Violins, Violas and Viols

Today's Blipfoto offering is a famous violin by Antonio Stradivari. It dates from 1716, and is to be found in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It was named Messiah ("because it rarely appears"!).

And, for @Violamaths, here is a rather valuable viola, this time by Andrea Amati. It is the third instrument in the top row of this gallery of some of the collection.

But why were we investigating stringed instruments in the museum in the first place? Well, we were looking for viols...

A bit earlier in the afternoon, we had stumbled on a rehearsal in a chapel, and had seen four viols and a singer rehearsing, evidently for this occasion. Very pleasant it all sounded, too! And that put in our minds the idea of looking at some viols in the museum.

Naturally, on the way to the instrument collection, we stopped for another look at the mummies. Last Sunday (8 January) I showed a fascinating artwork based on a CT scan of the mummy of a young boy. I thought I might complement that entry with this photograph of the mummy itself.

There are some other interesting mummies on display. The Egyptians mummified animals as well as humans, and this is the mummy of a cat (and nearby, two very nice little cat ornaments).

There is even a mummy of a baby crocodile, and of an ibis.

These very fine beasts stand on guard at the entrance to another gallery, just behind the mummies.

@Orchid99 most kindly wrote that my Blips from the museum made a very good advert for it. So I thought that I might make a picture of what may be the best-known exhibit in the entire museum.

It is, of course, the Alfred Jewel, a ninth-century Anglo-Saxon artefact.

Here are a couple of further, and good links, to web pages about the Alfred jewel:

A BBC page;

Another page from the Ashmolean.