of trees are

'/« the set

Garden,

is

an ex^

out in a square, sur^

THE EGYP1 ASS

65

I

rounding a pool

which

in

geese are walking, instead of

Another

lovely painting

hunter

is

which

The boomerang it

as

it

flics at

counted

geese are lined

up

it,

colouring and

and gay.

playful

(their

which

a bird, stuns

The

falls.

Other wall/frescoes show scenes indicating taxation are

must be a

there

tossing the serpent'boomerang

is

Two

the water.

a light/footed cat leaps high to retrieve

composition

harmony.

in poetic

a fowling scene (9) for

represents the destruction of evil forces.

and

lilies live

swimming, on

is

The

magical explanation.

and

birds

fish,

humped backs showing

In one, cattle

reports.

Asian

their

origin).

In another,

such profusion and with such elegance, one gasps

in

in

admiration. In most, one finds the nobleman watching the exercise, and usually also the scribe frescoes

The

still

who

grows

is

there to record

in

The

it.

wheat

lovely bearded

in these

ancient

Egypt today.

Egyptian's greatest contribution to world culture was his

art,

characterized

by great dignity, an exquisite sense of design and colour, and impeccable Painters in those days sented, to

to give a

maximum

taste.

view of everything they repre^

with the day's acceptance o^ magic. In

in

tie

had

their

mixed thinking,

they painted faces only in profile and bodies only in front view (as in a beautiful

banquet scene on a wall-painting from a tomb musicians are in

profile, in the

stiff,

head has one eye staring straight the

same lovely

maidens

manner of the

day.

in profile.

of in the required

He

also

profile,

one could

see the full ear

showed shadows under

by showing two

their toes

- an unusual

ears, for instance,

from the front view. Kings, being gods and never

mere mortals, were always sculptured dead mobile, imprisoned in a rigid

girl

profiled

and by painting the dancers

touch of realism. Sculptors had other traditions: they carved so that

Each

the viewer, as, for example, in Picasso. In

scene, the painter bravely flaunted innovation

full face, instead

with bodies

at

stylized

Thebes). All but two

in

style.

straight

and head on,

inv

totally

Only an occasional face shows an unexpected

dose of realism, solemn but not pompous, serious but never sad. Royal dignity required no rich garment or lavish dress.

we know we

are in the presence of kings.

of royal portraits.

Men

Though looking

One

is

at

nearly

overwhelmed by

were kings mainly by hereditary

naked men,

the solemnity

privilege.

All

are

inv

pressive.

The Sculpture coffins,

Gallery

is

an amazing experience. Starting with the huge

one then comes upon the Rosetta Stone, about which a book could be

written, then the colossus of the

picked by Ruskin

Shabaka Stone. The

as 'the noblest

and

truest

large,

carved lions

I

recumbent have ever

lions seen.

were

And

THE EGYPTIANS

66

yet, in

them, the

smooth

as

lions'

manes and beards

as a mirror.'

These lions

completed by King Amenhetep

and

On

was

temple in Nubia (10), then captured

end of the

the other

years later.

Tutankhamen's time and

finished in

spectrum,

art

These

sions of simple, poorer people.

human

III for a

we

When recaptured,

back

carried

find a folk^art in the

and

are the free

to

Nubia.

tombed

posses*-

unfettered records of the

many musical

conditions of their time. There were so

must have dearly loved music (but no one has been able played - there

by rings of solid rock

importance because one was

away by an Ethiopian king a thousand

carried

a second

are represented

are of artistic

instruments, they

reproduce what they

to

no key). They loved games. Draught-boards and even a sort of parchesi and backgammon were found - even a 'snakes and ladders' carved in stone - with a snake actually forming the pattern. We can see wooden figures is

demonstrating wine being made, bread being baked (loaves of bread 3500 years old were found

at

Thebes),

men making beer

and

sailed boats

and made sandals.

the bakery

have often watched

I

(the brewery

- and depended on both)

the granary

women

gallery visitors.

;

ranked second only were fished

eels

They always

we go back

to

men

try to locate the

no doubt by

things of cosmetic value to the fabled Egyptian beauties (inspired

Cleopatra films). For genuine evidence

for,

found in

to the objects

tombs. Perfumes and cosmetics were once so costly they were sometimes stolen

One tomb

in preference to gold.

gems

the

able oils for

first

(Tutankhamen's), twice invaded,

time round. Next time, gems and

and cosmetic ingredients

removal. Over a century

later,

stolen instead

The

we

as

understand

not yet developed. All smell

might have used but

and poured

gold and

for the

valu^

into leather gourds

from

original oily fingerprints are

if

we

it,

this very

still

visible

gone and no analysis can be made of what they

is

look

did not then exist; distillation processes were

at

the paintings, royal

of some son and ancient tools of beauty just are highly polished

cheek and

Women fat

lost

behind

left

the leather gourds.

Perfume,

to

were

stolen tubes of kohl (eye^paint)

grave were found in another tomb.

on

gilt

women

now. In

sticks to help a

oils in great

their

A few years ago, when

ramout nails

in

woman

perfumes the jewels

apply rouge

quantity then, often placing

little

cones of scented

heads to melt in the heat and trickle over face and body!

Women hennaed their hair and also painted their nails and dye.

are using

room with

the

lips.

used

on top of

bronze mirrors and also

as

I

hands with the same

attended a secret nuptial ceremony in the

Hadlv

South Arabia, the hennaed thirteen^year^old bride was having her

and hands painted by her attendants

precisely as

we

believe the ancient

Egyptians did. If

one looks

at the

masks over queens'

coffins,

no

further evidence

is

needed

The Prudhoe Lion

io.

sculpted for the

tomb of Amenhetep

III; red granite

of the importance of eye make-up: blue-glass paste, like lapis lazuli, encircle eyes, the sort

of skilful use of colour which must have been every beautiful

woman's aim. The make-up was kept

in

little

jars

and applied with

little

ebony

sticks.

If

use

one wonders

was

why

restricted to

jewellery

was

all

so lavish

(n and

12),

it

is

because

its

kings and their families, or to priests and functionaries of the

Court. Most of these gems,

as far as

I

am

concerned, defy written or even photo-

graphic description; the combination of colour plus texture plus scale gives so

much

to the eye.

Very often jewels were made in the shape of petals, flowers, bells, lotus pods, fish - the beautiful elements of everyday life. But often they were animal gods and

The colours mainly They were mainly made in stone,

abstract forms (like a certain T/shape, of special meaning).

represented the earth, greenery, sky

and

sea.

otherwise in glaze, sometimes in cloisonne.

THE EGYPTIANS

68

At

only a blue or a green colour could be achieved in a glaze, the colours

first,

that

came from

it is

always there because the Egyptians

tiny doses. Later, the art of glazing

was

blue, violet, livid appk'green, bright

brownish

reds,

the metal of the sun they royalty after the to

is

knew

their

canny use of blue;

the impact of the colour even in

brilliantly perfected

and we

see purple^

chrome^ and lemon^yellows, crimson and

and even chalkvwhite. All

artists

benefited.

many ways a favourite as it was thought to be worshipped. Gold became plentiful for the use of

Silver, called 'white gold',

pieces today

might note

a copper base. Artists today

was

in

Nubian mines came under Egyptian control. To see these realize how incorruptible gold is, how endowed with perman/

ence.

Faience,

made of powdered

quartz,

and

fame), was covered with alkaline glaze to

lime,

make

and natron (of embalming

beads.

A splendid job of imitate

ing lapis lazuli was also achieved. Precious stones were not 'home-grown': real lapis lazuli

came from Afghanistan emeralds came from Upper Egypt, ;

limited supply; turquoise

came from

the Sinai or

Arabia;

from the wadis of southern Egypt; obsidian and volcanic

But the

Such

real

crystal

glass

in very

and amethysts

from Ethiopia.

beauty lay in the simple objects into which they were fashioned.

creativity

and

taste surely

influenced

art for centuries

- and continues

inspire us, even today.

1

c.

1.

Necklace of gold and carnelian beads, and gold earrings;

New Kingdom;

1200 B.C. (above)

12.

Blue faience beads and amulets (hawks, and

artists);

XVHIth

dynasty;

c.

1400 B.C. (below)

figures

of Ptah, the patron of artisans and

to

I

i

S9WJ^

*

Chapter Five

The Greeks Tyrone Guthrie

The Elgin Marbles

are

some of the

finest

marble

are a series of sculptures; a frieze in

Parthenon

Athens. They

in

works of art

are also the

ever shaped in stone.

relief which

crown of the

came

originally

British

They

from the

Museum's Greek

collection.

To time

we must look back to Athens as it was 400 when the city was at the height of its glory. At that

understand their significance

years before the birth of Christ

was not

it

states,

the capital of Greece but the most important of several

Greek

city

each of them independent politically and economically, but united by a

common language and close ties of religion, history and culture. Athens acquired its

leading role

(500-449

after

playing a major part in the defeat of the Persian invaders

B.C.). In the

Age

of Pericles, and in the century that followed, she

and

enjoyed her greatest period of intellectual,

artistic

Parthenon was

and philosophers

and

Socrates,

created the

and dramatists such

Athenian

art

and

what has come

influence on

Towards

built, sculpture flourished,

the

end of the

to be called

fifth

which exhausted both Sparta art,

no

cities

literature,

which have had

a

predominant

'Western' thought and imagination.

century B.C. Athens city state.

was involved

in a long/

Sparta was victorious in a struggle

and morally. And what is no tangible sign of its former glory - no

physically, financially

A scattered hamlet with

now?

The

Anaxagoras

like

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides

as

institutions

drawn-out war with Sparta, another

political activity.

nothing but the legend of

its

victory,

which

has, ironically,

survived as a part of Athenian history.

Perhaps the greatest single monument to Athenian civilization is the Parthenon,

begun

in

450 B.C. and dedicated in 438 B.C. Greek artists and possibly the

greatest of the

age.

He was appointed

the Parthenon

was

by Pericles

to

It is

the

greatest

work of Phidias, one of the of all

artists in

erected as a temple for

Athene, goddess of wisdom and

patron deity of Athens. Phidias suffered a harsh reward for his

accused of introducing Pericles and his

and he died

stone of any

superintend the adornment of Athens, and

own

likeness

on the

efforts.

He was

shield of the goddess

in prison.

The Parthenon,

erected

on the Acropolis, dominates the

edifice of matchless architectural

city. It is

a gigantic

proportion which took some fourteen years to

^^r

Bronze head of Apollo, from Tamassus, Cyprus;

Greek;

Clay

c.

toilet

(pyscis)

460 B.C.

box with

lid

on which stand

four horses;

Attic Geometric,

760-740 B.C.

~*F:

THE GREEKS

72

During

build.

was used mosque.

its

history

has served

it

many gods.

In the

Christian church. In the fifteenih century

as a

has not survived unscathed though most of the

It

The worst of it occurred

it

became

damage

a Turkish

man-made.

is

when Venetian cannon bombarded an occupy-' much of the sides.

1687

in

century the building

fifth

ing force of Turks and a great explosion destroyed the roof and

The Elgin

Marbles, the work of Phidias and his fellow craftsmen, are frag'

ments, some taken from the fabric of the Parthenon, others salvaged from

The

ruins.

formed a

panels, each about three feet by four, once

frieze

its

which ran

round the tops of the columns supporting the temple. They represent a procession

which one can view almost other right I

am

round the

like a strip cartoon,

vast rectangle

following

it

from one end

not going to say that to the uninstructed eye the frieze

and

beautiful

interesting.

It is

to the

of the colonnade.

not one of those sights

immediately

is

which evoke

instinctive

and

primitive reactions of awe and pleasure. But then, reaction to great works of art is

primitive and

far less

them

more

intellectual,

and one cannot expect

Many

masted sailing-ship.

people never get further than liking what they think

they ought to like. So-called 'popular' art (and entirely of currently acceptable

There

are considerably

for years after they crashed

now

colourless,

brilliantly

and

realistically

them no more than is

mean 'Pop'

don't

art) consists

the Elgin Marbles are not in this category. For

damaged; many of the panels

lay

on

the

ground

from the top of the colonnade. For another, they

whereas originally they, and the temple

as a

are

whole, were

coloured. Finally, they are enormously elaborate and

which means they

detailed

I

and popular images of beauty.

why

are several reasons

one thing they

to appreciate

one can enjoy the sight of a basket of kittens or a great four'

just as easily as

are barely intelligible to a visitor

a casual glance, unless the visitor

is

who

allocates to

aware of who and what

illustrated.

Apart from

the panels

groups of statuary,

several

which make up

much

larger than life-size,

the pediment or gable of the Parthenon.

dominant position

the frieze, the Elgin Marbles include

in the architectural

which

Judging by

originally decorated

their proportions

and decorative scheme, we can

they represent deities of great importance. But

it

is

and

their

infer that

no longer possible

be

to

certain because the remains are too fragmentary.

These

statues are considered

be absolute masterpieces.

I

by those

can't see

perhaps one might appreciate

if they

who know

them except

a great deal as

were.whole. But

more than

I

to

mutilated objects which it ill

becomes ignorance

to

be other than humble. Let us accept them as masterpieces and be grateful that

even so

much

Grateful to

given his

has been preserved.

whom?

name

Bronze head of a Greek,

c.

to the collection.

griffin

650 B.C.

Well, in the

first

place to the seventh Earl of Elgin

He was

British

Ambassador

to

who

Turkey

from the rim of a cauldron; probably found in Rhodes;

at

has the

4

^ w

i

\

i

n

V

v

V)

k •^-v

r

J

Hermes

(left),

herald

and messenger of the gods, distinguished by

his traveller's boots,

cloak and hat. Dionysus (right), god of wine; Elgin Marbles, East Frieze

time

when Greece was under Turkish domination. About 1800 he

Athens and finding destroyed, he to

set

works of

that unparalleled

visited

were in danger of being

art

himself the task of acquiring the treasures and removing them

England. Shortly

compensated Elgin

after the

for the

completion of

his mission the British

Treasury

.£35,000 he had spent and the Marbles became the

property of the nation.

A

contemporary caricature

is

pay money

for stones,

when

to

his children

on the argument

criticism of Elgin centred

us the popular

angrily remonstrating with Milord

John Bull

compelled

Museum shows

in the British

reaction to the purchase.

at

being

need bread. Subsequently,

had no

that Britain

right to take poS'

session of the artistic achievements of poorer countries. In fairness to Elgin

should be remembered that the Marbles,

damaged, would almost

Athens fact

until the

ground down

Of course,

certainly

end of Turkish

this

to

many

have been destroyed

Some

rule.

