Me, Tourist: The Ulster Museum

Wonderful, eclectic, and free (donations welcome, however). Maureen and I spent several hours there, saw the whole museum, and bought postcards in the gift shop like good little tourists. I didn't write down everything about every exhibit, so there's no dates for anything, but bear with me. I'll probably go again, and I can give you excruciatingly detailed answers to any questions you may have then.

Morpho butterflies, in a case of insects

Neolithic pottery, made in the classic stick-coils-to-a-pinch-pot-and-decorate-with-cordage method...

Or you could get really fancy and go for incised lines. I love these.

And some more...

Bronze Age shield

Swords

An often-mended cauldron, found in a bog

Amber beads

The Downpatrick Hoard

The Ulster museum's exhibits are mainly concerned with, well, Ulster. But they do have some others, for instance, a token Ancient Egyptain mummy. This is the beaded netting around her wrappings. They did a facial reconstruction project on her, and her model head is sitting in a case across the room.

Who can tell me her name?

A stone quern

Late Iron Age artefacts...

... including the Bann Disc

A stone that covered a grave.

Pins from the 6th (?) through to the 11th centuries

A cross

Shrine of St. Patrick's Hand

A medieval reliquary "made to house a human forearm believed to be that of St Patrick" (museum description)

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Another gravestone... they can tell it belonged to a woman, because of the shears depicted in the lower left.

In an exhibit on endangered species, and wild animals, and on how many items incorporate bits of endangered animal (or are endangered animals) and are available for people - that is, unintelligent tourists - to buy that they really shouldn't.

Don't you feel happier now?

Hippopotamous jaw. This is how they bite crocodiles and things in half.

The skull of a two-headed calf, because they obviously felt entitled to display it SOMEwhere.

This is why I love museums.

Fluorescent minerals glow under black light!

Giant Clam is giant.

A preserved coelacanth

And to return to human history, this is the Malone Hoard: a pile of new porcellanite axe heads, from the Neolithic... found down Malone Road, that is, the road College Gardens (where I live) turns off onto. Very cool.

And bog oak! Bog oak is oak wood preserved in peat bogs (you never would've guessed that, I'm sure). Here is a chair made from it, and below is an actual piece of it.

That's it for the Ulster Museum... until next time!