Tom Tower of Christ Church

The college of Christ Church here at Oxford is world-famous for many reasons. Its cathedral, home to the diocese of Oxford, is absolutely stunning. Its grounds serve as the setting for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Harry Potter and his wizarding friends ate magically-delicious meals in its dining hall. However, one of Christ Church's most striking features is the one you can see (and hear) from miles away: Tom Tower.

Tom Tower

The tower, named after its bell 'Great Tom,' was built in the late 17th century and serves as the main entrance to Christ Church off of St. Aldate's. Tom Tower has quite an interesting history, and, as you might expect, it comes with a rich Oxonian tradition.

"Okay, great," you say. "But, why are devoting a whole post to this one tower?"

I am glad you asked, my friend. Tom Tower has special significance to me, and I suspect to a good number of my college friends, because it inspired the tower of our beloved Dunster House at Harvard.

Dunster House

Can you see the resemblance? The tower at Dunster is obviously much smaller and the details have been 'Georgianized,' but the similarities are there. (Also, some stones from Christ Church were incorporated into Dunster's architecture during its construction, although I'm not sure exactly where. I have a vague memory of them being in J entryway, near the dining hall. Does anyone know?)

Not much storytelling or deep insight for today. I just wanted to contribute a brief post to remind you all that I'm still in England. But, to conclude, Dunster is the best house. And Oxford is awesome, too.

My beautiful former home.

Hope all is well!
Alyce

The British Museum and the Book of the Dead

Well, I finally got out to see the British Museum this past Thursday, courtesy of an excursion organized by the Clarendon folks.

The British Museum

The museum was holding a late programme that evening in honor of their special exhibition on the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (an exhibition supported by BP... but we'll ignore that). The event included live performances, demonstrations, and various workshops focusing on different aspects of Egyptian burial and the journey through the underworld.

The British Museum

But the main attraction was, of course, the exhibition on the Book of the Dead. The Book of the Dead is not a single book. In fact, it's not a book at all, but a long scroll of papyrus inscribed with multiple spells meant to protect the dead on their journey in the afterlife. And, boy, what a journey! The ultimate goal was to attain eternal life with the god Osiris in his land of the dead, but only the worthy would be admitted. And so, the soul had to embark on a treacherous adventure, fighting off evil beasts and facing various challenges.

The most important challenge was the weighing of the heart. On one side of the scale would be placed the departed's heart. On the other, a feather. If that person had led a righteous life, his heart would weigh the same as the feather, and he would gain entrance to Osiris' paradisal kingdom, the Field of Reeds. If, however, the departed had led a life of sin, his heart would be heavy and he would fail the test. And what happened to the poor schmucks who were deemed unworthy of eternal paradise? Their souls were devoured by a terrible beast with the head of a crocodile, the torso of a lion, and the bottom of a hippopotamus, and they would be forced to wander aimlessly in perpetuity. Because the Ancient Egyptians believed the dead would face this test in the afterlife, the heart was the one organ not removed in the mummification process.

The spells included in the Book of the Dead could be instructions for how to vanquish the snakes and the beetles, mnemonic devices to ensure the tests would be passed, or simple prayers to ensure the body would remain in tact along the way. Thus, this text had great importance as a funerary object (if you could afford it, that is).

The exhibit, as you might expect, was fantastic. It was a great introduction to Egyptian burial practice and mythology, and had a good variety of material (e.g. pages from various Books of the Dead; amulets; figurines; sarcophagi; and, yes, mummies) on display. We also had a couple of people in the group with us who can read the hieroglyphs, so I had a good time listening to them make sense of the different spells. I probably spent a good hour and a half in that exhibit alone, and I enjoyed every second of it!

By the time I resurfaced, I had just over an hour before the group had to make its way back to Oxford. Fortunately, there were only two other objects in the museum that I just had to see.

The Rosetta Stone

The world-famous Rosetta Stone, inscribed with three different scripts (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian hieratic script, and Greek script) and two languages (Ancient Egyptian and Greek), allowed Jean-François Champollion to decipher the hieroglyphs in the early 19th century. How surreal to have finally seen it in person!

The Copan Maize God

But, no visit to the British Museum would have been complete (for me) without this guy: my main maize man! I almost missed him tucked away in this bookshelf, but I spied him out of the corner of my eye and my heart filled with joy. Not even the London soot could take away from his beauty.