Government were

to return the

the Parthenon but

would merely be

exists.

Marbles set

to

they had remained in

up

Now

The

cords by

or by painting; Elgin Marbles,

which

is

argued that

if

the British

museum where they would we pursue this line of reasoning

in another if

they were held were represented either by bronze

South Frieze

in procession, Elgin Marbles,

it

Greece they could not be replaced on

be seen by fewer people than they are today. But

Horsemen

if

of the statues that remained were in

make cement.

danger no longer

Heifers led to sacrifice.

it

of which were already severely

(opposite above)

North Frieze

(opposite below)

THE GREEKS

76 to

its

logical conclusion,

all

must be centralized

artifice

the wealthiest

the most interesting

who

communities

and beautiful products of human

few huge museums, colossally endowed by

in a very

can ensure that the treasures are

safely

housed

and splendidly displayed. Suppose were

that,

during the next 500

years, the artistic

stupendous museums,

to be collected into four

Wouldn't

achievements of humanity say,

Kansas City, Lenin'

be rather hard on

cities like Paris,

to be forced to sell their treasures,

and be deprived

grad, Peking and Melbourne.

Vienna, Munich or London

it

of a considerable and growing tourist revenue and,

still

more, of their contri'

bution to the general enrichment of the native scene? Moreover,

isn't there

some^

my

view,

thing rather dull about collections so vast as to overwhelm visitors? In

even the National Gallery in London, or the Louvre, or the Metropolitan

Museum

of Art in

comprehensible,

New

if far

I

think there

national fund for the return of works of

where they were

created.

is

;

if

more

they were split into

a great deal to be said for an inter'

art to

Meanwhile,

Lord Elgin who, perhaps because line

enjoyable, as well as

fewer pictures were to be seen

several smaller collections.

places

much more

York, would be

points as close as possible to the let

us be thankful to people like

they were fortunately placed well above the

of mere economic survival, were able to take long views.

The

British

collection should,

long view. There

to take the

object

Museum

over 3000 years old.

is

of very great significance. of no great

It is

But what might seem

materials

wood,

Greek

in the

say that

section in

mere antiquity

easy to imagine, for instance,

which

every

not necessarily

is

some modern thing

under a buttress of some immensely deep and strong

a beer'barrel, say, stored cellar.

room

a

other things, teach us also

value surviving, by a lucky accident, another thousand years;

artistic

object could not

is

You might

among

would be

to

us,

contemporaries, a perfectly ordinary

its

The made of

be of surpassing interest to our distant successors.

fail to

studied and expert assessments published

a material derived

from

trees

which

in those days covered

('It is

wide

tracts

of the

bound by hoops made of what they used to call iron'). There would be speculation as to its use. It would throw some tiny light on the great darkness which by then would have descended upon world's surface, and

ingeniously shaped and

it is

twentietlvcentury civilization.

Now

suppose the passage of another 2000 years and the inevitable

antiquities during this period

through destruction and decay.

almost inconceivable that survival like the beer/barrel

under a

for so

buttress.

things

which

why

a wise

Clay drinking.>cup

man

(kylix),

does not look

figure

of

to

be

in a fireproof vault;

and

affection.

a very ancient relic in a spirit of trivial

from Camirus Rhodes; Aphrodite riding on a goose; painted by

the Pistoxenos Painter; Attic,

Bronze

at

loss it

survive will have been

box

objects chosen for preservation because they inspire reverence is

hold

long could be just a matter of chance,

The

deliberately preserved; precious objects in an air-tight

This

I

c.

460 B.C.

{above)

of a warrior on horseback; from Lucania; Greek,

c.

550 B.C. {below)

/

A

/

*

\

Marble

statue

of Demeter, from Cnidus in Asia Minor; Greek;

Marble

figure

of a

curiosity.

To

woman, from Amorgos; 2800-2500

have survived

proportion of British the

at all

Museum

it

c.

330 B.C.

{left)

B.C. {right)

must once have been very precious.

A high

exhibits were objects that were highly valued by

Greeks because they were connected with

religion.

The Greeks were

a god'

haunted people. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing, the fiftlvcentury

Athenian

felt

himself to be in the invisible but awe-inspiring presence of a deity.

He acquired as 'the first

and

most of his theological ideas from the greatest of

European

poets'.

Homer who has been described Homer preceded the great days

of Classical Athens by four centuries but he was thought to enshrine

and knowledge and and cultural

life.

the Iliad

and

all

wisdom

the Odyssey were the basis of Greek education

In fact, these epic

poems were

the Bible of the Greeks.

The Homeric concept of religion was founded on

the concept of a great family

Multiple clay vase, perhaps for offerings;

c.

2000 B.C.

Boy (kouros) probably ;

from Boeotia

in Central

Greece, marble;

c.

560 B.C.

who lived on the top of Mount Olympus. Zeus, perhaps better known by his later Roman name, Jupiter, was king or father of the gods. The queen and mother, wife of Zeus, was Hera. The other principal gods, who were regarded of gods

as the

children of Zeus and Hera, were a brilliant but tumultuous brood, boiling

with very

human

passions and totally unrestrained by the

human

discipline of

conscience.

There were to

deities in

connection with just about every place and event, not

mention physical and mental

qualities.

There was

a goddess of wisdom called

Athene, a god of light and thence of enlightenment or knowledge called Apollo; jollity

and intoxication; gods of the

earth, the sea

the sunless land under the earth

where the dead were believed

to live;

gods of war, of sleep, of social

and

of money, metalwork, the Greeks It is

felt

had

a

god

rivers, springs,

for

mountains and

.

.

.

you name

very far

away from divine supervision and a theology

that

during the

ever

protection or divine disapproval

still

practised today.

believe that intellectuals like Sophocles, Euripides, Plato

of extensive sections

no one

was perhaps somewhat primitive but no more

so than naive forms of Christianity

sceptically to claims

it,

it.

easy to appreciate that in the midst of this profusion of deities,

and vengeance. Such

way

valleys

gods

Also

there

is

reason to

and Thucydides reacted

made on behalf of the Homeric deities in much the same Renaissance educated men began to doubt the literal truth of the Bible. But that did not mean that the most brilliant

of the Athenians treated religious ideas lightly and with disrespect.

;

THE GREEKS They were aware, about

all

as are the greatest

minds of today, of how

the great metaphysical problems - what

becomes of us,

know from

if anything,

when our

the tragedies of Aeschylus, huripides

works of Plato

the philosophical

realization of how deeply

we

are,

comes

present existence

institutions

why we to

we know what

are,

an end.

and Sophocles

And we

as well as

from

was balanced by

that their scepticism

Athenian

little

8l

the

and thought were permeated by

traditional religious beliefs.

For instance

it

is

one thing

Aeschylus

for

towards greater mastery of his environment and thence of divine authority.

It is

the greatest poets

man

to greater

and philosophers

attitudes to the

and

independence

man

mind

to free

All Athenians, from

beliefs.

in the street

of being surrounded by intangible but none the

he struggles

as

quite another for even the most intellectual

from widely accepted

itself entirely

Bound a

to express in Prometheus

highly sceptical, even satirical view of the attitude of Zeus to

were intensely aware

powerful intimations of

less

deity.

The contrast with our own times is immediately apparent. With the Church in work and play have become to a high degree secularized

decline, our activities in

divorced from spiritual and instead concentrated on material purposes. For reason

if for

darkness.

none other

And

that people

yet

who

it ill

becomes us

our attitude

lived so long

is

to regard

Greek culture

often unbearably

as a relic

smug. Wonderful, we think,

ago should have arrived

at

such

ideas,

wrought such miracles in stone and metal, and evolved such philosophy and - yes, actually, morals. Reflecting on the British

what,

if any,

Museum Greek

this

of pagan

collection

of our achievements will survive as long.

I

am bound

Have

could have

poetry, music,

to

wonder

there been any really

Coventry Cathedral, would you say? Or the new Euston Or the United Nations building in New York? Can we claim that Auden or Picasso or Benjamin Britten will last like Praxiteles, Phidias

great buildings?

Station? Eliot or

or Euripides?

We

with us but with

can only guess

posterity.

But

at

the answer.

if effort is

The

anything

to

final verdict

judge by

I

does not

would

rest

say that

our cultural bequest to posterity will be poorer than that of the relatively small city

of Athens in the hundred years from 450 to 350 B.C.

We are too concerned with material comforts and the search for leisure with the emphasis not on stimulation but relaxation. We have more than our fair share of vulgarity - in tion is

is

that

it

style

and

taste

and achievement. The value of the Greek

enduring and enriching - not just

for ever.

collect

gives us the chance to take an occasional refreshing glance at for

you and

me and

for

now, but

what

for life

and

Chapter Six

The Romans Robert Erskine

Of all

the peoples of Antiquity,

There

are,

it

is

true, aspects

we have most

in

common

with the Romans.

of their civilization that are abhorrent

to us.

They

accepted slavery in the natural order of things; they relished the horrors of the arena; they exposed future events

unwanted

from the

entrails

another intellectual climate. habits

would seem

children,

and they claimed

of sacrificed animals. But

From

the

Roman

and barbaric; our lack of interest

callous

and

precise.

in the

to the duties

They were an

Romans

theorized,

aged members

of friendship.

Roman,

energetic people, fortlv

They would

acted.

listen

appreciated that circumstances are constantly changing, their laws were

open

and

but would quickly become impatient for action. Because they

reason,

to

Where Greeks

age,

some of our own

not the differences between the texture of our society and the

it is

but the similarities that are most striking. right

was another

standpoint,

of our society for example, and our casual attitude

But

it

to be able to foretell

to interpretation

by

jurists,

and

cases

were argued on

their merits.

left

Their

armies were better trained and better organized than any other until modern

Local government was administered partly by professionals, and partly

times.

by elected amateurs, and religious

customs of

it

worked extremely

their provinces, except

well.

when

They it

tolerated the social

was considered

and

that they

endangered the unity of the Empire. possible to see the influence of the

It is still

Roman

engineers

on

the shape of

the landscape: the aqueducts to carry water into the cities; the harbours; the

famous

The scale of Roman land/drainage schemes compare own; canals were built and rivers were harnessed for

straight roads.

favourably with our transport;

and where barbarism threatened

the

Roman

walls and earthworks straddled the countryside. In the like temples, market-places, baths

and

private dwellings.

and

peace, miles of military cities,

Roman

there

is

communal works

theatres take precedence over palaces

The wealthy man was more

or restore a public building than to aggrandize his

thing

and

inclined to construct

own

house. In every'

evidence of a practical disposition, and a strong civic

sense.

In

its

hey-day, the

diverse character,

Roman Empire embraced many

peoples of completely

from the Celtic tribesmen of Britain

to the sophisticated

»—

If

i

IOT '

i.

Antistius Sarculo and his wife Antistia Plutia. Marble

two of their freedmen;

first

Greek townsmen of the Middle

security

it

down under

settle

East.

It is

the

Roman

Conquest was indeed

offered.

i

commemorative

relief erected

by

century B.C.

a testimonial to the Imperial policy

towards even the most distant provinces that content to

i

a

after the initial

conquest, most were

organization and to benefit from the

Roman

predilection, whether

it

was

a

prophylactic conquest to guarantee lasting safety from hostile neighbours, or

whether

it

theme of strove to

of

its

was conquest

Roman

make

for glory, or for profit.

history

their

But on the whole, the dominant

conquest in the pursuit of order.

is

world a well-regulated

The Romans

world adjusted

entity, a

to the

needs

inhabitants by careful legal sanctions, as well as a world improved by

practical efforts to diminish

its

geographical drawbacks.

It

was

as

much an

engineer's conquest of nature, as a soldier's conquest of nations.

The Roman

energy was self-generating.

No

god

Their sense of purpose grew entirely from the very alone

and but

knew

social it is

best.

Yet

at all stages in their history

problems similar

to

to their credit that the

than with private vainglory.

directed their tireless drive.

human

conviction that they

they were troubled by political

our own. Civil war was a constant occurrence

confrontation was more often to do with principle

r

2.

Roman

The

denarii

showing

portraits

foundations of

of Caesar, Brutus, and

Roman

this

Mark Antony

conscientiousness

lies

people like Antistius Sarculo, and his wife, Plutia. Here elderly people (i),

who

stare

conscious way. Sarculo

quality of self/dignity sion. for

if

a

wrought

There was no need

to

little

own

proclaims that

Roman

history, for

used to decision and responsibility:

which

it is

is

an

On

attractive

relieves his severe express

the contrary, he wears

his features,

them proudly

as a

The Romans were proud of themselves, their The crisp, factual style of the sculpture

their integrity.

couple lived through some of the most

this

of Julius Caesar,

man

smooth over the lines of age which furrow

individuality.

accomplishments and

a pair of formidable

grim. Nevertheless, there

into the portrait

he was not ashamed of them.

sign of his

of

out of their marble block in a completely unselfv

clearly a

is

and fair-minded,

reliable

is

in the character

dated between 40 and 30 B.C.

Pompey and

The

Brutus.

stirring times

of

They were contemporaries

inscription states that Sarculo

held a priesthood - more of a social or even political appointment than the

word

suggests today.

personal conscience.

Roman religion was As a public figure,

a religion of the State, rather than of

he would have had to support the

ancient Republican constitution, or accept the revolutionary rule of a single dictator.

In

dilemmas

the

fact,

that he experienced

troubled us in recent times. There

though we can be sure

Roman intention

is

to perpetuate

lived.

It

man

political leanings,

consistently good, because

man

as he really

he would like to be.

would have been

set

up

its

was, rather

As

a

tomb/

in or outside the family

by the side of the road leading into the town where he had

was doubly important

that the sculpture should express his features

with accuracy, so redolent of the austere

Roman

virtues.

Countless people

would judge his memory by his portrait, and the evidence of his would survive. It was usual for another head to be kept in the entrance/

passing by qualities

was

an honest vision of the

stone, the Sarculo sculpture

situated

too close to those that have

no record, however, of his

than to present him as a stereotype of the

mausoleum,

all

that he did not shirk his duty.

portrait/sculpture of this period

was

were

/

3.

Sardonyx cameo bust of the Emperor Augustus (27 B.C. diadem was added in the Middle Ages

the gold

to a.d. 14)

wearing an aegis;

86

THE ROMANS

hall

of the family house, along with those of other distinguished ancestors of his

These were paraded

line.

in public

on

the occasion of family events such as

marriages and funerals, adding their collective authority to the

rites.

