{"id":9476,"date":"2025-12-26T18:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T18:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/?p=9476"},"modified":"2025-12-29T15:55:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T15:55:43","slug":"london-day-12-kay-at-the-victoria-albert-museum-2nd-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/?p=9476","title":{"rendered":"London Day 12 – Kay at the Victoria & Albert Museum (2nd Day)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dan caught a chill while on yesterday\u2019s bus tour, so I headed out solo while he stayed home and worked on blog posts. I\u2019m so grateful for this daily log of our adventure that he\u2019s created, and am already looking back at things I would have forgotten. Paris seems like a long time ago! It\u2019s a lot of work and he\u2019s been so diligent about it. Love seeing all his photos, too. Yay Dan-o!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took my now-favorite walk across Hyde Park to museum row, and returned to the Victoria & Albert. I think this is my favorite museum so far. It has a huge section on Mesopotamia, with lots of artifacts up to 9,000 years old. My minor was in Classical Studies, and I loved my class on Sumerian Mythology. All the masses of information I forgot during that program has gradually been coming back to me (Greek and Roman pantheons, history, myths) as we\u2019ve traveled, and I was especially excited to see actual artifacts from this area (modern Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey). It was here that some of the world\u2019s first civilizations developed, and they were very sophisticated. I wonder sometimes how much our modern science and mathematics is a relearning of ancient knowledge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have mixed feelings about the museums: huge gratitude to be able to see and learn about different worldwide cultures, societies, civilizations and arts, and horror at the pure plundering that took place to acquire all of these pieces, including human bodies and many funerary items. By random coincidence, I started reading \u201cWarrior Girl Unearthed\u201d by Angeline Boulley, which focuses on missing Indigenous women and how an Ojibwa tribe is affected by and works to have their ancestors and sacred artifacts returned from museums. It gave me an added perspective to what I was feeling intuitively as I wandered these museums. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
The Raphael Room with cartoons for huge tapestries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
That is a giant Murano glass chandelier!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Silver and stained glass exhibit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
This looks like it\u2019s a nightclub, but it\u2019s a jewelry exhibition<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Interesting to see Indian and middle Eastern art, including modern work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Continuing my \u2018Sacred Feminine\u2019 project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
This looks like a piece of Trajan\u2019s column that we saw in Rome<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Intricate carving in ivory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo and Collection and Library<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was completely gob-smocked to find the most varied photo gallery I\u2019ve experienced here, and then that they had a huge photography library where you can check out books to read. The breadth of the collection was spectacular, and included so many photographers that I\u2019ve studied but never seen their actual prints. Stunning collection. They also had rooms set up like gallery exhibitions, focusing on particular artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Film and Multimedia Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had an very cool multimedia gallery, but as if my photo experience wasn\u2019t enough, I entered a film gallery and they had a bunch of items from the set of \u201cHis Dark Materials\u201d (based on the Phillip Pullman book series of the same name). I\u2019ve read the books many times and also watched the series. In fact, Dan and I were watching it together at home before we left on this trip, and we\u2019ve still got two episodes left. They had a great film that explained how they did the CG and how they used puppets for the daemons so the actors could interact with \u2018real\u2019 characters and then they\u2019d overlay the CG on the scenes. Fascinating. I recall an article where Sir Ian McKellen spoke of how painful it was to play Gandalf, as he was always by himself in a green room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Lee Scorseby\u2019s outfit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Lyra Silvertongue and Mrs. Coulter\u2019s outfits<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
The alethiometer!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Iorik Byrneson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Costumes from films and plays<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Heading Home<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walk back along\u2019 museum row\u2019 to get to Hyde Park. I love Hyde Park! During the day it\u2019s filled with people, dogs playing off-leash, kids running around, birds. At night, there are cyclists and runners, but the shapes of the trees take main stage. There are twisted, ancient trees throughout. It\u2019s like wandering a magic forest at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Museum row<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
The trees of Hyde Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan caught a chill while on yesterday\u2019s bus tour, so I headed out solo while he stayed home and worked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9516,"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9476\/revisions\/9516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technomads.maginei.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}