Islanders

Today we cycled over the the Fitzwilliam Museum to see a bijou exhibitionette about the inhabitants of Cyprus, Sardinia and Crete in prehistoric times.  There was a number of delightful exhibits, mostly grave goods.  They included: 

• a bronze boat, perhaps 10 inches long, ox-headed with sides and mast ornamented with birds;
• the terracotta head of a god with a long combed beard and a moustache stippled under his nose;
• a bird-headed statuette of Astarte;
• a 4-horse chariot of baked clay with 3 riders in pointy hats (maybe a foot long);
• a clay statue, about a foot high, of a little girl in a linen frock holding a goose in one hand;
• a black wine cup with a handle, decorated in white swirls and red blobs, which would not have looked out of place on a Bloomsbury tea table;
• a jug decorated with stylised red swirls and between them lively black stags turning, rising on their hind legs, climbing the decorations.

There is also  a soundtrack of waves (it is so unobtrusive that I kept thinking "My goodness, it is windy out there!" before I realised that it was being played inside the museum).

It wasn't hugely busy, so we had plenty of room to peer at the exhibits,and we had just time to go round it in the hour and a half before they chucked us out.  Unfortunately it closes on Sunday, but tickets are free.

More details here:  https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/05/islanders-the-making-of-the-mediterranean-fitzwilliam-museum-cambridge-review-art-of-extraordinary-intimacy (sorry I can't get the link to work!)