Here again,

tradition contributed to accuracy rather than flattery, for in earlier times

were of wax, possibly even death/masks. By the

seems that these

effigies

century B.C. the

waxwork

retains the literal

technique of its prototype.

Through feel

has given

portraits like Sarculo's

the presence of the

man behind

way

to

more permanent

which

stone,

still

Romans face to face, and But we can carry the familiarity

we can meet the stone.

the

even further, and actually hear them talking through the private

have come

it

first

letters that

down to us. They are another manifestation of that interest in we have observed in the portraits. Throughout the Roman

personality that

period, there

was

a ready market in literary circles for the collected correspond

dence of famous people, because

it is

man's

in a

letters that

he reveals his character

best of all.

The outstanding Roman

who was

was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the lawyer,

letter/writer

a contemporary of Sarculo's.

His

friends were especially

letters to

valued because they were written in a relaxed, colloquial

more formal

and

essays

legal speeches.

many of the

luminary, and he writes to

on them and

we

the events in

In addition, he was himself a great

principal figures of his day, or

which he and

his

Romans

they were to the

awkward

an

argument and

visit

8

affable.

December,

which he himself was there were. ...

again on your

was

And He

largely

I

They

He

way

about

to

it

describes with relief the progress of

When

he had arrived

crowded with

at

power:

Philippus' house on the

soldiers that the

room

dine could scarcely be kept clear; two thousand

wasn't a guest to back.'

the height of his

at

was

so

are as fascinating to us as

whom

you would

Once is enough. Our talk

literature. In short,

say,

'Do

please

in

men

come

kept off serious topics and

he was delighted and enjoyed himself.

of Pompey the Great, whose cause he supported, he says sadly has no graciousness, no straightforwardness, no principles in politics,

no glamour But

He

men who were shaping Rome's

from the dictator Caesar, himself,

Caesar proved most evening of

in civil war.

themselves.

comments

contemporaries are involved. There

can find the most intimate glimpses of the

destiny in political

style in contrast to his

after his

or strength or generosity.

ignominious death

never had any doubt

about

his fate: in

my

in Egypt,

Cicero

how Pompey would

relents a little

end. ...

I

cannot help being sorry

experience he was an honest, clean and upright man.

.

.

:

4.

Bronze head from a

When

Caesar used

.

later, in

own

a

makes no

wants

letter to

it

difference

.

that

man

wants: but what'

Brutus himself:

You'll be crushed, Brutus,

His hatred of Mark Antony

damned madman' he

what

passionately.'

disagree violently with you, Brutus: .

century a.d.

words:

to say, 'It

ever he wants, he

I

first

writing of Brutus, a principal figure in Caesar's murder, he actually

quotes the victim's

And

of the Emperor Augustus; Roman,

statue

calls

is

him

if

I

do not admit your doctrine of mercy.

you don't take

care.

evident throughout the correspondence: 'This

THE ROMANS

88

The swashbuckler

out for blood.

is

den of vice and drunkenness. Caesar was

still

.

.

.

No

.

somehow: he I

.

.

.

Her

[he says]

insolence,

dealings with that

lot.

They seem

when

was

she

living in Caesar's

I

cannot

recall

to

think

have not only no

I

without indignation. spirit,

but

feelings at all.

There

are hopeful

Caesar intended

words about Octavian,

only hope that

who

and

as his successor,

The boy Caesar I

slighted Cicero

certainly never forgave her:

hate the queen.

no

one almost wishes

Queen of Egypt, had

house in the gardens beyond the Tiber,

So no

could he study anything in a

that at times

here.

seems that Cleopatra, the scheming

It

How

.

.

wonder

inherited his

to

name

has natural strength of character to an extraordinary degree;

when he

is

we may

height of honour and popularity

at the

we have

be able to guide and control him as easily as

him up

young man who

the promising

been able to control

now

In the event, Cicero turned out to be absolutely wrong. 'The boy Caesar' grew

up

to

be the most ruthless politician of them

Antony

the opportunity to have Cicero

of tyranny out of the way. Later on,

all

:

for

it

was he who gave Mark

murdered and

Mark Antony

also

get this constant critic

succumbed

vailing fashion for violent death, leaving 'the boy Caesar' high

summit of power, During

to

the Civil

become

Wars

the

first

Roman

own

populace and

propaganda was the coinage. But the

was a

have

to

the

Emperor, the Emperor Augustus.

medium (2)

at

the principal contenders wished to advertise their

features to the general

available for

to the pre'

and dry

to their

tiny silver coin, roughly the size

troops,

and

the only mass'

Roman

denarius

of a new penny: here the

portraits

be simplified caricatures, for there was no room for a more detailed

treatment.

Still,

the coins project each personality with great clarity

us immediately to sense the energy

5.

and

Bronze

initiative

sestertius

Emperor Nero 6. Silver

:

of Caesar; the dogged rectitude

showing a

portrait

of the

(left)

cup with

a repousse decoration

from a littk'known legend; Roman,

showing

first

A

millefiore (glass)

(opposite below)

a scene

century B.C.

or A.D. (opposite above)

7.

they enable

bowl from Alexandria

THE ROMANS

90

of Brutus; and the self-indulgence of the horrible

Republican tradition for their

aim was

How

different

Augustus! Here with in

his

Mark Antony. The

continues in these minute

old

profiles,

of the people they represented.

to intensify the identity

the attitude expressed in the splendid cameo'portrait of

is

the very personification of autocratic rule that Cicero

is

(3)

Republican sympathies would have

handsome middle^age

'at

Roman

sudden the honest It

for vivid portraiture

also represents the

taste

at

the

Roman

the gifts for other kings

:

shows

It

corrupted by fulsome

is

new opulence

precious palace objects

detested.

the

Emperor

honour and popularity'. All of a

the height of his

homage

capital, for

and

to the ruler.

such cameos were

princes.

The

jewels in the

wreath are not original but were added in medieval times.

way

In private houses, too, frugal tastes give table

it

is

here (6)

is

:

Roman

the period of the finest

much

very

in

cup describes

a scene

the centre of the world, the poets

Golden Age,

silverware.

The

silver

keeping with the new age of Imperial

writing his Aeneid in the manner of the the outside of the

to ostentation at the dinner/

and

Homeric poems,

into his

is

just as the relief round

now

the unfolding of a

new

artists celebrate

in contrast to the horrors of the recent Civil

power

illustrated

rule. Virgil

from Greek mythology. In Rome,

Wars. Augustus

Pater Patriae- 'Father of his Country': the paternalistic despot

the reins of

cup

own hands

in the

name of

is

who has gathered and good

efficiency

government.

Meanwhile,

in the provinces, the

emphasizes the

Roman

presence.

quite out of place, for this

is

Emperor's

statue set

up

in countless temples

Here again, the ancient candour would be

art in the service

of the State: a propagandist

deliberately designed to impress the provincials with the

Emperor's god'like

omnipotence. The piercing gaze of the inlaid eyes promises security

and

to the loyal,

bronze head of Augustus (4) in the pan of such a statue set up on the very edge of the Roman

retribution to the rebellious.

fine

Museum is Aswan in Egypt. It was one of hundreds to be found in every corner of Roman world: indeed making Emperor^statues became a considerable

British

world the

The

at

industry. Inevitably, truth suffered at the expense of sensationalism in the still

art

temple was

now

a sculptural virtue,

out, the

head

is still

portraiture in

necessary to

and although

the

human

a reasonable likeness of

Roman

summarize

:

the statue

a symbol of Roman power. Nevertheless, accuracy was

blemishes have been doctored

Augustus. The tradition of literal

sculpture was so strong, that the his individual persona,

Emperor

still

felt

it

even in generalized icons such as

these.

Throughout

the

first

century A.D., the distinctive features of each emperor are

clearly portrayed, not only in the statues large,

bronze

sestertius (5),

provided a

but also on the coins.

better

format

A new coin, the

for the portrait in relief.

The

THE ROMANS Emperor Nero,

the last of Augustus's dynasty,

was content

admit

to

91

to his

bloated appearance. Something of his dangerous character clearly comes across,

and

no surprise

it is

death brought

of no

less

that he

than three successive emperors.

instrument, for a

a dagger in his overfed body. Nero's

was

The

in circulation.

bearing his head are not

his coins are rarer.

The mint

coins

his

again

are

the violent demise

coinage was always a his accession to the

Galba reigned

uncommon. Otho

for

vital political

Roman

people

only nine months,

lasted for three

months, and

never issued any bronze in his name, but his silver

denarii exist in considerable quantity. Vitellius yet

saw

the year a.d. 69

new emperor could prove

so long as his portrait yet coins

ended up with

war once again, and

civil

quite

plentiful

managed

today.

The

eight

months

in

power,

quantity of surviving

coins struck for these short-lived emperors stresses the importance of this

medium

of public relations: and, typically, the most powerful factor was the

portrait.

The

following century and a half

is

Rome's most prosperous

period.

Trade

flourished across a peaceful Empire, stretching from Britain to Arabia,

from Spain

to the

into the hostile

were even

8.

Red

German

Roman

pottery

from northern

Black Sea.

forests, the

goods found

Sudanese

lamp Italy

of Jupiter; early second

their

deserts,

trading stations in South India.

decorated with a head

century a.d.

Roman

way abroad

and

as well:

and Afghanistan. There

Roman

goods

are

somewhat

THE ROMANS

92

had

stereotyped, for they

to serve

such an extensive market: but even behind

mass-produced wares there lurks that individuality that animates every

these

Roman

object. In the

parts of the

Empire

first

place, there

was

a variety of choice, because different

specialized in certain classes of goods.

The Alexandrian made of rods of

glass/makers produced the elaborate 'millefiore' bowls (7),

coloured glass

all

fused together, a difficult process that has never properly

Roman times, they were much admired and were was common knowledge that they were Alexandrian

been mastered since. In extremely expensive. products,

It

and they needed no

articles often carry the

of commercial factory,

and

Bronze pans, similar labels.

The

rivalry.

is

betters-class pottery,

factories that

lamp

red pottery

stamped 'strobili' -

It is

identification.

further

brand^names of the

(8)

More commonplace made them, in a spirit

comes from a North

product) 'of Strobilus', on

(a

Italian

its

base.

wine^amphorae, and many other goods, bear

possible today to plot the particular trading pattern of a given

manufacturer from the examples of his product which crop up in archaeology.

Commercial

(9,

on

activity

Roman Empire was

this scale

and cover), excellent

soldiers, well trained

There were 6000 legionaries

in a

Legion, and

and

Roman

loyal to their

in the

were barbarians famous

adversaries

their

numbers. There were

much

defeats,

for

The

legionaries

commanders.

second century there were

Legions spread round the perimeter of the Empire. For the most

thirty

too

could only develop in peacetime.

fringed with enemies kept at bay by the

their

part,

bravery and enormous

of course. But on the whole such enemies were

of an uncoordinated rabble to match the discipline and energy of the

Legions. Josephus, the Jewish historian

who had seen them in action, recognized

the value of their training:

No

panic incapacitates them, no

men

truth to call their drills

For

all its size, this

many and

toil

wears them out, so that victory over

not so trained follows as a matter of course.

privileges,

legal

would be not

bloodless battles, their battles, bloody

was no army of anonymous multitudes.

such

as the right to a plot

advantages of

interest in the welfare

Roman

of land

citizenship.

after

Even

the

me

Sir, a

daughter's citizen status.

It

was

Emperor might take an

is

preserved.

Here

is

letters

shows:

interest in his

difficult to refuse, especially as

to

your

Some of the

I

know how

soldiers' requests.

Pliny the Younger, another celebrated letter/writer, was

men

A legionary enjoyed

centurion of the sixth cohort in the auxiliary

you give a sympathetic hearing

Bithynia by the Emperor Trajan.

from the

discharge, and the social

send you a petition begging your

to

far

drills.

of an individual soldier, as one of Pliny's

Publius Accius Aquila, cavalry, has asked

readily

It

made Governor of

correspondence between the two

the reply

9.

Bronze

statuette

of a

Roman

legionary; second century a.d.

i!-**d

,-.»--

UuU\

io.

A characteristic bust of the Emperor Trajan (a.d.

I

53-117)

have read the petition which you forwarded on behalf of Publius Accius

Aquila, Centurion of the sixth cohort of cavalry, and have granted request.

I

have accordingly given

sending you a copy of the order

Trajan (10) was the

him

the exceptional

greatest title

to

his daughter

hand

to

Roman

citizenship

his

and am

him.

of the soldier/Emperors. His people conferred on

of Optimus Princeps - 'The best of rulers' - in gratitude

:

THE ROMANS

Rome

humane government.

but

for his strong

are personified, even

vinces. Pliny

and

men'

sensible

his

In Trajan, the very finest traditions of

though he came originally from the Spanish pro/

Emperor correspond

in 'the

honest

The Governor

Roman

language of

phrase of Caesar's), and the calm, matter/of/fact tone of the

(a

demonstrates the extreme professionalism of the

letters

95

consults the highest authority with

Roman Empire

all sorts

work.

at

of details of adminis^

tration

Among the out),

is

chief features of Amastris, Sir (a city

there runs

what

which

eyesore

is

called a 'stream', but

.

There

.

is

if

is

it

covered

my

every reason,

uncovered.

city I

am

money

fully in control

If

of Amastris,

laid

The

health

and appearance

alike of

this shall

be

if

it

is

danger

a

as

which you

to health

always

while

it

say flows

remains

to ensure that there

is

no

work.

we

learn

from

his

own

words. Here

is

a

man

have agreed with Cicero, 150 years before: I

think a

man

is

finished,

when

he makes pleasure, not duty,

object.

Whether we look upon

their portraits, or read their letters, the

in personality keeps their

goods,

and

in fact a filthy sewer, a disgusting

and with your permission

you will be active

sure

for this

He would

main

well built

of his government: firm but never cruel, intelligent and always

you ask me,

his

is

the length of this, however,

dear Pliny, to cover the water

Trajan's portrait confirms what

active.

in,

which

.

through the

lack of

is

gives off a noxious stench.

the city will benefit

done.

Throughout

a long street of great beauty.

Roman

image

alive for us.

objects invariably lead to

Even

in the

Roman

Romans'

interest

most banal commercial

people.

