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irak special

He wasn’t very pleased because he was a very from this YouTube video on the Royal Game “I’m hoping we can create a sort of
productive and industrious scholar. When of Ur.
you are a real scholar, you don’t want students. network where we’re all in it togeth-
They are a pain in the neck, you know, they I do lots of videos about cuneiform writing er, so that if somebody attacks one
take time and all that, so, he was rather hostile and about objects in the museum. Lots of
to me. other curators do the same. It’s the best way museum, we all come and defend the
to get outside the building into the world attacked museum.”
He said, “Well, look, all right, learn these at large, because people all over the world
things. Come in on Tuesday. We’ll have a watch YouTube, grandmothers, two-year-
look.” It’s almost unique in the history of the olds… When they find something interesting,
world. I read through what he told me. I went sometimes they write comments, which is
to the first class, and he put some stuff on the interesting. They tell their friends. in Paris in this respect and the Met in New
board and we looked at something. I knew York and St Petersburg and Berlin, the group
then just like that, that that was my entire life’s The British Museum, when I joined, was a of really big museums.
work. I’d never heard of it before. It was just kind of nineteenth century institution with
fortuitous. It was like a railway line from then suits and everybody called by his surname, I’m hoping we can create a sort of network
on that ended up in the British Museum. not by his first name, very proper. Over the where we’re all in it together, so that if
years it’s moved gradually into the twenty- somebody attacks one museum, we all come
All my friends got fellowships here for three first century, with the internet and YouTube and defend the attacked museum.
months then went to Australia for a year, and especially. People write remarks like, “I never
their wives didn’t want to go and children been to the British Museum, but I think I’m I don’t think it’s legitimate to argue that
didn’t want to change school. In the end, going to go now.” Or, “I didn’t realize that the museums don’t have a function. They
they gave up. It’s so hard. I’ve had this blessed curators were alive.” And we even get rude have a big function. Once you start taking
sunshine-filled career. remarks. something out, whatever it is, then somebody
– the Chinese, the Japanese, the Hungarians –
to read everything, I was happy, and I’ve been This place is marvelous because the collections Well, you know, people see the institution not anybody will say, “Well, if you’re giving their
there ever since. are fantastic right across the board, from all those who are behind it. thing back, what about ours?” And before you
the countries of the world, and the resources That is true. Actually, that can play into the know it, you have an MPB or something.
How did you come into this field? After all, it’s are marvelous. 130,000 pieces of clay! I have museum’s need to raise money with sponsors.
not a common field of study. looked at them all, but I haven’t read them all. There’re all sorts of things you can do with I’m interested also in fighting what I regard
That’s true. It’s not an everyday choice for There’s everything you can imagine. I love it sponsors, but the real sure-fire system is to take as destructive criticism, which is unthinking.
schoolchildren. I was a bit lucky! When I was and want to tell the world outside about it. them through a locked door behind the scenes There are two problems with this. One is that
at the end of my schooling, I decided I wanted because they turn into five-year-old children people seem to have a very unclear idea of
to be an Egyptologist. So, I got a grammar, the I didn’t know about the Royal Game of Ur nor with their mouths open because it’s all so the difference between truth and lies, because
famous grammar, and I read a lot of Egyptian. cuneiform before you talked about it. wonderful to see. If I go to the Louvre and one there’s so much confusion.
When I went up to university, I was going When the museum discovered the YouTube of my colleagues takes me through a locked
to do Egyptology. The elderly Egyptologist platform, curators started to post videos there. door, it’s the same thing, just captivating. There doesn’t seem to be any rigor about
professor gave one class with about 15 people One was done on the Royal Game of Ur. We everything. So, people become indifferent.
or so, and the next day he dropped dead in the didn’t do any rehearsal. We just had a model Do you have relations with other museums? That’s one thing. And then the other thing is
kitchen of his house. And that was that. board and the pieces, and started to play. On We do. Especially now in the world where that the museum is to do with truth. It’s not
the video I explain the rules, and we played a there’s a lot of trouble about what’s in to do with the value of the object, it’s to do
The department head called me in and said, game all the way through with commentary. museums from the nineteenth century and with truth and what we know about things
“Look, it’s going to take me a long time to get It looks like it’s a scripted piece of drama. But all that send-it-back stuff. In my experience and what we can explain about them, where
another Egyptologist. I’ll have to advertise. actually, it was all improvised then put on in Britain, most people think that the British all people, all nations, are equal.
So, in the interim, there’s a man here called YouTube. Today more than 6.9 million people Museum is absolutely wonderful and should
Wilfred Lambert, and he teaches cuneiform. have watched the video. I just cannot believe be left alone. The politicians, who are in It’s a kind of catholic view of the achievements
Why not do a bit of cuneiform with him? It’d it! So, they know about this game all over charge of everything, see it’s a good way to get of humankind, of the intellectual and artistic
be useful. And then when the Egyptologist the world. For instance, when we got to the a public reaction. But in fact, ordinary people, achievements, which is a marvelous thing. It
comes, you can switch back.” airport in Dubai, we were sitting around with if you ask them in a conversation, they think has to be saluted and we have to hold on to
our papers trying to arrange a visa, and a man it’s good because everything’s looked after so it because there are so many terrible things
So, I went and knocked on Lambert’s door and comes up to me and says, “Hey, aren’t you the well, and it’s free to see, and you can see all undermining all this. The Philistines are
said, “Hello, I want to learn some cuneiform.” guy who does that game?” He recognized me the world together. We’re a bit like the Louvre everywhere. I believe that, like when they

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