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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
We also have two little Egyptian shabtis which were
buried with the dead to dig for your food in the
afterlife and were found by my grandfather in law
during the Second World War. One day my children
and I took them in for the curators to have a look at.
We were told that there are millions of them, that they
have no value at all but he showed us the bits of grain
and grass preserved in the clay, which are about 3,000
years old. The thing that did it for me though was
the thumb print that must have been left by the person
who made it.
Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection formed the basis
of the museum, not only brought us chocolate and
invented hot chocolate, he also said that the collection
should be in trust for the world and indeed you see
the world in there every day. When the First Emperor
exhibition was on I had to work with a group of
bankers from Goldmann Sachs. At the end of the tour
one of them said to me “you’ve got the best job in the
world.” Too right!
After explaining how the Egyptians
removed the brain before mummification
by inserting a hook up the nostril and
whisking, one of my group told me that
he was a brain surgeon and he still uses
the same method to reach the pituitary
gland. Another man said that he was so
fascinated by the process that he tried
it out on a dead beaver on his kitchen
table. (And, yes, it worked, if you’re
wondering!)
I was once guiding a group of Scottish
school children around the Assyrian
Lion Hunt relief when a man came up to
me with tears in his eyes and shook both
my hands saying, “I come from Nineveh
and I am so proud to see them. Thank
you so much for looking after them.”
It was just after the Baghdad Museum
had been ransacked in the Iraq war.
The children’s eyes were on stalks.
Guiding children is different from
guiding adults and they ask completely
different things such as “where are the
black ones” when I was showing them
the Lewis Chessmen.
At home we have some fragments of
Roman pots that my mother dug up
when she was volunteering on an
excavation in the 1940s. One little
fragment can be so evocative.
At Home With The Ancients –
Pompeii at The British Museum
is available for a choice mid week dates. We’re sold
out for April but we have availability for all months
from May to the end of September. The tour
combines a guided galleries tour with a Blue Badge
guide (far from the madding crowd) with a visit to the
block buster exhibition
Pompeii & Herculaneum:
Life and Death in the Roman Empire
and runs
from 10.30/45am to 4.45pm with some later start
days available. The tour costs £24.00 per person
based on 35 people.
For further information read the tour description by
clicking
The New Walking Content Guide
The number inside the Olympic
running track is not miles!
It means that on this trip the
minimum you’ll walk
is the equivalent of twice
around the 400 metres track, that’s about
875 yards. The maximum is up to you!
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