The Ashmolean and The Eagle and The Child

First of all, take a look at our little nephews... aren't they adorable!!?? I wish I could go play with them in the leaves right now :)

Here's a picture of Sam:



and a picture of Sawyer:



After adoring their sweet little faces on the computer screen for a while, Rich and I went to the oldest museum in Britain, the Ashmolean. They were having an exhibit on Leonardo Davinci that ends next weekend, so we thought we'd check it out before it was too late. The exhibit was alright, though there weren't as many Davinci drawings/paintings as I thought there'd be. It was called "Imagining Davinci", so I guess we were just supposed to imagine what his artwork would be like... ha ha. Most of the artwork was done by people who were inspired by him and his style.

Here's a picture of the museum in 1740, when the word "museum" was a novelty and it was described as "a neat building in the city of Oxford."



We did, however get to see some oracle bones, which I found fascinating. The oracle bones are pieces of bone or turtle shell that date back to the Shang Dynasty (11th-13th century BC). They were found in China in the late 19th century and the writing that is found on them are known to be the earliest form of Chinese writing. The oracle bones were used to foretell the future.

Here's a picture of a full set (we only saw a few little pieces):



Apparently, they would drill pits partway through the bone and then they would divine upon a topic in a ceremony. Then they would take a heated rod and insert into one of the pits until the bone cracked at that point. The shapes looked like卜, which in Chinese means 'to divine'. They would make more than one crack in a ceremony and then at the end of the ceremony, the person in charge (sometimes the king) would read the cracks that would present the answers they were looking for.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bones)

They also had the cloak of Powhatan (Pocahontas' father) on display. Wasn't that nice of Britain to take that back with them? :)



After our visit to the museum, we stopped in at the Eagle and the Child, which is a small pub on St. Giles street that dates back to 1650 and is well-known as the place that "The Inklings"- C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia), J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), and Charles Williams (Poet and Writer) (and some other University students or writers) would meet on Tuesday mornings to discuss their writing.



Here's a picture of the inside- Rich and I sat at the little table on the right, in case you wanted to know.