1 HOUR CHALLENGE at the British Museum: I can’t believe what I saw!
Hi everyone and welcome to the British Museum! Hi everyone, it's me. My name is Alanna and I'm Canadian, but I live here in the UK and today we are in London, specifically at the British Museum. It's actually sunny, I can't believe it. Now I love museums, maybe you're like me, I love a good museum and personally I think the British Museum is the most overwhelming museum in London and there's a lot of museums here, so that's saying something. However, I saw online that the British Museum has their very own one hour at the British Museum guide, so you see the most important stuff in one hour and I thought, that's perfect. So it is a beautiful winter's day. Can you see that? Sun is shining, it's freezing cold, but the sky is blue and it's clear and it's dry. We are going to do the one hour museum guide.
I'm really excited, I've never done it before. Leave a comment down below, British Museum, have you been? Yes or no? Anywho, I think that's all I wanted to say. Thanks for clicking on this video, I hope I don't disappoint. Anyway, let's do our one hour in the British Museum.
Alright everyone and we are off. So first things first, we have to get inside and get kind of situated. I wasn't really sure which direction we are going in. Like I mentioned, this museum is iconic, it's massive and overwhelming to say the least. Now when I do these solo trips, I like to go like on a Thursday afternoon, some random day, so it's actually not too busy. And we are starting off in a room I think I've never actually been in
before, which just goes to show how big this museum is. But I hauled ass to our first stop, it felt really weird like bypassing everything, but we got a mission and we are going to stick to it. Now one thing that was actually really fun, this was like a treasure hunt, it doesn't really say exactly where the artifact is in that particular room, so you have a little scout around, but of course this is what we are here for. So this is the Holy Thorn
Reliquary, just to disregard that, enameled gold, sapphires, rubies, and pearls from Paris around 1400. So this was made to contain a thorn, supposedly from the crown of thorns, that was placed on Christ's head before the crucifixion. I have never seen anything like this. It's just kind of in the corner of the room, a lot of people just walked right past it, and I was floored. The crown of thorns itself was a French royal relic housed in its own chapel in
Paris. Individual thorns were detached to make precious reliquary jewels. Wild. Moving on to our next artifact, we are changing gears for something a little bit different and checking out the Lewis Chessmen. So in 1831 this hoard of carved walrus ivory was discovered on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles, Scotland. It contained 93 pieces and included 78 chessmen, 14 large game encounters, and an elaborately carved belt buckle. 11 of the chessmen are at the National Museum in Edinburgh,
and the rest of the hoard is here at the British Museum. When found, some of these chessmen were stained red. The earlier medieval chess sets appear to have been combined red with plain ivory, rather than the black and white pieces you might see today. The detail on these guys is just wild. I was worried that the camera might not be able to pick it up, but you can see just like the grooves and the carvings on literal walrus tusks. I just, I love these guys. I'm pretty sure I've walked past this set on previous visits to the museum, and I never gave it a proper look, but I was really glad this was included on our sort of treasure hunt of artifacts. Next up we are going to either Egypt or Syria, they're not totally sure, between 1200 and 1300, exciting, to see what is called an astrolabe. Now before we get there, let me just say it was so weird like bypassing all these people,
but we got a mission and I got a map. So this device is used with multiple plates to help sort of identify what they see in the sky, essentially a map of the heavens, but depending on where you were in the world you could use different plates, switching them in and out. You could get certain information about the stars or the direction of Mecca. This is absolutely wild. I was really worried that you wouldn't be able to see all the engravings because they are so fine, and there's so many levels to this device that I was just really shocked. And we're talking about a device that's what, over 800 years old? Absolutely wild. One thing that came up a lot when I was doing this one hour challenge, and I don't want to keep repeating myself because I'm sure that's really annoying, but every time I found the new artifact I would say to myself, wow, I think I walked past this on all previous British Museum visits. This museum is just so big and it's just so full of
stuff that it's really hard to take in everything that you see. So throughout this challenge, basically everything on this list was new to me aside from one or two major things which we'll see shortly, but everything was a surprise. If you find yourself abroad this year, maybe at a cool museum like this one, you're gonna need some data. May I suggest today's sponsor, Holofly. Holofly is a global eSIM provider that offers data plans to over 213 destinations, so instead of wasting your holiday time trying to set up a SIM card for, you know, whatever country that you're in, you can get a eSIM with Holofly in minutes and have it sent to you digitally right away. It's as simple as visiting holofly.com, you can search where you want to go, then you can pick the plan that you like and scan
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I've actually just booked our trip for 2025. Guess where we're going? Did you guess Greece? Yes! Never been, but I'm really excited, and guess what? Holofly has plans for Greece. So cheers to Holofly for sponsoring this video. If you are going away this year, make sure to use my discount code ADVENTURESANDNAPS, and you're going to get 5% off your next eSIM. Next up on our treasure hunt, we are going from Egypt/Syria/they weren't totally certain to ancient Iran. As with every other room