The

narrative of

Roman history frequently anticipates the events of our own time. We stand in the Roman shadow as we experience again and again the issues that they had to cope with: that

is

why

their

arguments, their reactions, and

provide so clear a perspective for our

own

understanding.

their attitudes

Chapter Seven

The RomancvBritish Gwyn Thomas

The

centuries that surround the beginning of the Christian era were a time of

convulsion. Tribes frontiers.

what

lay

random, unhindered by

at

They were impelled by greed

for

what

lay

fixed

and powerful

ahead of them and

fear

of

behind them. The primitive methods of production made the accumu'

lation of wealth in

of needs crudely tribal

moved

any form but loot extremely

fulfilled, a sniffing

body towards

Final power

air

difficult. Prehistory

and

is

a

dim map

a conscienceless stirring of the

wheat, sweeter water.

better

would go

of the

to

him who had

the gift of organization, of defining

needs and giving the world a physical frame in which most needs could, on a

permanent, rational

basis,

standing and responding but

be met. Disciplined, paid armies, capable of under'

to a

chain of commands, able not merely of conquest, and to bind their

to see the furthest objectives

with roads, walls and

The Romans

wars

plunder

officials.

did these things to a Britain for which submission and spoliation

were already old familiar traumas. Waves of plunderers,

had been beating on her themselves a

to fight

territorial

new

shores.

The

graft in this land.

rulers the

for a

good millennium,

Romans found

in Britain

were

Cunobelinus, ruling over most of what

we

know today as the 'Home Counties', with his sumptuous capital at Colchester (Camulodunum) was a newcomer. Camulodunum. It is strange how many names of this period bring vision, after the

Roman

to one's

mind

the thought of Camelot, the Arthurian

of a vanished loveliness and calm, a memory of

defeat,

wealth and goodness despoiled, valour forever vanquished and betrayed.

A

relatively

new

arrival too

was Prasutagus,

termagant of genius, head of the Iceni British

kingdoms, leading a

the

tribe in East

husband of Boadicea,

Anglia. They had

great influx of settlers into Britain

that

won their

from the European

mainland.

The Welsh have

a

little

phrase that throws a strange pathetic light on the

successive rapes of this island that culminated finally in the

Anglo/Saxon and

Norman

modern sound and

texture.

settlements

The Welsh, who

by historians, little

which gave

physically

refer to their

dark people'.

It

Britain the beginning of her

own

conjures

do not resemble

the

tall, fair

Celts described

aboriginal ancestors as the 'pobl bach ddu' - 'the

up

perfectly the portrait

of a

pitifully

under'

Bronze shield boss from Wandsworth;

c.

200 B.C.

developed, Unequipped and vulnerable

reduced

hill'fastnesses,

tribe,

driven to remote valleys, caves,

to a primordially bare culture, a fearful evasive existence,

a civilization, in short, of hiding.

Welsh mythology vention from the stantial

is

spirit

haunted by the image of the cave and magical

world. Their dwellings and fanes, of whatever insub'

kind they were, would have been

Cunobelinus

as

Rome was

as

remote from the capital

its

city

of

from Colchester.

Now

There was a time when the past drowsed inviolately away. uneasily beneath

inter/'

surface of time, refuse

and newly formed

it

top-soils.

rests

Deep'

delving machines and skilled, patient research are uncovering every day some

new

aspect of the

400 or 500

years in

which

the Italian invaders

and

the con'

querors of ill-assorted native tribes took to coalesce into the hyphenated unit of

comparatively civilized existence that

Our

curiosity

we

call

and knowledge have gone

'Romano/British'.

far

beyond the

giant, indestructible

fragments like the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, meant to intimidate and repel the Picts

who came swooping down from Roman towns and villas,

a bite at the soft flesh of

the

Caledonian

or the

Roman

hills to

fort at

take

Cardiff

Ploughman with ox team; Piercebndge, Co. Durham

.-«*»*

which provided

Romans

centuries after the

Buried and our century.

which

and nucleus of the

the place

took

The

hill'fort

fragments of the past have been uncovered in

of Segontium

had perforce

at

Caernarvon marks one of the spots

to stop at the shores

towards Ireland. Segontium today looks

Normans'

greatest

in

And

more

the perfect live in a

restless

in the posture

summary of the geology of conquest,

land of dark mountains

needs of men. Into the

at

stare

Caernarvon Castle, the

at

castles, the walls, the lighthouses,

day of respite from the ever

is

which conquerors beneath the

down

of the Western Sea and

and most enduring masterpiece of aggression

of defence. Caernarvon

way

castle built seven

their leave.

utterly fascinating

the Legions

Norman

later

is

soil

by hating

lit

the soil

the

eyes.

which awaits

the

the archaeologists probe

brilliantly to discover the private details, the face, the voice, the gestures

of the multitudes,

now

pacific

and content, now bewildered and

lived out their lives through the centuries during

which

who

fierce,

the great emperors

procurators, Caesar, Claudius, Hadrian, Severus, Theodosius,

set

the iron

and

hand

of Imperial power on the tribal ant-hill of pre^Roman Britain.

Coins have been excavated and tabulated, giving and abandoned.

We

us clues to the answering

when the Imperial defence/barriers were dismantled owe much to man's carelessness and fright. When he is

of such massive questions as

THE ROMANOBRITISH carefree he

drops his money about.

When

he

is

terrified either

by the nightmares

of avarice or the sight of plundering hooligans swarming over the nearest the farm walls, he will bury his cash until such time as he can creep

redeem

it.

In both cases the historian

sophisticated

men. They give us

what he was willing keep away from It

his

to

is

grateful.

Coins

a tangible witness to

99

hill

are the fingerprints

man's

rulers

or

back and

and

of

needs, to

put up with politically, and what wolves he was able to

door economically.

has been determined that in the villa^sites that have been dug, coins dated

before the close of the fourth century have not been found. This

settles, at least

on

the basis of a hopeful approximate, a question that baffled historians for years:

when

and

exactly did the nerve

in the face

of the

fighting

tripartite tide

engulfed and erased

all

the

of barbarism,

time, the period

when still

the tribes

and

late first

Irish, Scottish,

and Saxon,

Roman

beyond the

that

century

that

must have

power. There must have been a

Hmites, the

boundaries, the walls,

the ruling groups of the native tribes spoke Latin

Flagon, bluislvgreen glass; Barnwell,

Cambridgeshire;

Britain cease to function

symptoms of order and graciousness

flourished here through the hey-day of

were silenced and

arm of Roman

and

THE ROMANOBRITISH

100

planted in Britain the political pattern of the

had something approaching

serenity, a

enchanted interlude in man's baffled a creative integration of the

Roman

municipality,

life

purpose, an acceptable point, a seemingly

and unbearable,

fight against the pestilential

Roman

when

invader with the people

who

were here

before him.

Alongside the cash of the market and the pocket, there man's

spirit,

effort

to

match

life's

that the

Romans had

grand and lovely temple temple

to

the currency of the his

own

erection, Britons

have

more inscrutable elements with

capacity for sustained and elaborate prayer. Ever since

known

is

a goddess called

to her at Bath.

its

Minerva and

Centuries

later,

Nodens, the hunter, god of the Forest of Dean,

that they built a

we found

Lydney a made from

at

a deduction

hound motif in its decoration. The abundance of coins found there suggested that the temple must have been

the frequency of the

a place of busy pilgrimage.

of

its

And

the layout of the walls indicate that by the time

establishment in the fourth century the architectural ideas of the

pagan temple^builders were edging towards the pattern we now Electrum tore from the Snettisham treasure;

first

century B.C.

identify

Roman with the

(left)

Bronze mirror back from Desborough, Northamptonshire; an example of Late Celtic first

century a.d.

(right)

art

Castoivware beaker with barbotine hunting scene

;

second to

mid'fifth century

Christian chapel. This recession of a vigorous belief in the pantheon that had sustained Republican

emperor'worship

Roman

truly

and

is

Rome and which

heart of the

is

that

One

of the

magnificence comparable with anything

Empire was

god'monarch Claudius.

Age

had been debased and enfeebled by

of the highest significance.

temple

to

the temple raised at Colchester

One

of the

monuments of

last

buildings of

first

be found in the seat

and dedicated the

Lydney, modest and already touched by the

at

to the

RomancBritish

much more

intensely personal ethos of the Christians.

When men find that they no longer have a robust confidence in their traditional gods they are ready

Romans take

was backwards,

ment

for a great step

in Britain, in the fourth

that

forward or backward. In the case of the

and

into the dark

fifth

and

centuries a.d., the step they were to

forever.

And there are

have been revealed by pure chance. In Chedworth

pages of enchant' in the

Cotswolds

The animal had disappeared into a pile of ancient and undeciphered rubble. The landowner peered into the dark recesses of the mound. Inside he saw gleams of coloured light. Two gleams were the green eyes of the trapped ferret. The others were the a

landowner

first

lost a ferret

glimpses modern

of which he was besottedly fond.

man had had

of a magnificent

ment, part, in an older time, of a luxurious ances zjullonica, a fuller's shop, in the period of its hills.

Reminding

power and us of

archaeologist, of a

which

had among

wool

Daniel's discovery,

mosaic

floor

its

Roman

pave'

other appurten/

the extension of the textile trade

the ascendancy of the

Dr Glyn

Roman

villa. It

testified to

tessellated

trade in the

when

still

Cots wold

a very

young

beneath the dull, undistinguished

premises of a bakehouse in his native village of Llantwit Major in South Wales.

The

story

of the Romano/British experience

is

one of simple, dramatic force:

Bronze head of

Hadrian from the

Thames

at

London

Bridge; second century a.d.

the classic pattern of violence, pain, conciliation, enfeeblement

Dolts and geniuses, saints and villains

customary loads of good and

evil,

bow

then vanish. In the light of the centuries that

stand between us and them, the period of fulfilment and decline brief It

and

in

and death.

briefly into the light, deposit their

most respects now, with the scholars' help, beautifully

clear.

has something of the vibrant urgency of that other quickly lived

remembered saga of strange men,

relatively

is

and

and

in strange places, facing brave

easily

relentless

American West. With the difference that our Red Indians, the Britons, lost not once but twice. They went Romans and to the barbarians who came over the seas and walls

enemies, the opening of the equivalent of the

down

to the

to destroy the Imperial eagles

vinces. Also, the white lived in a time

And the

when

again, the

man

races

and

and the domesticated doves of the in

America remained

the master.

were more mobile, more

tribes

easily replaceable.

ground on which the Romano/British saga was played out

ground we walk on. Eboracum,

the

Roman town and

fortress

the invaders organized their second thrust towards the north,

Devum

and

pacified pro'

The Romans

Isca, the stations that

is

is

from which

now York.

kept a stern eye on the tribes of the south/

Display shield, bronze with

found

in the

Late Celtic to

first

Thames art;

first

glass,

near Battersea;

century B.C.

A.D.

Harness trappings from the

Stanwick hoard, Yorks;

Early Celtic;

first

century a.d.

THE ROMANOBRITISH

104

Dubonni and

west, the

in north/west

central

Roman

muscle in the

the Deceangli

hills,

Some

campaigns

and Ordovices.

Gloucester and Caerleon. Virconium,

Roman

largest city in

subdue the

to

now

It is

Britain

and

the

of the north/Welsh

tribes

Wroxeter.

of these places have diminished drastically in size and importance,

others have mightily

imperatives

temple

now

Silures, are

England, was the fourth

at

is

waxed. The chemistry of

social,

economic and

military

not always scrutable. In 1939, the foundations of Claudius's vast

Colchester were incorporated into the town's Air Raid Precautions

Scheme. There

are parts of Britain

where the Romans have been missed,

could have done with the preservation of a few implacable

tribes

that

of aborigines

from the developers of communications and

to serve as a target of attention

industry.

Having been rise

and

and

the stage for this great play,

of the

fall

Roman

has greater continuous

interest

it is

arguable that no phase in the

men doing

Empire, 'ordinary

extraordinary things',

than the arrival and departure of the Legions.

Through

the gaps in the fabric of reconstruction created by the historians

detectives

blows the astonishing wind of folk^memory. Tribal recollection

sensitive

and very

and is

a

make up most of the stitches in a come most readily to the finger^

retentive thing. Disasters

national experience and they are the things that

we

tips as

feel

back into our

often have as great a validity as

Wall

My

Roman

or a

father

ear to the

Things whispered round

past.

any votive^tablet found

was no scholar but

we once

as current in the streets

man who

a

at

the

of Hadrian's

Roman

kept an attentive and imaginative

racial nostalgia, the neurotic illusion

we do now. It is among the hills of

cut a better figure in the world than

of contemporary

Glamorgan, where before looked up

in a cellar

night

Lullingstone in Kent.

villa at

groundswell of folk'gossip and

or conviction that

tribal fires at

the end of the forts that

Rome

first

as

it

is

century a.d. the Silurian people

dominated every

strategic hill

and

river

confluence and gave up the ghost.

My

father

was proud of the Silurians and

had confronted

the standards of the Legions.

the long ferocity with

He was as proud

of the budgets of Lloyd George which he saw for the

dead Deceangli and Ordovices of North Wales,

wits out of Suetonius's

He

and

I

men on

rouglvneck

the Island of Mona

they

of them as he was

blow of vindication

who

which we

frightened the

call

Anglesey.

stood one day on a high rock overlooking the Vale of Glamorgan,

and Silurian murmurs and

who

laid the

Imperial Purple in field

as striking a

which

a half-mile

the barked

first

whip on

Rome, were

away and

strong

said, out

commands

of Vespasian, the gifted

the British west

on

the

wind.

and

My

of the dreaming blue,

rose to

wear the

father pointed to a 'It

was

the banks of that stream that our prince, the Silurian hero, Ely,

there,

along

was routed by

I

Bronze parade helmet with visor mask, from Ribchester, Lancashire; second century a.d.

first

or early

THE ROMANOBRITISH

106 the

Second Augustan Legion.' So do

the ghosts, without

let,

hindrance, pass'

move through the broadest tracts of time. The beginning of the Roman Conquest strikes a note of mystery. Julius Caesar came in 55 B.C. and returned the next year. He drubbed Cassivellaunus,

port or increased fares,

head of the Belgic

tribes,

When

then holding the English south-east.

he

left

Britain

come back. He had found the fuel he needed for his drive Pompey and towards the Imperial Crown. Rome did not return to until a.d. 43. The gap in time is long and has puzzled historians.

