I guess it doesn't matter how many museums I am fortunate enough to visit, I always spend lots of time in the ancient world wing. It's funny, I never really had any formal training in the ancient world, but once I started teaching it became my favorite time period - and the farther back the better, and the farther afield from the west the better. Sometimes I think I find the figures from the ancient world - both actual and mythological - to be far more interesting, if not far more real, than people living today. So, even though I knew I had a limited amount of time today (by Hermitage standards) I still meandered very slowly through that wing of the museum. I've posted a few pictures: Mesopotamian cuneiform, the first written language; the Egyptian Anubis, lord of the dead before the rise of Osiris; Assyrian archers - the Assyrians, for all of their astonishingly enthusiastic warlike attributes, really produced very real-life art that featured lots of motion; Marcus Aurelius, another one of my heroes - I don't know how many times I've read his Meditations, and it still makes me a better person every time I read it; Jupiter - hey, I can dream, can't I; Danae, because I love all stories from mythology - I also saw the famous painting of Danae here in the Hermitage that was attacked with knives and sulfuric acid; and a hanging man, whose name and story escapes me at the moment (sensory overload today).
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