British Museum Antiquties

No visit to the the British Museum would be complete without at least a short visit to the antiquities section to see some of the Roman, Greek, and Assyrian permanent collection. Above is a portion of one if the metopes from the Parthenon.



Another impressive stone carving from Assyria. There are two of these, forming the sides of an ancient entryway.

This is from Hadrian's villa just outside Rome.

Below is the Nereid Monument. According to Wikipedia it

is a sculptured tomb from Xanthosin Lycia (then part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire), close to present-day Fethiye in Mugla Province, Turkey. It took the form of a Greek temple on top of a base decorated with sculpted friezes, and is thought to have been built in the early fourth century BC (circa 390 BC) as a tomb for Arbinas (Lycian: Erbbina, or Erbinna), the Xanthian dynast who ruled western Lycia under the Achaemenid Empire.

Another piece of the Elgin Marbles shown what magical things the Greeks could construct to adorn the Parthenon.

I end here with a final look at Assyrian art. Try to imagine this in the brilliant colors seen in the Ashurbanipal exhibit.