Nationalmuseet

Last weekend, Dave and I headed down to the National Museum. It's free and the presentation is wonderful! Nothing looks dusty!! We didn't get through the whole thing before getting tired, so we'll have to go back. But here are some funny or neat things that we saw.

First, Dave looking really serious. Of course, he IS in the presence of the bust of Augustus. That's certainly reason to be serious:)














This was a really really big snout from Syria from around 400BC. The bottom jaw was probably the size of Dave's head. The entire statue would have been the size of two people.











Here is their mummy in the egyptian exhibit. She was a princess who died at the age of 35yrs old. She dates back to 700BC.











These are two beautiful portraits made in Egypt after the influence of the Roman Empire swept through. Portraits like these were often place over mummies during the burials.











These are toys from Greece. They date back from anywhere between 600-300BC.











For you, Bill and Sherry, I've put up pictures up of a pot and bowl. As you know, they had many in Greece!











In the section of Danish church history, there were, of course, a lot of crucifixes. Denmark used to be Catholic way back when, until it became Lutheran. There were a few images that we found particularly humorous (forgive our sacrilege). First, God's hand pointing to Jesus. For some reason, that struck us as funny.














Second, Jesus on Mary's lap. Notice the smile on Mary's face. Apparently, this smile was typically Gothic. It's the first Mary that I've seen smiling. Jesus was smiling too, though it's hard to see in the picture.














Next, did you know that Jesus did not die on the cross? You can see here that these swords did the trick instead.....okay, I don't know what the deal with the swords is, they didn't explain....but don't you think that's a strange image?














Finally, unrelated to Jesus, but what is an amazing artistic feat, is this painted image. You can see the swirls. Those swirls are painted on a flat round table. Sticking up, in the middle of the table, is a smooth metallic tube. If you look carefully, you can see the image of a portrait on the tube. The painting is actually portraits of a married couple. The swirls get put proper when you look at the tube. It's amazing!!















So, there they are. Oddities at the museum.