During

these years

in 54 B.C. he did not

against

territories

money

had

Rome passed from Republic to Empire. The extension of Rome men of extraordinary wealth. Men with much

created in

are driven

by an inescapable urge

to

make

more.

it

grain of Britain with the labour force to go along with

poetic fury of the Celtic charioteers ran into

minerals and

them were tempting. They

were taken. The Britons showed resentment, courage,

The

The

but to no avail.

fury,

men who

fought by the year,

who could stand still under danger as implacably as they moved Men who fight for pay, commanded by men who plan for power and profit are rarely resistible. The centurions were the spine of Roman strength the financiers and usurers who came to high noon in the Rome of Augustus and Julius were the brain. They won the world. not the hour,

forward.

In the

first

wave of the Claudian invasion of a.d. 43

there

of resistance led by Caractacus, son of Cunobelinus. legend

as

Caradoc.

He

rallied the tribes

His

fled.

of the west last

They

his

'Caer Caradoc' - 'Caradoc's as

on

in

spasm

Welsh

of the south/east, the Trinovantes, the

stand, this time leading a host

words spoken

a violent

lives

broke.

place presumed to be at or near the called

was

The Silures of South Wales and the Midlands accepted him as their leader. They fought and

Cantiaci, the Regnenses.

Dubonni

He

from nortlvwest Wales, was

Long Mynd fort'.

He was

in

Shropshire

at a

taken captive to

at a

spot

still

Rome and

he was taken by his guards to admire the splendours of

Rome still provide an oil of pride for the lamp of Celtic myth. 'Why should who have so much have fallen upon us who have so little?'

you

House Square in London the tombstone of Julius Classicianus was discovered. He was Procurator of Britain from a.d. 61 to 65. His pre/ decessor, Suetonius Paulinus, had taken the Legions to North Wales and In Trinity

launched them across the Menai

Straits to

massacre the embattled Druids

were the nearest our aboriginal ancestors ever came

They had

ship.

saw

to be destroyed

and Suetonius,

a

to

having a

who

political leader^

thorough and splenetic man,

that they were.

The robed Bards who

stand round the gorsedd circle

Eisteddfod are a pathetic attempt to bits

to revive a national

at the

Welsh National

mood and

personality cut

by the RomancBritish centuries ago. Not long ago a contractor preparing

THE ROMANOBRITISH a It

site for

one of the new Anglesey industries uncovered a chain.

was a slave'chain

when

had been used by the Druids

that

human

ceremonies of

sacrifice to

which

for use

He

put

to use.

on victims of the

Druids were prone

the

it

107

moments

in

they thought the holy mistletoe an insufficiently potent totem.

While Suetonius was wiping out was coming

to the boil.

The

resistance in the north-west, the south-east

initial

shock of defeat and the years of timid

Camulodunum

conciliation were over.

(Colchester), settled by veterans of the

new multi-national Roman army, had been founded as the new capital, with the Temple of Claudius the god as its heart. What students of racketeering in the

modern world would

local princelings

One

and

call the 'enforcers'

went busily around stripping the

and

chiefs of their privileges

treasure.

of the chieftains thus despoiled was Prasutagus, of the Iceni,

in East

Anglia. His queen, Boadicea, was violated and dispossessed along with her daughters. She, like Caractacus,

streaming hair, crazed

eyes,

wrath of those doomed by

She burned and sacked were put

to the torch.

and fondled cartload. sort in

around

the

Welsh memory,

and scythed chariot'wheels the symbols of the

own inadequacy to Roman settlements.

their

the rich

her

futile

be driven out of history.

Colchester and

London

Archaeologists have traced the astvline of destruction

who

the skulls of those

The

rides

still

and flung

slain

round Mediterranean

skulls are of the

which Boadicea and

were

into burial^pits by the

type, not the

her avenging multitudes

had

long-headed

horrendous

their last,

thoughts. Bones like those of the defenders overborne in Vespasian's assault on

Maiden Castle

in Dorset, reveal

more

in death

than in

life.

Suetonius hurried south. This time there was no Caractacus to

again and kindle the dream of a united front of Celts against the terrible

fight fact

away and

slip

of an army backed by a

Suetonius took a us believe,

civil service

terrible revenge.

was advised

and

a strong, central government.

Nero, a shrewder

man than

that Suetonius's reprisals

eternally offend the natives;

would

fiction

would have

either eliminate or

he recalled Suetonius and replaced

him with

Julius Classicianus.

The new Procurator was

a milder, craftier

bloodied rabble of insurgents ebbed back

memorial stone is

a

name

Nero,

raised to

him

in Trinity

man.

He

eased the tension.

to their villages.

The

Classicianus had a

House Square. That

is

appropriate.

It

associated with a sensible provision of light for benighted voyagers.

who

traditionally

burned Rome, helped

at

least to limit the

range of

arson in this island of Britain.

After that, Romanization swept on methodically.

The

great roads divided the

land into sections, inside which the British population could be supervised, policed, taxed

more

secure

and encouraged

and

fertile.

to

make

Between the

their

compact with

years a.d. 78 to 85

the conqueror ever

Agricola subdued

THE ROMANO/BRITISH

108

northern England and brought the Caledonians to heel

at

Mons

the Battle of

Graupius. Between 122 and 133 Hadrian sealed Scotland off with the great

from Tyne

fortified barrier

from which freezing

to

and

Scythia, poured their wine,

looked north

as they

We can

at the Scottish

still

look

at,

touch, the amphorae

from the hot lands of

wives

long absences.

for their

Roman Britain can be followed in terms of the failure Roman Imperial system. Thrones begat demented occupation. One of the hinges of our own Romano^

disintegration of

and decay of

the

whole

competitors for their British destiny can be

found

The arms of

a.d. 196-7.

of Clodius Albinus in the years

in the activities

had begun

the octopus

to covet the rotten centre.

Albinus, Governor of Britain, drained the British garrison to fight for the

Roman

the grimly gifted

throne.

last

all

two

and

defeated

centuries of the

for help to the

drive us to the sea.

The

kind of

crumble before the

life

Roman

In

a.d.

Emperor Honorius

own defences. That was

Welsh monk Gildas, back

to the

wild

men from without

men from

could those Britons look back

without.

upon our

who saw

of the Picts, Scots and Anglo-Saxons.

have gathered round the name of their

last leader,

hard

in

its

sustenance, sweet

doubt

to

co'existence,

and clement

that Britain in the highest

was a place

in

and

its

We

lips.'

their

The

world

legends

Arthur, suggested that they

looked back from a present of appalling sorrows to a past that had a golden

ample

the

the Britons sent a heart'

die with the taste of salt or blood

assaults

which was

tide

were times of anguished the

410,

General Aetius. 'The wild

sea drives us

To

have but one choice.

that

Gaul by

Age

Romano'British

returns.

end. In a.d. 433 according to the

At what

an army

areas of Britain.

advised the municipalities of Britain to look to their

broken cry

to furnish

killed in southern

by the barbarian

partially destroyed

around the Romanized

and desperate

contractions

He was

and inexorable African and future emperor, Severus. Hadrian's

Wall was overrun and building up

The

their gruel

We can admire the mirrors and

Highlands. their

Spain,

Italy,

bowls from which they spooned

the

with which they consoled

trinkets

The

Solway.

legionaries, recruited

mood. Legends

best years

light,

apart,

it

is

of Romano/British

infinitely preferable to the Britain

found by Aulus

Plantius in a.d. 41.

There would have been, of course, the unassimilable the pobl bach ddu, the cowering, self-alienating elements basically alien

to the

routine.

But

for those

stone outstanding

who

accepted the villas

could never adjust

new

standards the rewards were high.

of Roman Britain, Silchester and Lulling/-

among them, have shown

that in terms of amenity, order

civic expression they set levels that the average

afford or achieve.

who

framework of remorselessly disciplined and exacting

Researches into the towns and

and

fringes, furtively hostile,

town of today could not

K

tb*-^~-

j

Silver

bowl and

The

from the Mildenhall

lid

and the

h '"

1

treasure, Suffolk; fourth century a.d.

spaces given over to the basilicas

squares,

ii^ii

lavish provision for

and forums, the town

people were extremely secure, sociable, articulate and clean. are the beginnings

Things beget patience. voice.

and public

And those attributes

of a true and admirable civilization.

their opposites.

The Romanizing

And

halls

municipal bath-houses meant that the

At

visitors,

the heart of perversity

is

a deep, ingenious

Classicianus and the wise Hadrian, gave

out of the mist a twisted echo announces the

coming of Hengist

and Horsa, invited here by one of the Celts the Legions had subdued 400 before.

It

was

the

end of a rich and peculiar interlude

in the British story.

years

Chapter Eight

Medieval and Later Antiquities Antonia Fraser

Like Horace Walpole, historical associations

Later Antiquities

have always derived a vigorous pleasure from the

I

of beautiful objects. In the Department of Medieval and

rather stern

its

halo enhancing

it.

I

ject

it

is still

with in

conceals a rare treasure/house for those

can well understand

amused himself with passion once put

title

shimmering round

the haze of history

feel that

'the true rust

some way

still

a priceless

how Walpole

in the collection

is

who

an additional

in the eighteenth century

of such

of the Barons' Wars'. For

hoard

relics

- something

me the most

as

he

exquisite ob'

further glorified by an additional association with a

particular character or perhaps incident from the past.

The feeling originates with one of wonder at the survival many of which have indeed been the objects of some sort servation.

They

which have

human

words of Francis Bacon,

'the

casually escaped the shipwreck of time'.

of miraculous pre'

remnants of history

Then

the ring

tell

One

us about her political attitudes?

ordinary

is

who owned

should never forget that the

these objects were once alive like us,

and

gave presents, wore rings, collected souvenirs, played the guitar, to

there

- was this the size of Mary Queen of Scots' finger as revealed by - leading on to the more elevated historical curiosity - what does

curiosity

her finger 'ring?

people

are, in the

of these antiquities,

war and had

horoscopes

their

cast.

it

in love,

fell

is

not only distressing

also hardly true history, because these personages,

is

their passions, intrigues, faults

and

went

'Dryasdust' history - to borrow Carlyle's

phrase of opprobrium for anything he did not agree with to digest, but

that like us they

whatever

were certainly not 'dryasdust'

virtues,

when

they were living out their dramatic life'Stories.

But

to

proceed further - on a

Department of the scope and

strict historical level

variety

a collection of visual documents, in

know happened, eminent Sutton

Hoo

history, as well as relics

of Medieval and Later Antiquities

some

The Department's

much

us for the

like

first

time the

multifarious prizes include the pre'

find (i), the greatest

post'Roman excavation

in British

Renaissance jewels, bronze medals, a variety of personal

from Robert Burns's punch/bowl

porcelain and

show

is

what we

cases merely illustrating

but in others acting as guides to

exact course of events.

of proper information, a

early

to

Lord Palmerston's

Wedgwood. There

is

Garter, a mass of

also a splendidly

cacophonous

i.

The gold buckle from

Hoo

the Sutton

room crowded with sometimes envious

clocks and watches whose carillons give melodious (if

slightly contradictory)

Time

till

Time

The Strasbourg clock Isaac

warnings of the hour

thou run out thy

that Milton's envious

find

(2),

race'

-

it is

to the passing visitor. 'Fly this tuneful

chamber

high, catches one's eye.

Made by

perhaps into

has honourably retired.

more than

five feet

Pope Sixtus V, it was a copy of a great astronomical Strasbourg Cathedral - a lofty symbol of the princely commissions

Habrecht

clock in

in

1589

for

of the Renaissance. Another princely commission near by, the large golden

Nef or Ship Clock (3), probably made for the Emperor Rudolf II in 1581 by Hans Schlottheim of Augsburg, stands for the majestic prestige o{ the Holy Roman Emperor in sixteentlvcentury Europe. Nef or ornamental boat had

A

been used

to

mark

the position of royalty at table since medieval times, but

Rudolfs Nef, with its intricate clockwork elaborated the concept. As Emperor, Rudolf acquired his power formally from the votes of the College of Electors

who

nonetheless

figures tors.

on

As

the

they

owed

bow

their

ciously nods his head

appreciate

allegiance to him.

Ship Clock

how

the

Among

the variety of

moving

there are to be seen the small golden effigies of the Elec^

heads in submission

and waves

the

hand

to the

Emperor, he

that contains the sceptre.

Emperor Rudolf must have enjoyed having

in return gra^

One can well this particular

The Strasbourg clock, made by Isaac Habrecht, 1589 2.

commission trundled along

princely

Less subservient to the Emperor,

it

his

dinneMable on

its

wheeled

famous scientist'cunvastrologer of the period. Dee lectured him

on alchemy objects

that the

which

Emperor

most interesting

relics in the

5), inscribed with mystic

beneath

its

legs,

for a while,

finally

together constitute

and

Department's collection. There are

known either as to

are

among

wax discs

(4

the

and

placing on his magic table or

Dr Dee is

believed to have

owned

obsidian Aztec mirror, probably brought to Europe

from Mexico by a Spanish courtier

was used

figures, for

an engraved gold disc (6) that finally the

so interminably

turned wearily away. But the strange

John Dee's magic apparatus

names and

carriage.

seems, was the attitude of John Dee, the

(7).

This dark, highly polished object,

'John Dee's Magic Speculum', or the 'Devil's Looking'Glass',

communicate with

the spirits of the dead. John

Dee, an extraordinary

individual whose intellectual energies certainly qualify

him

all-round denomination of 'the Renaissance man',

known as Astrologer when she was a young

to

Queen

Elizabeth

I.

He

cast his

first

horoscope

is

for her

Princess, but got into trouble for casting that of her sister the

same time. This venture

into the royal future

for the traditional

best

Queen Mary Tudor

amounted

to treason

at

by the

standards of the time, especially as Mary's prognosis was not particularly

3. The Nef, or Ship, clock, made Hans Schlottheim of Augsburg

for the

Emperor RudolfTl

c.

1580; attributed to

4 and

5.

Two of Dr John

favourable. Later it

wax

Dee's

when

discs

Elizabeth's fortunes soared (as

was Dee who was entrusted with

auspicious day for her coronation.

mutual

interest in

Elizabeth

have

its

Queen and

Queen. But Dee's

seers, or

from the world of the

Dee

himself.

continued

to

enjoy a

On

and

delight'.

