Ashmolean Museum

On Wednesday, K and I decided to ditch sessions and go to the Ashmolean Museum for the morning. It's the oldest public library in Britain, having been founded in the early 1600s (IIRC), and it has a fantastic material culture collection... not on the scale of the British Museum, but really great. We wandered through their Roman collection (lots of statuary, not surprisingly, but also a fair bit of jewelry, including some beaded jewelry and sewing equipment (which I got pictures of). And then the Egyptian and Bronze Age stuff - a really cool display of the layers of a mummy's casket (complete with mummy!), an entire tomb, etc.

But that wasn't the best part. Oh no. The best part was the one room that they had CRAMMED FULL of medieval stuff. I had to quibble with their definition of "medieval" because they kept sticking in 17th century stuff with the 14th century, but as long as you read the labels you could figure out what was what. Highlights included 13th century brooches (too dark to get a picture, unfortunately), a 16th c. rapier that was in pretty bad shape (picture taken), a whole case of spurs and barding decorations (bells and hardware and stuff), three 16th century shoes, some weaponry of various sorts, weights from warp-weighted looms, spindle whorls, shears, and a lot of ceramics. I got pictures of as much as I could, but a lot of the cases were too dark, and I don't know how well the ones I did take will come out.

In addition to the medieval room, they had a "dark ages" room that focused largely on the Anglo-Saxon presence in Oxfordshire, again with lots of weaponry, shield bosses, loom weights, spindle whorls. And buckets, lots and lots of buckets! I was able to get better pictures in that room because it was on the top floor and had a fair bit of natural light. We'll see how they all come out.

More Library Adventures

I have this to say for the Lower Reading Room at the Bodleian: it enforces proper posture. The desks all have crossbars that prevent you from crossing your legs (because they're too low), and the chairs are all straight-backed and only slightly padded. I think that if I have to work in a library, I have a strong preference for one with squashy chairs in addition to desks. I spent 3 hours reading in the library on Friday and got done with the academic books I had out. Next come the fun books. ;^)

I also notice that there's consistency in who uses the LRR. The woman who was at the desk across from me on the first day I was in there was also there the second time. 1950s throwback guy was there all three afternoons. A cute guy with a hearing aid was there the second and third times I was there. Are they all Classics scholars, I wonder? Do they resent a social scientist invading their reading room?

Christ Church College

First off, the dining hall deviated from the pattern today. I'm so disappointed.

I went on a wander after breakfast. I had two goals: to stop in a stationery store and see if I could find a Clairefontaine notebook, since my current journal is about 75% full as well as to price Lamy fountain pen ink, and to go to Christ Church College.

First goal: achieved, in a way. The store did not have any Clairefontaine notebooks, and Lamy fountain pen ink is more expensive here than it is at Hastings at home. Problem solved. ;^)

Second goal: achieved. The College was open. I paid my L3 entry fee (fortunately I had L3.12 in coins, because it was early enough in the morning that the gate didn't have change yet) and wandered in. Like all the other colleges, it's a rabbit warren of a place. They had a poster at the front gate about "Harry Potter at Christ Church" - Hogwarts' Great Hall was modeled on the Christ Church Hall (and you can definitely see the resemblance, but you can also tell that the version they built for the movie is much bigger), and they filmed in the stairs outside of the Hall and in the cloisters a bit. I think that the stairs where Neville finds Trevor when they first arrive at Hogwarts are probably the stairs at Christ Church, but I'd have to go take a look at the movie again to be sure. I didn't fight my way through the loud American teenagers who were blocking the entryway to the hall to really go in and get a good look; it didn't seem necessary. The grounds are lovely ... there's a really formal quad with a statue in the middle at the front of the College, but more "traditional" rambly English gardens back inside the complex. I spent a bit of time in the cathedral, which is lovely. It was first built in the late 12th century and a large part of the original building remains. The College was founded much later, and built AROUND the cathedral. There were some really cool tombs in there, one with lots of carvings of mid-14th-century women's dress. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any pictures of it. :^(

The Best Bookshop in Britain

That's what the sign hanging outside Blackwell's Bookshop says. It's quite impressive - I only had about 20 minutes to spend in there this afternoon, but it could be a dangerous, dangerous place. I wandered up to the history section (surprise) to see what I could see... Their selection of medieval history stuff actually wasn't that fantastic, but I did find some gems, such as Longbow: A social and military history. The Tudor section, however, was extensive and really impressive. And in the archaeology section I found The Anglo-Saxon Shield. Yes, that's right, an entire book about the Anglo-Saxon shield. And one on The Archaeology of Medieval London. Sooooo exciting. I couldn't figure out where their costume section was, and I haven't even delved into the sociology section yet. But that could be a fun place to spend a helluva lot of money.