The facade of the Museum is striking. And the resemblance to a Greek temple, of course, is no coincidence.

This image of the redesigned entrance hall of the Museum was borrowed from a postcard since there was no way we could get positioned for such an overall shot.

During our visit, there was a Middle Eastern Culture exhibit in this space, complete with very loud music and Bedouin tents. We could only suppose, gratefully, that they parked their camels outside.

The famous Rosetta Stone is among the most visited displays in the museum. It was carved in 196 BC. The text is not terribly significant, merely a series of praises chisled onto a basalt slab, written to honor the Pharaoh Ptolemy V. What made it special when it was discovered in 1799 is that the same text is repeated in 3 languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic (the common script in use in Egypt at the time) and Greek. Up to that point very little progress had been made in understanding hieroglyphics so this stone was an invaluable "dictionary" for historians.

The stone was found in the course of exploraions made by French archeologists as a part of Napoleon's otherwise disasterous North African campaign. With the Rosetta stone as his guide, a scholar named Jean-Francois Champillon, was able to understand the hieroglyphs, making it possible to translate the meaning of the words carved onto many other archaeological treasures.

Looking closely at the stone, with its thousands of tiny characters, most only a fraction of an inch high, we came away with a huge respect for the ancient stone cutter. Basalt is a very hard igneous rock, not nearly as easily worked as marble or sandstone. A single slip of the chisel would have required the artist to begin all over again.

Yes, we do get excited about weird things. We bought 2 Rosetta Stone T-shirts for our sons in the souvenir shop. (Matt's reaction: "Gee Dad, thanks for the Rosetta Stone.. I'm halfway through it and can't wait to see how it ends.")

The Elgin Marbles are also a much-celebrated attraction. They were well worth seeing but not as dramatic as we might have hoped. The workmanship and design are all one could hope for, but they are more fragmentary than we expected and it was clearly evident that they were already in an advanced state of ruin when recovered. Even now, with careful restoration, one can only try to imagine the dymanic works of art they once were.

(Regretfully we have no larger images of these files. They were downloaded from public sites here and there when we discovered that our own shots had been spoiled by the developing lab.)

Of course The controversy over the legality or morality of the friezes having been removed from Greece, and the British Museum's refusal to return them to their "rightful owners," will probably continue for some time.

One point seems incontrovertible, however: It is unlikely that the works would have been preserved in their current condition, if at all, had not Lord Elgin spirited them out of the country.