Clearly the whole episode was courtly and

as

scientist

not only to be

Majestie's great contentment

a

predicted)

a visit to Dee's Mortlake home in 1575 shown one of his famous 'glasses' but also to demonstrated - 'which I did' John Dee himself tells us 'to her

such studies.

demanded

properties

Dee had duly

the responsibility of calculating the most

spirits,

Edward

mediums, on

fit

whom

for the scientific sensibilities

he relied to relay

him

were not always so gently mannered - or

Kelley, his most publicized seer,

was

the

of

news

as honest

later satirized as

a

fraud in Samuel Butler's Hudibras

Kelly did

all his

Feats

upon

The Devil's Looking'Glass, a stone Where playing with him at Bo'Peep

He As

solv'd all problems ne'er so deep.

Kelley once had the temerity to pass on a message from the

Dee to exchange wives with him (it was perhaps not Dee was more attractive than Mrs Kelley) one can

spirits instructing

a coincidence that Mrs

appreciate the sting of

Butler's wit. Yet leaving aside Kelley 's antics, the history of Dee's is

so strange that

one

superstitious value

Some of

it

is

magic mirror

almost inclined to credit the mysterious object with the

originally held in the sixteenth century.

Dee's possessions were bought by the great antiquary Sir Robert

Cotton and on

his

death they passed with the

rest

of Cotton's collection

to the

MEDIEVAL AND LATER ANTIQUITIES Museum. But

British

the

magic mirror mysteriously disappeared.

Horace Walpolc a century

enthusiast

maging among

the belongings of

of Argyll. Walpolc himself casually

"Oh

what on

later

who

recognized

as he

It

was

5

the

was rum/

Lord Frederick Campbell, son of the Duke

tells

the story of

how Lord

Frederick inquired

earth the peculiar oval could possibly be.

am

it

I I

'I

screamed out:

its

man in England that can tell you: is Dr Dee's now came temporarily to rest as Walpole's talisman magic powers the fact that a burglar who ransacked his

house and belongings

in his absence, nevertheless failed to steal a single object.

Lord,

black stone

I

!" '

he attributed to

for

Surely

was

it

the only

The

it

mirror

the stone

which protected

his collection.

And

it

handwriting which can be seen on the mirror's eighteentlvcentury ing

its

history,

with Samuel Butler's

writing, just beneath

satirical verse inscribed in

in

more vanished

into obscurity.

1892 and was generally believed

certainly

it

Walpole's

case, record'

another hand'

it.

After Walpole's death and the great Strawberry Hill the mirror once

is

would have been

to

It

was

have ended up

last at

sale

of his belongings

heard of at an auction

Dresden, where almost

destroyed in the wartime bombing. But in 1966,

Mr Hugh

Tait,

was

waiting-room, bearing with him the Devil's Looking'Glass of John

in his

now Acting Keeper

6.

Gold

7.

John Dee's Magic Speculum,

disc, at

one time probably

of the Department, was told that a bishop

in the possession

of John

or 'Devil's Looking'Glass'

Dee

(left)

(riftht)

116

MEDIEVAL AND LATER ANTIQUITIES

Dee!

Mr

So

come

the mirror has

safely

and

Tait, with Walpole's expertise

recognized the mirror for what

confined to

is

also his enthusiasm, instantly

the long/lost instrument of Dee's magic.

to join the other pieces

showcase,

its

was -

it

now

of Dr Dee's apparatus, and

exhibited with an authentic provenance from

the date of Dee's death.

Two

signet'rings in the collection of the Department's personal relics have

romantic

Richard

The

as well as historical associations. I

(8)

is

marked Reg.

P for

personal signet ring of

Regis Privatum indicating that

private letters rather than official documents.

The

lettering has

it

King

was used

for

been deliberately

defaced with blows, as was customary on the death of a sovereign, to prevent his seal

being employed subsequently for forgeries. But

the antique dark green jewel

(which

the gold. In this case the ring

slightly loose) a large

is

as part

to the

ruby was once

set

in

might well be the famous signet'ring of King

Germany on

his

way back

which obsessed me

as a child,

Richard, part of the legend of his capture in hostile

from a pilgrimage

possible that in place of

it is

Holy Land.

It

was

a story

of the Cceur de Lion myth. There are two versions, both featuring the

ring. In

one

story

Richard, dressed

as a servant to

the spit in the great hall of the castle

avoid recognition, was turning

where he was spending the night when the

magnificent ring gleaming on his finger (which no menial could have possessed)

drew

attention to his disguise. In the other version

have sent

his signet'ring to the local lord

domains, but giving

his

local lord, reading the lettering

on

through

his

humble pilgrim but

the

name

of the

King Richard

castle

Hugo,

merely as

the ring,

King of England

and

is

supposed

a merchant. But the

was no

realizing that this

had him

himself,

to

asking for a safe passage

prisoned - an imprisonment which only ended, as

I

arrested

and inv

fondly believed, with

Richard's romantic rescue through the help of his faithful minstrel Blondel.

The second

signet ring (9)

her biography, the colophon priate to her character

emblem. The beneath

is

belonged

on

and aims

seal itself

shows

to

Mary Queen of Scots.

that

I

had

it

It

writing

used on the cover of the book as an

the royal lion of Scotland, but the

one of those meaningful monograms Mary loved

and embroidery.

When

the underside of the ring (10) seemed so appro'

consists of the

Greek

letters

M

to

employ

emblem

in writing

and Phi interwoven -

Mary and Francis, her first husband, the King of France, who died when she was only eighteen. The interest of this monogram lies in the fact that experts now believe from the general feel of the ring that it must have been made representing

in Scotland after

Mary's return, rather than in France.

how Mary

to

the

clung

same emblem

England many the

memories of her French

alliance.

in the embroideries executed

It

therefore demonstrates

Not only

that,

but

we

find

during Mary's captivity in

years later. In the tapestries preserved at

Oxburgh

M and Phi symbol can be detected in the corner of

at least

Hall, Norfolk,

four of them: yet

8.

King Richard

gold

set

personal signcuring;

I's

with antique

gem engraved with

the figure of Minerva

these embroideries

were carried out

had been married

in the interval to

that the use of the

monogram symbolized

French childhood and marriage security, perhaps, in a life not

A

fifteen years after Francis's

death,

both Darnley and Bothwell.

in her

I

and Mary

like to

think

the continuing importance of Mary's

mind - memories of happiness and

overburdened with such enjoyments.

greater contrast could hardly be

imagined between Mary's

historic but

comparatively primitive ring and the intricate splendour of the Lyte Jewel Part of the

Waddesdon

Bequest,

it

is

(i i).

one of the many exquisite examples of

Renaissance jewellery in the Department. Their existence has always seemed to

me

powerful argument

to constitute a

seventeenth centuries

when,

for living at the turn

as the portraits

show, such luxurious ornaments

were proudly worn. But the beauty of the Lyte Jewel fact that

it

represents

two

arts in

brilliant yet delicate colours,

King James

Somerset, and the

the Stuart

and

The

set

exterior

is

is

further

enhanced by the

richly enamelled in the

most

with diamonds - but the miniature of

The Lyte Jewel was by King James to Thomas Lyte of

within was painted by Nicholas Hilliard.

I

not in fact a present for a lady:

for Iacobus

one.

of the sixteenth and

R

visible

it

was granted

on the outside- an amalgamation of/ and

Rex. Lyte's acquisition of the jewel shows up one

monarchy

in

England -

their

rather than a strictly Scottish family. Lyte

need

to

R - stands

early obsession

of

prove themselves as a British,

was an antiquarian and

a genealogist:

own accord 'a most royally ennobled' family tree for James I, Camden described it, with 'admirable flourishes of painting'. The

he drew up of his illustrated as

chart

was duly

traced

back

presented, the

to 'Brute, the

King

studied

it,

and finding

that he

was happily

most noble founder of the Britons' rewarded the

genealogical speculation handsomely with the present of the Lyte Jewel.

Elizabeth

I,

James's immediate predecessor, certainly shared the contemporary

passion for jewels,

But the

many

of which are

gittern, or early guitar, in the

commemorated in her hieratic portraits. Department, which is engraved jointly

with her arms and those of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, evokes more poignantly than a jewel the greatest of Elizabeth's romances.

The

gittern

itself,

9 and 10.

The

with

elaborate carvings of animals,

its

fingeivring of Mary

thirteenth century, but in

engraved on the

know which

new

silver

Queen of Scots

1578

it

huntsmen and

was

restored,

foliage, dates

and the two

from the

coats of

covering given to the pegbox. Although

arms

we do

not

of the two, Elizabeth or Leicester, was responsible for the restora/ instrument must surely stand for some delightful joint

tion, the refurbished

musical enterprise between the

Queen and the courtier, who, mind than any man'. Yet the

in a

phrase 'saw further into her

date 1578 has an

ominous connotation

the year of Leicester's secret marriage to the sultry

Lady

:

it

was

contemporary

which for would never reward with matrimony. Although

Essex, after twenty years of devotion to Elizabeth, devotion

reasons of State Elizabeth

Elizabeth did not learn of the ceremony

open Court

did

secret

come

till

the next year,

to her ears, her rage

when

and hurt was

the

news of the

so extreme that

was shattered. In time she did receive Leicester Court although never his wife - but one fancies there were few joint

the old intimacy with Leicester

back

at

musical enterprises

As

thereafter.

a character Leicester has glamour, but

shadow of beyond

its

it is

glamour

Elizabeth's love, falling across his personality

merits.

of the Rhine

is

The

original

attraction of

and

all his

my

cast

by the

glittering

and illuminating

it

seventeentlvcentury hero Prince Rupert

own. The unique stoneware bust of the Prince

MEDIEVAL AND LATER ANTIQUITIES (13) produced by

convey

D wight of Fulham

John

powerful allure than,

his

Lely and Honthorst.

It is

a master of his

his material sculpted rather

me

to

by

portraits

sculptor must certainly have been

used by

Dwight

than directly

cast,

Fulham

at his

formed part of

unsuccessful attempts to discover the secret of porcelain: thus the bust

his

occupies an important place in

its

own

right in the history of English ceramics.

Rupert should be com/

certainly seems peculiarly appropriate that Prince

It

for

not too closely, on an engraving

The experimental technique

art.

having

if

unknown

taken from a Lely portrait, but the

pottery in

example, the contemporary

for

modelled,

in fact

about 1670, does more

in

119

memorated by

a

work of art which was of itself something

man

experiment. By the 1670s Rupert was a

dashing cavalier and cavalry hero of the Civil

mind

he was turning his rapidly inventive

from the improvement of gunpowder he did not hands.

initiate

One

one of the

at this

period of his

life

ranging

of the mezzotint, which, although

he demonstrated to the diarist John Evelyn with his

it,

own

think that a striking likeness was achieved by the bold lines

likes to

We know from

of the ceramic sculpture. before this bust

War;

to scientific innovations,

to the art

of an

in the nature

of fifty, no longer the young and

Pepys that in

his late forties, a

would have been conceived, Prince Rupert was England. The bold

best tennis-players in

lines

of

still

few years

considered

this bust

seem

to

something of Rupert's inherited Stuart charm, and also the demonic

reveal

energy which was

The

all his

own.

Department which

other bust in the

exercises a peculiar fascination

is

the

exotic early thirteenth/century golden 'head reliquary' of St Eustace, from the

Cathedral

Basle (14). Here

at

of the head which

it

the reliquary does have a history of

When

ficence of appearance.

middle of the relics

last

century,

it

it

it.

The

The

some macabre

was

it.

of the

lid

relics

saints

finely

before

some

it

wooden head

Lastly,

I

to

haunt

am

of antiquities

is

was probably

access of affluence led to

Museum

in the

fifteen years

ago,

when

the golden

then

lifted off to reveal the relics

of

preserved inside in thirteentlvcentury

carefully

its

with the golden head, looking rather

come back

beyond mere magni'

second identical plain wooden head was

were dispatched back

carved, that

is it

yet

golden head contained the

that the

But about

head (and incidentally the cotton/wool)

So

interest

originally acquired by the

for cleaning, a

and other

St Eustace

cotton/wool.

than any historic significance; and

was assumed

of the Saint stored within

head was dismantled

found inside

the astonishing almost barbaric splendour

is

attracts one, rather

Cathedral, but the

to the

carefully preserved in the

Department.

originally intended to stand

enrichment.

like

It

now

wooden

on

its

own,

stands side by side

some poverty-stricken

dopp el -ganger,

his rich relation.

attracted to

two remarkable examples of Francis Bacon's theory

as casual survivors

of time's shipwreck.

The Royal Gold Cup (15),

MEDIEVAL AND LATER ANTIQUITIES

120 is

one of the great treasures of the Department, and indeed of the Museum.

go further one might aptly describe such

But

among

Crown

the

as a national treasure since

it

appearance.

Made

life

its

On

the death of Charles's son, Charles

Duke

bought by the Regent of England, the

cup passed Little

nephew,

to his

pawned from

the

to

more was heard of the cup

convent near Burgos put

it

VI, the cup seems

up

pay

No

came into possession of it and it was sent to Baron Pichon.

He

the cup: 'This

cup of solid gold,

It

to the

have been

was among the jewels of Normandy.

for the invasion

until 1883

for sale.

to

of Bedford, and on his death the

young King Henry VI.

Royal Collection

the

it is

It was probably made in King Charles V, who being

born on the Feast of St Agnes (21 January) had a particular devotion Saint.

I.

glorious heraldic

of St Agnes.

fourteenth century as a present for

late

To

classed as

of solid gold, and weighing altogether over four pounds,

ornamented with scenes from the France in the

was

Jewels in the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth

history has at all points been quite as dramatic as

its

it

when

Abbess of a Spanish

the

one had any idea

how

the convent

Paris for inspection by a noted collector

deciphered the Latin inscription added

later to the

stem of

a relic of the royal treasure of England,

and

a

memorial of the peace made between the Kings, the Constable Juan de Velasco, returning thence after successfully accomplishing his mission, presented as an

Christ the Peacemaker.'

offering to referred

back

in 1604,

when the chief of the Spanish

Duke

It

was

established that the inscription

peace concluded between James

to the

and Philip

I

III

of Spain

mission had indeed been Juan de Velasco,

of Frias. Unfortunately, in tracing the cup's history, Baron Pichon

became involved

in a lawsuit

with the descendant of the

Duke

who

of Frias,

considered that the cup had been presented to the convent in 1610 on terms

which precluded remained

its

in Paris

of the museum.

resale.

till

First

the

However,

end of the

a French

England and France, then stands unique

to

story

at.

when

it

his case

and the cup

happily came the

symbol of an Anglo'Spanish peace,

way

disaster, revolution,

The chessmen

it

now

a mass of great English royal treasures

of the Lewis Chessmen (12)

be marvelled

end the Duke lost

century,

treasure, then part of the interwoven history of

among what were once

having survived financial

The

the

in the last

is

war and

less royally

-

obscurity.

emblazoned, but equally

date from the twelfth century,

and

are either

English or Scandinavian in origin, but they were discovered completely by accident on the coast of the remote Scottish Island of Lewis, part of the Outer

Hebrides.

