Indeed. Mary Beard tells this story of her inspiring visit to the British Museum.
There was one formative moment in particular. When I was 5 years old, my Mum took me for my first visit to London (we lived in Shropshire). The British Museum was one of the places we visited. I wanted to see the Egyptian mummies of course, but we also went to see the remains of ancient Egyptian life, not merely death.
At the back of one case Mum spotted a carbonised piece of Egyptian cake, 3000 or more years old. I was desperate to see it (ancient cake!), but the case was too high for me to see, even when Mum picked me up. At that moment a man walked past, and stopped to ask me what I was trying to see. “That piece of cake” I squealed. He must have been a curator, because he took some keys out of his pocket, unlocked the case and brought the cake out for me to admire! It was a moment of wonderment, which I never forgot. I have no idea who the curator was, but he introduced me to the excitement of the ordinary things from the distant past (and he taught me about the importance of opening cases for curious kids).
I didn’t go on to be an Egyptologist. But that sense of wonderment has stayed with me in confronting any part of the ancient past, whether it’s reading Roman tombstones or trying out ancient lavatories.