And that was it, mes amis. A brief, but wonderful, introduction to the British Museum. I cannot wait to go back and see what else this amazing museum has to offer!

I hope all is well back home!
Alyce

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the museum didn't allow photography in the Book of the Dead exhibit (because it would raise mummies from the dead, or something like that), hence the lack of photos.

Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Avebury

This past Sunday, I took a day trip into the English countryside to visit some incredible feats of humanity: the Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, and the Avebury stone circle. The tour group met bright and early at 9:30 AM (yes, this is early for me), and soon after we divided ourselves onto the two buses. As I climbed into the smaller of the two, the driver said, "Good choice! This bus is much nicer." Had we been in a movie, one might have considered this foreshadowing. About an hour into the first leg of our journey, the larger bus' engine started malfunctioning, causing it to overheat and shut off automatically. Every time this happened, both buses had to pull to the side of the road and wait for the larger bus to restart before we could continue. Fortunately, we weren't far from Salisbury when this started happening. Unfortunately, Salisbury was only the first stop, which meant we had to deal with the intermittent bus for the rest of the trip. Even so, no one seemed to mind. We were on a pretty spectacular trip, after all.

As I mentioned, we stopped first in Salisbury, a lovely town that is home to one of Britain's earliest settlements, Old Sarum. It is also home to the magnificent Salisbury Cathedral, built between 1220 and 1315.

The Salisbury Cathedral

Can you believe all of this was accomplished by 1315? And they call those years the Dark Ages! After some severe body contortion I managed to get a picture of (nearly) the entire building, but the photo definitely does not do it justice. The cathedral punctuates the landscape in quite an impressive way, boasting the second-tallest spire in Europe. The spire is so remarkably huge, in fact, that until the last century the building's architecture could not support its weight appropriately, and the spire leaned slightly to the south.

The Leaning Salisbury Cathedral

The above photo shows the architectural supports sitting directly underneath the spire. It might be difficult to see, but over the years the supports have bowed due to the spire's immense weight. Today, steel reinforcements have corrected the problem (we hope).

The Salisbury Cathedral

The inside of the cathedral is equally impressive and immense. The stained glass, the architecture, the sculpture--the cathedral is a wonderful array of both the ancient and the modern. I could have easily spent the entire day wandering around and absorbing every detail. Yet, the beauty of the cathedral is not the only draw to the site; in addition, its Chapter House has on display one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta. Unfortunately but understandably, photography was not allowed of the document. But, suffice it to say, it was very exciting to catch a glimpse of a charter with such historical significance.

From Salisbury, we puttered along toward our next destination: Stonehenge, "the most mysterious and enigmatic of all monuments" (according to our leaflet). I was beyond excited. After growing up with its ubiquitous image, I could not wait to see it in person. It was a terribly blustery day, of course, but any other weather just wouldn't have fit the occasion.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Experiencing Stonehenge for myself was surreal. When I first came upon it, it felt familiar and even ordinary. But as I circled the immense stones, I became more and more aware of the monument's grandeur. There's something about  physically being in a place that reveals its significance, its power. Absolutely incredible.

After a brief 55 minutes at Stonehenge, we climbed half-frozen back into our buses and made our way to the final stop of the day: Avebury. The Avebury henge doesn't get much press, but it is Britain's largest and most extensive stone circle. The small village of Avebury sits right in its center, so on the ground it is hard to get a good grasp of just how big it is. To give you an idea, it measures about 420 meters across. That's about four-and-a-half football fields! HUGE. Like Stonehenge, the Avebury henge consists of an outer- and an inner-circle.

A 'female' stone at the Avebury henge.

The outer-circle consists of alternating square- and diamond-shaped stones. It has been theorized that the square-shaped stones represent males and masculinity, and the diamond-shaped stones represent females and femininity. The skill it must have taken to place these stones in the ground at that angle astounds me.

The Inner-Circle at Avebury

By the time we had finished our self-guided tour of the Avebury henge, the sun had set and it was time to head back to Oxford. The trip home may have taken twice as long due to the larger bus' troubles, but the tour guide's apologies as we arrived back in town were met with a resounding 'THANK YOU' from everyone who had participated in the day's tours. We had been led on a truly fantastic journey.

Now, I could go on and on and on about this amazing trip, but pictures speak louder than words. If you'd like to check out the dozens of other photos I captured, you can check out the Picasa web album by clicking on the following link: Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Avebury. I have also added them to the slideshow below.




Hope you've enjoyed!
Alyce