After viewing the Napoleon exhibit we journeyed through the rest of the museum. It is a nice size, fitting the size of the metro surrounding it. It has a decent collection of ancient items. Here are a few of them.
My favorite items being the Bull Head Capitol, and the Persian relief, both from Persepolis. See below.
I am curious as to what the bulls horns would have been. They also have an large section on Asia, particularly China, but also India, SE Asia and Japan. Here are a few pics of that.
I have been reading the Cambridge History of Ancient China. A great book that covers from prehistory to the end of the Warring States period. I have just gotten through the Spring and Autumn period in the book. A large portion of the book deals with the Shang and Zhou periods. There is not much in the way of written evidence for those times (probably was but most likely written on a perishable substance and did not survive). However, many ritual bronzes survived as funerary artifacts. So even though I am big into military history, I totally geeked out over the ritual bronzes they had. It was cool to see the real deal. Here is a few.
These items played a huge role in Shang and Zhou China. No one really knows what they were used for. Just that the richer you were, the more of these items you had. Below is a few more random items.
If you are in the area this is definitely a place to check out.
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