2023-07-14 -- Why Do I Visit Different Museums?

When I travel, I always like to visit at least one museum per city, per trip.

On the surface, all museums may seem the same. Although I still have a relatively good memory, I can't remember all the differences between what I've seen at the British Museum (1) and the Louvre (2)!

British Museum, London

There's no difference, when it comes to the technology. Every car on display in museums are made to the same specifications, I can't really see the difference.

Wait, I am pulling your leg. Nothing I've said is far from the truth.

Artifacts have meanings and values beyond their perceived and visible features, their history.

For example, there might be no difference between two BMW 507s (3), which, by the way, was the result of post-war BMW's comeback to profitability. But one could have belonged to a famous guy called Elvis Presley (4).

There is also a subliminal message with the 507. There was a world war and Germans turned every factory into producing war machines or war machine parts. BMW was building airplane engines and, as a result, was bombed by Americans. For years, it couldn't manufacture anything properly until a private ownership turned it around. The story isn't a success story. The story is how a fascist government destroyed itself from within. Perhaps Elvis's car has a slightly happier twist. The King himself was a great musician, although he had many flaws too. But his car was left to rust in a barn. Perforated, still more valuable than a new one!

Bottom line is, it's not just a car, it's the story.

Back to mummies, another aspect of museums is how they obtain a particular object. This is a very tricky business. If you want something of value and history for your museum, you have to obtain it somehow from someone. Although sometimes you hear there are some museum objects for sale, like dinosaur bones, mummies, on the other hand, usually have to be discovered and scavenged, and typically aren't for sale!

Every time you see a mummy, you have to imagine there was a guy, smoking a pipe, leading a team of armed guards with whips, and some poor local people who worked like slaves. You also need to remember that most of the time, the boxes containing some of the most precious contents had no manifest and were being exported directly to a dealer or museum somewhere in the world with no proper paperwork. If it went through local customs, perhaps bribery or intimidation was involved. Of course, in some cases, there was no need for that. The "archaeologists" were members of an occupying government that had free access to anything they wanted. (No, I'm not writing a script for a new Indiana Jones (5) movie.)

That brings me to the final subject. The artifacts in museums aren't the same. They just look like each other. Most of them have been from a particular land that at that particular point in time was occupied by an occupying power! And they have a vibrant history of how they were discovered and transported.