Older Museums

I have very mixed thoughts on visiting older museums. especially those established by Lord/Lady/Earl/Duke/whaatever. Many were first established somewhere in the 1800s with all the arrogance and social attitude that were integral to British society in that era. Today’s museum had one of those “apology for our past colonial history” notes in the central hall which was easy to find if you were looking for it and otherwise not. And the attitude seemed to be “OK. People in the past did what they did. So what.,,,it is what everyone did…” which is blatantly false. Not everyone profited from the slave trade. Not everyone heped themselves to “other’s stuff.”

Please understand that I am not for erasing history; we need to learn from it. But it would not be that hard to place the date of an exhibit being opened and on all the posted information so that viewer had take the information about time frame into account when observing the exhibit. I found the whole place very uncomfortable. It was a classic example of “we came and took what we wanted, took it home, put it on display” and never talked about how it was obtained, much less how it affected the ares from which it was taken.

The exhibits seemed to be a pretty random collection and going room to room, varied from animals taxidermied from Africa to various ancient artifacts to Glasgow in the 1980s-90s. There didn’t seem to be any pattern, rhythm or reason to the order of the exhibits.  There certainly wasn’t any explanation of where or how most of the exhibit pieces had been obtained.  I didn’t make it thought the whole thing before I went back to the central hall, admired.the extensive pipe organ visible on the next level up and read a book till George was done.

We walked back toward our hotel. I started feeling really wiped out and decided to opt out of  the rest of the afternoon. George went on the tour of the Garnethill Synagogue.  He said it was interesting (tours by appointment only). There still seems to be an active congregation with services on Saturday mornings. But the doors aren’t open, you need to email in advance. Unfortunatley here, like many other locations, security concerns are valid.

Catching a bus to Edinburgh tomorrow morning .

And I think it is time to go back to my nap….