British Museum Visit
We visited the British Museum and explored a few galleries. During the trip we explored a few galleries which is Egyptian Gallery, Greek Gallery, China Gallery and Enlightenment Gallery. These galleries showcase many precious and meaningful artifacts and offer us many unique historical experiences and profound reflections.
The first gallery we visited is the Egyptian Gallery and that famous stone Rosetta Stone is at the entrance of the gallery. That stone presented the political and religious life of ancient Egypt through trilingual inscription—hieroglyphic, demotic, and ancient Greek—allowed scholars to finally decode the ancient script. Following the guidance, we saw the amazing one- Parthenon Sculptures, a whole temple shaped building, different sculptures are vividly placed on it. Our president gave us one interesting Ancient Greek mythology happening in that era, it is about the origins of the Trojan War, and it inspired us to fantasize many stories and anything that could happened on these artifacts during that period.
The next gallery on our trip is the China Gallery, there are huge number of artifacts like Blueand-White Porcelain, Tomb Figurines and Handscrolls and Paintings in different dynasties. Moreover, we discussed a lot about Modern Chinese history when we moved to a display of Qing Dynasty relics, as Chinese emperor's refusal to view the world and progress led to the country's tragic fate and we profoundly combined this with one of our society’s principles- always seek progress, accept new things and ideas, can we be able to develop and make improvement. At the end of it, we visited the exquisite jade and one Buddhist mural painting in Ming dynasty. Because of that huge mural painting, we discussed the difference between Buddha and Bodhisattva. It is interesting that Bodhisattva is still on the path to becoming a Buddha as Bodhisattvas choose to help others before attaining Buddhahood themselves which embody the Mahayana Buddhist ideal of compassion.
Finally, we went to the Enlightenment Gallery, it highlights the scientific discoveries and human intellectual progress since the 18th century. It exhibits many draft papers and scientific machines in many fields like natural history, archaeology, and anthropology. This makes us recognize the achievements of the Enlightenment era and the importance of scientific development.
In conclusion, this trip brought a lot of stuff which we could only see in the textbook to our eyes and made us a new virtual to view the history and the world. Going to the museum is not only a trip to see what beautiful and remarkable artifacts our ancestors and other cultures give us. A phrase hung from the entrance of Fitzwilliam Museum may well conclude our society’s trip to the British Museum- And now what will we be born without barbarians. These people were a solution. Only by being well recognized of the history and interpretation of our culture and other cultures, can we explore one clear and exact path for the future.