in this museum, this room is absolutely jam-packed, but we are here for this, the Oxus treasure. So this is the largest collection of Achaemenid gold and silver objects, and dates to about the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Similar to the astrolabe, the detail on these pieces is really quite wild, especially the really small tiny pieces, and when you think how old it is, just absolutely wild. And one thing that I thought was really cool with this piece is that some of the animals depicted are animals that we know, but also imagined species. So you can see things like lions,
but also lion griffins, to rams, goats, winged goats, bulls, and ducks. Very cool. So after we leave ancient Iran, do you say Iran or Iran? Doesn't matter, we're moving on now. I will say, some of these pieces are not necessarily close to each other. There's almost none of them that are like in the room adjacent, so you really do travel around the museum. I did go the wrong way a couple
of times. I was just really excited. I was breezing past all this stuff. I'm like, "Oh my god, I should stop and read it." But no, we're on a mission. I did go the wrong direction a couple of times, but we are going to sort of ancient Rome, which is very exciting. It's one of my personal favorites. I think a lot of people like the ancient Rome stuff. All right, me too. And I did get there eventually after a couple of wrong turns and one wrong staircase. If you've never been to the
British Museum, some of these clips might illustrate just how much is here. It really did feel weird to just bypass entire rooms. My problem when I go to a museum is I start reading everything and then at a certain point I just get so overwhelmed that I just glaze over everything else. But no, we are on a mission and I'm having a great time and I hope you like this video. Now our next artifact, the one we're here for, is this. This is the Portland vase. Vase? Vase. It is cameo glass, probably made in Rome around 15 BC to 25 AD. And this vase is the finest surviving
pieces of Roman glass. And guess what? This blew my mind. In 1845, a visitor deliberately smashed it, breaking it into 125 fragments. But guess what? Within five months, the museum conservator, John Doubleday, great name, repaired it. His restoration lasted until 1945. Can you imagine
smashing this on purpose? Insane. But the imagery on this vase is absolutely gorgeous. And the fact that it is so old and has been like fully repaired is just incredible. Next up, we are in ancient China. So the artifact from this era are these tomb figures. We're talking around 728 AD. They're
from a Tang dynasty official who died in that year. They are the tallest and most intact set known to have survived from this era. So these figures were probably placed at the entrance to the burial chamber and the number and scale of the figures matched the deceased social rank.
The colors on these are incredible. The expressions on the people and the animals are just unbelievable. The fact that these have survived when they're so intricate is just really, truly incredible. Moving right along, we continue down this hallway. We are more than halfway through our one hour here at the British Museum. There are 12 items on this list. We are coming up to number
seven. So we are going to South India to see the Hindu God Shiva. Here he is. So he is depicted in his most famous form, Lord of the Dance. Please don't make me try to pronounce it. I'm so sorry. I loved this. I loved how this was placed in the room as well. The sculpture is made using the lost wax process, a technique which South Indian bronze casters mastered to a degree rarely seen since. But in terms of placement, I loved how he was sort of in the middle of the aisle. You could see through him all the way down to the gallery. Very, very cool. Definitely walked past this on
previous occasions, but not this time. And you're probably wondering, "Alanna, you didn't tell us what year." That's a good point. This is from roughly 1100. Now our next piece, we are moving to Africa. But one thing that we do need to talk about is when we speak about the British Museum, a lot of people say, "Oh, it's just full of stolen things." That's a very hot topic,
button, hot button topic. And it is true with this piece. Now these are the Benin bronzes from Nigeria. We won't be able to get into the whole history of this because it's very complex and this is a very short video. But how did these objects come to be at the British Museum? Well, they were
brought to Britain as spoils of war and personal trophies in 1897 when Britain invaded and occupied this city. Things are done a little bit differently nowadays. The British Museum is in collaboration with Nigerian partners. Many museums have ultimately purchased these pieces from Benin. Today over 80 museums worldwide have been in collections with the most significant in Britain, Germany, the US, and Nigeria. Now the purpose of this video is obviously not the history of British colonization. That is a topic for someone much more intelligent than I am. But I do think it's disingenuous to not mention it. I know some people get really upset when you talk about stolen
artifacts. But that is the reality. That is the history. So just, it's part of this video now. So here we are. Next up on our adventure, we are going to Chile. Now this is one of the few pieces that I have seen before. It's kind of hard not to have seen it. You're gonna see in a hot second why that is. And of course it's this guy. So this is a Moai from Easter Island created by the Polynesian
people Rapa Nui. They put extraordinary resources and effort in creating these sculptures. They think around 1000 AD. Across Polynesia, Islanders worshipped ancestors who traced their lineages back to the gods. The Moai were raised in honor of important deified ancestors and could embody their spirits. I think if you've been to the British Museum before, you've probably seen this
guy. I'd say he's one of the top, most recognizable pieces. Of course his size makes that pretty easy. Pretty difficult to miss. Unless for some reason you didn't go to this part of the museum at all. But yes, this is one of the few pieces on this list that I had actually seen before. Very cool. Huge. Kind of shocking how big. Next up on our journey, we are going to, I would say,