An exceptional spring tide carried away part of the coastline in

and a small subterranean building, looking from a sandbank.

A local inhabitant decided

spade, but the sight figures distributed

rather like

which

about the

greeted interior

183

1,

an oven, was uncovered

to investigate the 'oven'

with

his

him - nearly a hundred grave small white - so unnerved him that he decided he was

;

ii.

The Lytc

12.

The Lewis Chessmen; Scandinavian;

found on the

Jewel, English, early seventeenth century

Isle

made of morse

of Lewis (Outer Hebrides)

ivory

in

1

83

1

and sperm-whale ivory (below)

I

13.

Prince Rupert; stoneware bust by John Dwight;

interrupting an assembly of elves

But

his wife

who had

and

a stronger nerve

a total of seventy /-eight

1680

c.

fairies,

flung

made him

down

return

his spade and fled. and thus the chessmen -

chessmen and fourteen draughtsmen - were rediscovered.

Because the cache forms part of several

sets,

rather than

one complete

set, it is

believed that these chessmen were in fact part of the stock of a travelling salesman.

Even

a personal connection as far

chant 800 years ago,

who

and was shipwrecked on seems

more such

other goods in

mer^

Romanesque chessmen

a lonely Scottish shore in the course

closely into the texture of relics

it

among

as a seafaring

of

his rounds,

enhance the curious offbeat appeal of the chessmen and bring them

to

was once

hand

dealt

away and unexpected

is

The double life of Sword of State in the Department which Edward V, as Prince of Wales. On the one

our historical imagination.

epitomized by the great

carried before the child

symbolizes the power and authority of the monarchy in fifteenth'

mark the other hand we

century England, such swords of State having being employed to royal

dominion

remember the

Duke

since the coronation of Ethelred in 978.

the mysterious disappearance of the

of the York, within the confines of the

M-

On

the

young King, with

his brother

Tower of London, and we

St Eustace; silveivgilt reliquary from Basle Cathedral; early thirteenth century

i$.

The Royal Gold Cup; French;

late

fourteenth century

speculate on the chill contrast between the

which

for reasons

gap which

exists

is

young

lives

it

is

possible to bridge in the imagination

between a constitutional study of the English monarchy, and

emotional contemplation of the reality

the

of State were cut off so prematurely. Within the Department

of Medieval and Later Antiquities, the

huge sword, and

here presented

on an

grisly fate

altar

of the Princes of the Tower. Historical

of great richness and beauty.

Chapter Nine

Western Asiatic Antiquities Peter

Young

In the days

when

I

was

spent several years in the the

in the

Old City of Jerusalem. and

Sebastia

so on.

I

the British officer

a great traveller.

the

I

can claim

Pyramids

division of the ancient world

must be an

culture affected that of the Assyrians,

Jerash and Jerusalem pretty

but, of course, the British

by the

Museum's

Obviously, Egyptian

arbitrary one.

who

many of their

cultural one, Greek, Persian

know

to

are not in fact in the area covered

Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities,

the Greeks derived

I

Pyramids and visit Petra - the

the

as I was also able to time' Jerash, Unvel^Jimal, Megiddo, Acre,

suppose

The Acropolis and

whom

was

was lucky

I

'rose^red city half as old as

well.

army

Middle East and saw the Acropolis,

in turn influenced the Persians, ideas.

and Assyrian

Nor was

from

the heritage a purely

in turn inherited ideas

about military

organization and tactics from the Empires that they had overthrown.

My

bound to be arbitrary, if only because of the embarras de richesse in the British Museum's collection. The Western Asiatic Department is a treasure trove of antiquities of the Sumenans, Baby^ lonians and Assyrians who once inhabited Iraq; the Persians whose borders coincided with those of modern Iran; the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Syrians and choice of subjects for discussion

Israelites,

who

is

lived in 'the Fertile Crescent' of Syria, Palestine,

Jordan and

Lebanon. The Hittites and Urartians of modern Turkey and what was Armenia, are included, as well as the

enough that the

Arabs of

the

Yemen and Saudi

the Carthaginians of distant Tunisia are included.

Arabia. Oddly

When

Department covers, roughly speaking, the period 5000 B.C.

century A.D., and the treasures of a dozen civilizations,

its

it is

realized

to the seventh

vast scope will at

once

be appreciated. to my surprise I find that some of me have nothing to do with war at all.

Rather interest

treasures

found

at

Ur

of the Chaldees, but

human^headed winged collection.

It is

The animal

I

the ancient masterpieces I

refer particularly to

will touch

on

which

some of the

these later. Let the

lion of Ashurnasirpal II's Palace serve to introduce the

more than 2800

years old (1).

portion of these great beasts with their numerous legs, seem to

me

well observed. Their curious, elaborate knotted girths are worth notice, as

indeed

is

the elaborate hairstyle of the

human

heads.

126

WESTERN ASIATIC ANTIQUITIES

They come from

doorway

a

in the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II

at

Nimrud. Beyond may be

It

was an old Sumerian custom

(721-705 B.C.)

seen a reconstruction of the gates of Shalmaneser III. to

adorn the entrances of temples with paintings

or frescoes of animals, especially lions or bulls, in order to drive

thought that Shalmaneser

away

evil. It is

1260 B.C.), or one of his dynasty, was the

I (c.

first

to

decorate the gates of Assyrian palaces, as the Hittites had done, with these

formidable defenders.

But not only

Euphrates, a pan was found of at lion,

Thus,

lions are used in this position. least

while the Syrian provincial

round

in

In one of the frescoes in the

on

a sledge.

Some

from the coniferous

are laying timbers

trees to

carts

particular frieze. In Barnett's

words 'Two men

means of a

The

track,

piglets are reminiscent

a

the cliff at Balatai for

some charming

detail in this

in a coracle bring great bronze

man draws

shaduj, a type

sow with

wells in the East; a wild

is

:

loops for the gateposts; a

ropes) from a well by

reeds.'

form a corduroy

be seen in the distance. This particular colossus,

Nineveh. There

at

to

with further supplies, cut doubt'

the gateways of his palace at

wooden

gangs of slaves hauling a

see

ahead

as their

lions or bulls.*

was quarried by order of Sennacherib from

or lamassate,

or

a scorpion^man carved

winged

Nineveh Gallery we

while others are bringing up two/wheeled less

and

doorways. Assyrian palaces, however, prefer

its

the

perhaps of the

ruler's palace at Tell Halaf,

gateway'figures human^headed, bearded, and

stone bull

Carchemish on

one human^headed, bearded, gateway

tenth century B.C., has female sphinxes, griffins, in the

at

water (no doubt to wet the

of counter^weighted arm

row of

still

used

marslv

piglets hides in the tall

of the animals one finds in a medieval book

of hours or the Luttrell Psalter. There are about a dozen soldiers to be seen, of them are waving their arms about by

least eight

way of showing

their zeal

at

-

a typical military scene in fact.

Let us

now

flourishing in logist Sir I

return in time to Ur, the city of the ancient Sumerians

2500

B.C.,

and

Leonard Woolley

to

some of the

in 1927.

thought the animal was caught

rearing

up

to sniff at the flowers. It

masterpieces of ancient

Museum

at

art.

Philadelphia.

It

treasures discovered

When I first saw the Goat and the Tree (2)

in the branches, but, is

too easy to see

some

sinister

is

merely

meaning

in the

legs

Reliefs, p. 10.

They had some symbolic

though the motif of two goats about the

common in Mesopotamia^ art,

This handsome beast has a face and * R. D. Barnett, Assyrian Palace

seems, he

has been deduced from the tubes between their

significance, probably mythological, but is

it

This figure has a companion in the University

shoulders that they supported a piece of furniture.

Sacred Tree

which was

by the archaec

its

precise

of gold-leaf,

meaning

eyes,

is

not

known.

horns and shoulder

i.

at

The human/headed winged Nimrud

lion

from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal

II

(883-859 B.C.)

128

WESTERN ASIATIC ANTIQUITIES

fleece

of lapis

lazuli,

and body

of white

fleece

The Sacred Tree

shell.

Could Faberge have done better? Queen Pu^abi's golden bowl was found with

is

of gold

leaf.

'straw', at her bedside in the

came from

Royal Cemetery of Ur. The cup

and

the remains of the

boat'shaped and quite plain except

Queen

to

the goblet

gold wire

for the lugs to secure the twisted

Pu^abi's lyre (4), also from the 'Great Death Pit'

one of the oldest musical instruments

entrance to

and

was suspended.

it

handsome.

(3)

They were found with two Queen's wardrobe chest. The bowl is

the deatlvpit at the entrance to her grave.

other gold vessels

by which

a silver drinking'tube or

was found with

It

Queen

in existence,

the bodies of male

and female

Pu^abi's tomb, and had to be reconstructed.

need some modification. However that

may

be,

Ur,

at

is

certainly

and perhaps one of the most

it

servants in the

It is

now thought

has beautiful features:

The front of the sounding-board is ornamented with a splendid bull's head made of gold sheet hammered over a wooden core, with beard and mane of lapis lazuli

his collar

;

and

nibbling

two

at

sound-box is inlaid with lively (Invdugud) clawing at two goats, two bulls

the edging of the

scenes of the lion/headed eagle

a bull^man wrestling with

trees,

two leopards, and

a lion

seizing a bull.*

Some

of the oldest head-dresses in existence come from Ur. They are both

beautiful

and

practical,

to

and they resemble

Arab men and women,

used by modern

the kaffiyeh

and

the agal, head-dresses

inhabiting the same part of the world,

keep off heat and cold.

This head-dress (5) has a delicate jewelled crown to keep it in place. The of the decoration resemble those of the beech which can scarcely have been

leaves

Ur

native to

of the Chaldees. Where, one wonders, had the

artist

seen a leaf

of this species.

But much

as

enjoy these treasures

I

I

find

my

thoughts turning once more to

warfare. Practically every aspect of the art of war in ancient times in the

Assyrian palace

The Assyrian Empire, having no upon

its

army, which

were celebrated

for nearly

natural frontiers,

in the sculptures

Bayeux Tapestry

Battle of

said to

Qarqar

in

illustrated

854

this argues a levee en masse

the

triumphs

the palaces of in the

way

Conqueror.

At

that

the

commanded an army that is strong. Though ancient statistics may be suspect of the manpower of the Empire. The Assyrians,

B.C.,

have been 120,000

much

detail,

army of William

for survival

efficient. Its

and bronzes which adorned

us of the

tells

depended

300 years was remarkably

Nineveh. They give us a great deal of significant the

is

reliefs.

Shalmaneser

III

* R. D. Barnett, Fifty Masterpieces of Ancient Near Eastern Art, p. 11.

2.

The Goat and

the Tree

/J

3.

Queen Piwbi's gold

from Ur;

c.

feeding/cup,

2500 B.C.

however, warred

and the core of their army was evidently composed of

far afield

professional soldiers. In addition they

formed units from among

The Assyrian army was capable either of open

or siege warfare.

cavalry, foot'soldiers, a battering'train, pontoons service.

All these

and

a

It

In a pitched battle the chariot corps, equivalent perhaps to the

years, the design it

had

had

chariots,

rudimentary supply

are illustrated in the reliefs.

of the chariot

three horses; later,

later Tiglatlvpileser III

made

armoured

cars

Over the was considerably modified. Under Ashurna^

and tanks of modern armies, was

sirpal

their captives.

the principal strength of the army.

under Shalmaneser

only two. Eighty years

III

the vehicle heavier, but

it

was

still

light

enough

to

be carried in emergency by two men. In early times, the crew

was two men; a

driver

and

Sargon's time, the crew was increased to three, the third shields with

which

to protect the driver

Finally, in the days of

and

a

bowman.

man

carrying

Later, in

two round

the archer.

Ashurbanipal, 200 years

later,

the crew rose to four,

with the addition of a second shield/bearer, and the chariot, of course, had

to

made heavier. The crew were now practically mounted infantry. The Assyrian cavalry consisted of mounted archers and spearmen, though the former sometimes carried spears as well. I suspect that the cavalry shown here be

were

'regulars' for they

wear the characteristic Assyrian conical helmet. In any

WESTERN ASIATIC ANTIQUITIES case use.

it

so irregulars

Assyrians did not have stirrups and for

have been very sort

and

takes a long time to train cavalry

The

attractive.

The

this reason

13

I

would not be much shock action cannot

saddles were rudimentary, nothing

more than

a

of quilt. Even so Sennacherib's cavalry presented a smart appearance, the

men

all

long

tail

dressed the same,

and with

plaited

and a

their sturdy, alert'looking horses,

plume

well schooled for they are standing cavalry, like

shooting

Red

Indians,

who

at his throat. still

also

had no

use for stirrups, were capable of

sort, despite the fact that

they

can scarcely be compared with the heavy and

wore helmets and some armour,

medium

can only assume, therefore, that they were used

and work on

The

the flanks,

infantry

4. Silver lyre

\

horses seem to have been

la their riders take aim. But Assyrian

to

cantered to the charge.

as they

Cavalry of this

One

The

each with his

when

was armed

the

army was

Pit' at

/\tWW

for patrols,

reconnaissance

in battle.

shock action. The missiles were

for missile or

from the 'Great Death

cavalry of later times.

Ur;

II

c.

2500 B.C.

bow

WESTERN ASIATIC ANTIQUITIES

132

and

or sling,

coats of mail

main shock weapon was

the

and carrying wicker

Some of the archers, no doubt

recruited

The spearmen

the spear.

in their

shields cannot have been very mobile.

probably the Assyrian regulars, wore armour, but others,

from conquered nations, and therefore expendable, were

not even issued with shields.

The

slingers,

like the

though they did not have

shields,

Assyrian archers. Their range seems

with that of the composite bow, and

The main

siege

their rate

to

were in other respects equipped have been

at least

comparable

of fire was probably just as rapid.

engine was the battering-ram.

One

banirpal bears a remarkable resemblance to a Dalek.

from the reign of Ashur^

had

It

wheels and was,

six

probably quite heavy. Its sides seem to be made of overlapping wicker The domed observation^post, like a rudimentary tank turret is a nice The ram itself is probably made of a tree^trunk shod with a metal head.

therefore, shields.

touch.

