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Yesterday Bill and I went to see Haidrian, had heard good things about it from his Latin student but we were VERY dissapointed. It was expensive (£12) and also VERY crowded. If you're charging that much you should limit the numbers a bit more! The exhibition was a marvel of modern museum exhibition design, and by that I mean it was a lot of "display" with picutres and text, and not many actual artifacts! I think the worse case was the room about his wife (one of 7 rooms) that contained two busts of her! Altogether it seemed like we saw about 30 things, 6 at least were busts of Haidrian. We left feeling rather dissapointed and not knowing much more than when we went in!
The best thing was a cup with men having sex in the tribute to his boyfriend room, but of course the best scence of copulation was round the back of the cup which was hard to see because they put it up against the wall and there was no mirror! It's almost as if the British Museum didn't want you to see the hot naked Greeks having sex!
All told I'd recommend going to the Museum of London (for free) and checking out their Roman London exhibition, SO MUCH more in the way of actual Roman things, and you really get a feel for what it was like to live in London when it was Roman
EDIT: I forgot my most important rant!!!!
The WORST part was in the "architecture" part where they went to GREAT lengths to point out how close the reading room (in which we were standing having been converted to an exhibition space) was really close to the Pantheon (which Hadrian fixed up). What they DIDN'T say was that the British Musem converted the reading room into a "temporary" exhibition space for the First Emperor exhibit, and has since applied to make this a PERMENANT change! Needless to say MANY librarians are a bit pissed off about this, as the reading room at the British Museum is rather famous and important. Of course why would a piece of history in a museum be important when instead the space could be used for exhibitions that bring in 1000s of pounds a day! A highly frustrating thing, but even worse when they rub your faces in it and then pretend it's not happening! Times like this I find it amusing that everyone refers to it as the "BM".
The best thing was a cup with men having sex in the tribute to his boyfriend room, but of course the best scence of copulation was round the back of the cup which was hard to see because they put it up against the wall and there was no mirror! It's almost as if the British Museum didn't want you to see the hot naked Greeks having sex!
All told I'd recommend going to the Museum of London (for free) and checking out their Roman London exhibition, SO MUCH more in the way of actual Roman things, and you really get a feel for what it was like to live in London when it was Roman
EDIT: I forgot my most important rant!!!!
The WORST part was in the "architecture" part where they went to GREAT lengths to point out how close the reading room (in which we were standing having been converted to an exhibition space) was really close to the Pantheon (which Hadrian fixed up). What they DIDN'T say was that the British Musem converted the reading room into a "temporary" exhibition space for the First Emperor exhibit, and has since applied to make this a PERMENANT change! Needless to say MANY librarians are a bit pissed off about this, as the reading room at the British Museum is rather famous and important. Of course why would a piece of history in a museum be important when instead the space could be used for exhibitions that bring in 1000s of pounds a day! A highly frustrating thing, but even worse when they rub your faces in it and then pretend it's not happening! Times like this I find it amusing that everyone refers to it as the "BM".