the most famous piece in the British Museum and the busiest. It is in this glass case, surrounded by all these people. The museum wasn't very busy today, but this piece always has a crowd and yes, it is the Rosetta Stone. So this piece has three different languages inscribed on the
stone which helped decipher ancient Egyptian scripts. So the secret writing is the hieroglyphics, that's hard to say. The hieroglyphics at the top, the native characters in the middle are known as Demotic, the everyday script of Egyptians, and the bottom is inscribed in Greek, the language used by the government. I personally think this is probably the most famous piece in this museum. It's the one that people can actually name. Oh yeah, the Rosetta Stone is here. It's also so neat how preserved these inscriptions are. It is quite dark so I wasn't sure if the camera was going to get it
quite right, but you can see, yeah, the differences and how all of a sudden it changes language, changes script. I don't know, it's very cool. I had to wait literally in line to get close to it. It's very popular. If you do have extra time, you're not doing the one hour trip. This area is very cool. Love ancient Egypt, love the statues, the history. I don't know, it feels, it feels different for some reason. Obviously it is different. That's stupid to say. It's just a very cool spot, but that is not on our list. So if we continue through these statues, kind of your like classics, right? Things that you really recognize, or at least I do. These, these sorts of
statues. We kind of zoom over to the left a little bit, a little bit more. We're gonna see something quite different. Yes, that. So this area is the palace of the Assyrian king, ruler of the world's first empire. I gotta be honest, never learned anything about this. So this is totally new to me, but it is located in northern Iraq. The Assyrian empire dominated the middle east from 900 to 600 BC. Now behind these statues, you can kind of walk through and see like a more reliefs and things, but in particular, we're here for these lion bust thingies, which I gotta be honest, kind of creepy.
I don't know, when it's a human face, kind of creeps me out. Not gonna lie, but still very cool. And while it's not part of the one hour tour, I did sneak in behind to see some of the reliefs, just because I found this stuff really interesting. And it is really a blind spot in my history knowledge, but this one I thought was really cool. Just, I don't know, they're just like regular people. That probably is weird, but I thought this place was really neat. But it's time to leave the middle east and go into our final room. It's actually like the whole room. We're going to ancient Greece, and it is this Parthenon Galleries that we're checking out. And to be fair, I think
this is quite an exciting room to finish on. So as you might know, the Parthenon was a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. This room exhibits sculptures that once decorated the outside of the building. So it's massive. It's extremely impressive. There is a lot here. There's a lot to take in. So the temple in Greece took until 432 BC to finally complete. I will just say if we take a
take a minute from the history, it was really, God, how do I explain this? There were so many foreigners here. There are so many like school trips. And as a Canadian living in the UK, it kind of hit me in this room, like how lucky I am that I came here on a Thursday afternoon to see this stuff. Just such a privilege. I don't know, it just, I'm not really doing a great job of explaining it. I try to be very blunt about my experiences as a foreigner living abroad. It is not always easy.
There's some really terrible, terrible parts about being an expat. But something about this one hour trip when I found myself in this room, and it all kind of hit me just how lucky I am to be able to experience this. It just felt really special. And in this moment, I just felt so grateful to have such a wonderful day out here at the British Museum. Well everyone, that has been a whirlwind visit to the British Museum. I gotta tell you, that was so much more enjoyable than what I normally do. I never go with a plan. I just start walking around like any museum.
Wow, I am shedding. God, that sun is bright. Normally when I go to a museum, I just start walking and I don't have a plan. And then I get to a point where I've reached my limit, and I'm not taking in any more information. I'm just like glazing over everything. I'm just like, I'm just walking. So this was so nice for the museum to be like, "Hey, look at these things. Disregard everything else. Just look at these things." And I had a great time. And I hope Alanna doing the voiceover turned that into something fun. I hope you guys have fun too. I did see there's another
sort of guide where if you have two to three hours. So I think maybe next time I'll do that. Obviously I can skip the first hour that I've already done, but I could do like the next bit. Anyway, I had a great time. I can't believe it's so sunny. I'm getting peckish. I'm getting tired. I think I'm going to go grab something to eat and then make my way to my train and make my way home.
Don't forget to check out Holofly in the video description, whether you're coming to London or you're going abroad. I hope you have a wonderful time wherever it is you go, but you're going to need an eSIM. All right. So click my link in the description. And if you have any suggestions of like solo trips, it doesn't have to be a museum, but I love a museum. If you got any ideas, let me know. Anyway, I got to get home. I'm getting tired. I think I'm going to have a nap on the train. If you'd like to watch more videos right now, which would be totally awesome. Why not check
out this one? I went to, what should it be? The war museum. I went to the Imperial war museum and had a great time, but as always, thank you guys so much for watching and until next time, bye.
2025-02-28 12:06
