The Ashmolean Museum

Here is a museum still worth visiting, that has not (yet) become a theme park


I do not know how I missed seeing the Ashmolean in spite of so much residence in Oxford over the years, except perhaps that my interests have only recently turned to classical subjects. My recent brief visit turned out to be one of the most rewarding museum visits in the past year. If you can see only the Ashmolean or the British Museum, choose the Ashmolean by all means. The British Museum is a perennial building site, surrounded by a nasty urban warren, crammed like the Central Line at rush hour with uncomprehending tourists and pre-rational children, displaying big things in otherwise mainly empty rooms with legends prepared by the badly-informed. The Ashmolean is just the opposite: quiet, with impressive and complete displays, knowledgeable and informative legends, and visited mainly by the intelligent. Among other things, I enjoyed the case of Egyptian amulets, the little statues of Neith that showed me she was always depicted wearing the crown of Lower Egypt and smiling, the pen cases with reed brushes, and the reed pens from Greece that replaced them later, papyrus examples, and a note on how papyrus was prepared, and that it was white, smooth and flexible when new. There were false-necked Mycenaean III jugs found in Egypt, and in another place those found at Mycenae, demonstrating a connection, and even a ring jug of a type I had not known about. There were many hieroglyphs and paintings, much more than in the BM, and suitable for study [after Manley and Collier wrote the excellent book on hierglyphs based on those in the BM, the BM promptly removed them]. I found out how storage jugs were sealed, with a cloth over the top, wrapped with twine around the neck, and sealed. There were stamp and cylinder seals in profusion, cuneiform writing, and other Assyrian and Babylonian things. None of these things can be seen at the British Museum any more, other than as the briefest samples. On the other hand, none are big, showy or coveted by the wealthy. There was much more that I did not have time to absorb.

Also unlike the British Museum, the Ashmolean has an excellent website at www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk, where you can find opening hours, location, details of the collections, and other information. Admission is free. It is located across the street from the Randolph Hotel, at the Martyr's Monument, a 12-minute walk from the station. See it while it is still there.


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Composed by J. B. Calvert
Created 25 August 2000
Last revised