British Museum

I always enjoy a trip through the British Museum.  The Near-east and Western civilization wing is remarkably phenomenological in its approach (in the Hegelian sense).  The progression of Athenian ethical life from the more physically pre-occupied earlier Greeks and the cultures of the fertile crescent is part of the wing's physical layout.  But one must be careful not to draw abstractions too indiscriminately from a handful of artifacts, which may be none too representative.  Indeed phallic jokes in Aristophanes, sometimes pertaining to the Athenian politician/aristocrat Alcibiades, may tell us more about Athenian ethical life than Hegel or the Elgin Marbles.

 

Meanwhile, here are some photos.