Seen and Done

I caught the British Museum’s ‘World of Stonehenge’ https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/world-stonehenge before it closes. There are always new theories about Stonehenge, but this is something different: an attempt to explore the context. Of course there isn’t exactly a wealth of contemporary artefacts, so that does involve drawing in some stuff from rather remote locations and times. The relevance of Seahenge, a wooden circle which they have been able to bring into the museum, is obvious: some of the other things are really from different cultures. There are some extraordinary artefacts, though. The stone in the picture here (from Switzerland) is a sculpture of a human figure (!) You can see a very rough face at the top with a nose. The diagonal bit is a bow and arrows and the horizontal lines are arms and a belt. Other items – the high gold hats, the carefully carved chalk drums – are almost completely inscrutable. There’s a curator’s tour on video here https://youtu.be/FymNP8copac if you’re interested.