A rather cruder engine with rear

no doubt

Then

as

so that

now

its

like a boar's head,

foresight, intelligence, surprise

The Assyrian army from which

of special

is

when

even

factors that tipped the scale,

ideas

ram shaped

had a pole

interest

and

a general

fortress

the use of ground, were

because of its organizational and tactical

were

Persia, and, in turn, ancient Greece,

to profit.

Sir

him

now

of Lachish in southern Palestine (Judea),

Duweir. King Hezekiah, served

not',

who had

was shut up

Nineveh (1847)

at

Yadin, 'one of the most important 'war documents' on

They

reveal the tactics

headed by spearmen with round

seem

to

The

the Conqueror),

other half of the archers,

first

and

worn

in the

battle in

no doubt some

which might be taken

sort

their

I

comrades.

Pro--

Judah'.

their missiles.

crest.

The

and guide

The

the 9th

The

have no armour. The slingers stand

behind

weapons were not

sling

his flock

the followers of

slingers (6).

is

the

out-

weapon of

the

by dropping stones in

Regiment of the Arab

was occasionally plagued by complaints from

Mixed Armistice Commission

5.

do the

of auxiliaries,

When I commanded

in Jerusalem in 1954,

as

to indicate that their

direct

front of the leading beast.

with

Middle Ages by

of mail,

their tunic

nomadic shepherd, who can Legion

which

be armed with the same weapon, but there are two

ranged by the short bows of

the

reliefs

opinion of

phase slingers, and archers

shields, assail the city

spearmen have helmets with a crescent'shaped the archers,

The

familiar Assyrian regulars have their characteristic

conical helmet (not unlike those

William

the

and weapons of the defenders. The broad sequence of the

events of the siege are clearly revealed. In the

bowmen

upon

called the Tel ed

are, in the

fessor

distinct 'uniforms'.

fell

king of Assyria, and

'rebelled against the

caged bird' in Jerusalem.

'like a

Austen Layard discovered

All the

the

had numbers against him.

In 700 B.C. the army of Sennacherib bypassed Jerusalem and

key

at

could be pulled on the march by draught animals.

it

that

my

soldiers

had

hit

Jewish

Head-dress from Ur; gold, lapis lazuli and carnelian;

c.

sentries

2500 B.C.

6.

Slingers at the siege of Lachish from a relief from the Palace of Sennacherib

(704-681 B.C.)

at

Nineveh

with stones thrown from the walls of the

Old

City. This

I

denied with a clear

conscience for the range was something like 100 yards, and the idea was there'

my confidence was somewhat disturbed when some of my soldiers still had their shepherd's slings. But

fore patently absurd.

learned later that

This

is

.

a soldier of Sennacherib's (705-681 B.C.) army,

and helmet

I

deduce

that he

ingenuity in crossing rivers. skins

is

their

discipline. In

No.

backs 3

river crossing in the

to

.

.

his shield

a regular. This relief illustrates the Assyrians'

Some

on the bank, while others

weapons on

and from

I

men are shown blowing up their goat' swimming across, with their shields and

of the

are

keep them dry - a point which

Commando

in the

Second World

illustrates their

War we

good

used to practise

same fashion, but using our gas'capes and groundsheets.

We

were not issued with goatskins.

The Assyrians could

get their chariots across rivers either

in the case of small streams, or

by pontoon^bridges

by ferrying them in large boats, propelled by oars

!

^^_^4

ri r yf'. MQ\: >; t

'

jiM

7.

The

8.

«,

t%i IM

Head of an

7.

old

man;

stucco; Afghanistan;

century a.d.

fifth

I .-4

The Japanese also have a tradition of superb artistry. This lacquer box (5) was made about the year a.d. 1200 for holding scroll documents. The technical skill

with which the mother-of-pearl

the black could not be finer. If

delicacy of the grasshoppers

you

and

is

inlaid

see

it

crickets

and

in the

the silver lacquer applied

Museum,

jumping round

on

note the grace and the

box

lid.

demonstrate that man's imitations o( God's creations can attain their

They

own

perfection.

Through

the centuries, the Japanese fashioned

lacquer; and they

on

still

do

so today.

upon

patiently layer

lacquers I

tire

over

layer,

which gradually

never

of looking

I

create

at

in the ancient capital of

many months,

woodcuts made

for the

reveal vividly the gaily

the ages the

5.

Document box;

6.

Masks

for the

{opposite below)

and other^hued

one of these rich works of art.

of intellectual

aristocrats, or the

enjoyment of the more ordinary populace which life

and nineteenth/century Japan.

Asians have been great lovers of dancing and drama.

lacquer and mother 'of'pearl

No

gilt

costumed characters and quaint scenes of everyday

in seventeenth', eighteenth/

Throughout

the black,

Kyoto applying

Japanese paintings, either the delicately imaginative

early water-colours created for the appreciation later

exquisite styles of

have watched humble craftsmen squatting

workshops

the floors in their small

many

;

Japan;

c.

a.d. 1200 {opposite above)

and Kyogen dramas; lacquered wood; Japan; eighteenth century a.d.

8.

The Conception of the Buddha;

Some

Schist;

West Pakistan; second'third century a.d.

of the most gracious, decorative, fabulous theatricals that

watched were performed

in different lands in the Far East.

Chinese opera, the Kathakali performances ballets as well as the

just a

shadow

plays of Java,

few examples of the gorgeous masks

still

The

have ever

I

traditional

in

Kerala in southern India, the

and

the temple dances in Bali are

enacted today, often with the same

costumes, the same steppings and the same music that have enthralled audiences

through many centuries. The motives inspiring those Oriental spectacles are varied.

They may be

acts

human

of homage to the gods aimed to provide the

audience with a moral lesson.

The Japanese have always been them could read

devotees of the theatre.

or write, the people learned

Long

before most of

from stage performances about the

myths, legends and historical episodes which played significant parts in shaping their national character,

traditional

beliefs

dramas were the

and way of

No and Kyogen

life.

plays.

The most famous of Every

worn, the words spoken and the gestures made by the

9.

Siva as Lord of the

Dance

their

detail

of the costumes

actors

became

(Nataraja); Bronze; South India;

c.

stereo^

a.d. 930

. ^j^j.j.

tuT

'

'

.

"7

S8.

*

to

fas*

""•

•'•

^O

* u

k,

9.

The opening

and

first

lines

of 'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, composed in 1797

published in 18 16 (Add.

MS. 50847)

they had been kept in an annexe to Gladstone's library in

The Papers of

interests

Hawarden

Castle.

cover every conceivable kind of subject (7), for Gladstone's range

was

wider than that of most twentietlvcentury - and, for that - Prime Ministers. As one of his biographers has

far

matter, nineteentlvcentury written, Gladstone

account

was convinced

for his every

thought,

that

word and

God would

call

him

personally to

deed, and, not surprisingly in conse^

quence, he preserved over a quarter of a million pieces of paper. This

end of the

the

Gladstone the

as a

same way

He

else.

story,

and from Tory

He

also look to see

Department

volumes.

tell

He

first

to tell the truth

politician to Liberal statesman, the

what papers

Museum

began

to

are not to be

which

are.

found

Among

'Grand Old Man'. in the

story, a

at last,

it

is

Manuscripts

the crucial

documents

a private journal kept by Gladstone in

is

keep

Canterbury, Lambeth Palace, where

Now,

not quite

about anybody or anything

it

in

1825

when

he was only sixteen years

old. Since 1928 the journal has been kept in the Library of the

ally safe.

is

the truth about

of Gladstone's career from schoolboy to Tory

as well as at those

missing from the British forty

anxious

trace every aspect

politician

must

historian anxious to

person and as a major figure in politics - must behave in exactly

as a historian

must

A

however.

it

was thought by

being published.

And

to

Archbishop of

his relatives to be

especv

complete the Gladstone

bundle of extremely important papers, buried away

in the office of

Y

u dull

fuiti bi

'.•>,'

s

.>/i c



/«»/,

I

f

W^

:./i«i «j

/,

would

(>/-/

u

.

^lu^.

>>;n..>?.<

^

(

/

from Lewis Carroll's original manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground,

given as a Christmas present to Alice Liddell in 1864 and published in 1865 as Alice's Adventures

in

Wonderland (Add.

MS.

46700,

f.

7)

w*:: _u

rz*=-

-

.-

.

-

-

" '

-

-

2

Eg

LIS

.

=i

.

H

7

=f

^

i

•

*..',•-

'

of the Concerto in

ii. Part

.

MS.

\

«:

29801,

154b)

Macmillans, the publishers, has recently been discovered. The papers were studied by

John Morley, Gladstone's

and then put on one critical

problem of

Museum. The

historical research

first

outstanding biographer,

were exceptionally

episodes in Gladstone's long political

deposited in the British

and

disciple

side because they

life.

secret

They have now,

and covered at last,

been

historian can illustrate almost every

from questions arising out of the Gladstone

Papers which were in the hands of the same knowledgeable cataloguer, Arthur

Tilney Bassett, before and

after

they were

moved from Hawarden

to

London.

The

questions range from the future of Ireland or the relations between

and

State to

why General Gordon was

sent to

Khartoum and why he

Church perished

there.

To

12.

The

catalogue manuscripts - a protracted,

Articles of the Barons:

as a basis for

at

times a heartbreaking task,

demands accepted by King John

Magna Carta (Add. MS. 4838)

at

Runnymede

in

E

•

~v-.

A for piano, Adagio in D, by Beethoven, from the Kafka

sketch/book which contains his autograph drafts of various compositions (Add. f.

4

June 1215

°-~

.

t~-

FT

1

«• V« n jLy X.O. i

•

{*.

„

.L*

vtv™^: „v.,a.A.a„

-r'-

Iks s..p, „

r .|^.v. .««,.. „..

«

N_,,\tANVtUv,«JW^^ Vi

a

>

MANUSCRIPTS

180

rather like the labours of Hercules

- and

to assist historians

and answer inquiries staff - one

from outside, the Manuscripts Department employs a sizeable

Keeper, three Deputy Keepers, two Assistant Keepers and seven Research Assistants. In terms of numbers of staff, therefore, the

Museum.

the

in

largest

Department

is

the second

Modem

includes a special Sub/Department of

It

Historical Papers, created in 1948 to deal with the vast mass of nineteenth'

twentietlvcentury material

which was threatening

to

swamp

and

whole Depart'

the

ment.

One

of the

effects

of the great expansion of university research studies in

history in recent years has been the subjection of the

the

Modern Sub/Department

War

Second World

there

was

in particular to

Department

immense

as a

whole and

pressures. Before the

a steady attendance record of 11,000 to 12,000

attendances a year, but by 1970 the attendance had risen to over 20,000:

been continuing the

number of letters

of the

rise in

There has

to rise ever since.

some

it

has

an increase in

as great

received from the outside public, itself a measure, doubtless,

The

the level of general education.

has spaces for

been

also

sixty readers

and

Often the 'Full House' sign has

Students'

Room

at

the

Museum

the turnover frequently exceeds eighty a day.

to

be displayed. Manuscripts are normally

supplied within ten minutes ofasking, a very speedy form ofservice.

And although

most of the manuscripts predate the use of telephones and typewriters - and

many, of course, predate by nology

is

now

at

Department and

the disposal of the historian. the

doubled during the

The

centuries the invention of printing

There

- modern tech/

are microfilm/readers in the

number of photocopies made of manuscripts

has more than

ten years.

last

application of computer techniques to the cataloguing and indexing of

come when the new technology with old manuscripts but of studying audkwisual evidence - in and films, the latter of immense value, particularly perhaps to the

manuscripts

is

in

still

its

infancy, but the day will certainly

historian will have the chance not only of taking advantage of the in dealing

recordings

social historian

From papyrus from paper

to

to

supplement what he can find out from

parchment and from parchment

and

to celluloid

to

papa

his piles

will be followed

by

the other synthetic materials. Historical evidence

will certainly change: so, too, will historical

method.

It is

no longer

contemplate historians studying manuscripts not in the Students' distant parts of the

of paper.

fanciful to

Room

but in

world with new forms of telecommunication providing the

medium. All

this

is

in the future.

in the fleeting present,

materials

which

ment who

I

When I work am

Museum as a modern aware that I am handling

at the

always well

constitute only a small part

are not professional historians

- and those

may

visitors to the

say not even the

historian

precious

Depart/

most interesting

K

wu_ tap

13.

The

^

Lindisfarne Gospels: decorative 'carpet' page preceding St Mark's Gospel in the iv, c. 698 in honour of St Cuthbert (Cotton MS., Nero D.,

codex written and illuminated f.

94b)

w aA Ji

«je^> ^*v

i»~*. *«t>. .£•*-> «aa^tr

J&

-^«^s>^ -p* Qfff*efr %»

14. Letter

/£ fi

.

jju» «p

jbe$ ******

f.

- of the possessions

history, the

1766.

Duchy

£>

in the

of Lancaster, to his cousin John Paston

I,

hands of the Keeper of Manuscripts. Alongside

which

of importance in political and social

are

Department also holds texts of poems and plays, all of which require - just as close critical scrutiny as any letter from a politician or a

to It

prepared for a Cabinet.

Stella (8) is

was presented

only one of

many

The

to the

original

copy of Jonathan Swift's

Manuscripts Department

literary treasures

H. Auden and beyond.

It

is

which take

fascinating to

as early as

the reader to the

back

to

modern poet

examine such a nineteenth'

century manuscript as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground (10), the author's

first

draft (with his

which was published

own

in 1865.

illustrations) of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,

This and Carroll's other books remain

as interesting to adults as they are to children: they certainly link

the

Oxford of the sweet dreaming

spires, as

wonderland, with mathematics serving tion

and

as a

^

-^nm^-i*^ ^c*^ ^f^riP sT^i

Pindar or Sappho or Coleridge's Kubla Khan (9) and on

W.

«*a ^

receive

memorandum Journal

jfWA'

«saK*£> p> iVwjfev

21)

those of its written manuscripts

- and

&^ £&,£ ^ «#?*«*

of Edmund Clere, Bailiff of the

1455 (Add. MS. 43488,

part

^»

at least

up Oxford,

depicted in Buckler's drawings, and

spur both to the controlled imagina^

to the wildest fantasy. In the twenty^first century, students will

be able

•

~

,»

•

<

l

e4

**

•

*

•

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