Just cool pics

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Zeus, Heracles, and Athena in a chariot attacking the giants, from an Attic amphora c. 500 B.C. (now in the British Museum):

View attachment 34692

The British Museum is very much a staple for this sort of thing. It's a rather surreal experience going there and seeing all of these artefacts you've seen pictures of all your life, right back from Time-Life books published in the '60s - and there it is in the flesh, sitting in a display case.
 
The Berlin Museum has the Ishtar Gate. That was one of those "man so much more impressive in person!" Things. Probably my favorite part of G.B./Europe is the museums. The little and the big. You never know what cool thing you'll find.
 
The Berlin Museum has the Ishtar Gate. That was one of those "man so much more impressive in person!" Things. Probably my favorite part of G.B./Europe is the museums. The little and the big. You never know what cool thing you'll find.

I'll give a plug for the Oriental Institute museum at the University of Chicago. It's not nearly as extensive as the British Museum or Berlin's Pergamon Museum, but it has some neat stuff. It's not a coincidence that Indiana Jones (fictionally) attended the U. of C. to study archaeology in the 1920s. That was the great age of 'crate it up and ship it back to America' in archaeology.

The British Museum is very much a staple for this sort of thing. It's a rather surreal experience going there and seeing all of these artefacts you've seen pictures of all your life, right back from Time-Life books published in the '60s - and there it is in the flesh, sitting in a display case.

One of the things I loved about doing research in the British Library, when it was still part of the British Museum, was that you could take a break from whatever you were working on and wander around the museum for a while to clear your head. I saw much of the collection that way, a gallery at a time, stretched out over several months. It meant I didn't get information overload and I could see things on weekdays when the museum tended to be less busy.
 
I'll give a plug for the Oriental Institute museum at the University of Chicago. It's not nearly as extensive as the British Museum or Berlin's Pergamon Museum, but it has some neat stuff. It's not a coincidence that Indiana Jones (fictionally) attended the U. of C. to study archaeology in the 1920s. That was the great age of 'crate it up and ship it back to America' in archaeology.

One of the things I loved about doing research in the British Library, when it was still part of the British Museum, was that you could take a break from whatever you were working on and wander around the museum for a while to clear your head. I saw much of the collection that way, a gallery at a time, stretched out over several months. It meant I didn't get information overload and I could see things on weekdays when the museum tended to be less busy.

The British Museum really is too big to do in a single visit. I went there while in the ambulatory phase or recovering from major surgery and the trip was pretty exhausting. Even if you were fit the BM is very much in the realms of information overload.

While I was there I took a selfie with the Elgin Marbles, which had become a sort of running joke between myself and a Greek friend. There is a pamphlet there that goes through a very convoluted justification of why they're keeping them rather than sending them back to Greece. I can't say I really blame the Egyptians for regulating the archaeology there so heavily.

One of the PbP Scum and Villainy games I have here originated from the concept of stealing something like the Elgin Marbles from a similarly heavily regulated trade in artefacts.
 
While I was there I took a selfie with the Elgin Marbles, which had become a sort of running joke between myself and a Greek friend. There is a pamphlet there that goes through a very convoluted justification of why they're keeping them rather than sending them back to Greece. I can't say I really blame the Egyptians for regulating the archaeology there so heavily.

IIRC, that pamphlet, or something like it, was in the gallery back in the early 1990s when I was visiting the museum often.

Since I've sung the praises of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, I should post some pictures from it. This is one of the galleries; front and center is a lamassu from the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II:

lamassu.jpg

Here is the pioneering archaeologist James Henry Breasted and his family at Abu Simbel, c. 1905:

Breasteds at Abu Simbel 1906 copy.1920x1200.jpg
 
Last edited:
I'm ashamed to say that my immediate caption for that polar bear picture was "Mom! Your butt stinks!"
 
The old Public library of Cincinnati. The building was demolished in 1955. Today an office building and a parking lot stand where it used to be.

View attachment 34963View attachment 34964View attachment 34965View attachment 34966View attachment 34967View attachment 34968View attachment 34969View attachment 34970View attachment 34971
Why can't we have nice architecture any more? I'm tired of my city looking like a cubist painting by one of the less talented artists.
 
Why can't we have nice architecture any more? I'm tired of my city looking like a cubist painting by one of the less talented artists.
Reality. That wasn't really well set up for ADA compliance.
 
If I had a time machine...I'd totally be mackin' on that girl behind the greeting counter
 
Why can't we have nice architecture any more? I'm tired of my city looking like a cubist painting by one of the less talented artists.
I shared that set of pictures with my wife and we had a similar conversation. We both thought it was a crime that they tore that building down instead of keeping it as a library or at least keeping it around for something else. Our country doesn't by and large build things to last and that are beautiful these days.
 
Reality. That wasn't really well set up for ADA compliance.
Sorta. The big issue is money. The money to install ADA compliant elevators that match the style, of the building. Probably would cost more than building an ugly brutalist monstrosity replacement we likely are subjected today.
 
Sorta. The big issue is money. The money to install ADA compliant elevators that match the style, of the building. Probably would cost more than building an ugly brutalist monstrosity replacement we likely are subjected today.
I'm not trying to pick on the ADA it's just I think some of those old designs heavily exclude a bunch of people unintentionally.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top