The Hajj exhibition at the British Musem

One of the perks of being a Friend of the British Museum is getting to see special exhibitions for free. We took advantage of this to see the current exhibition on the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). It was a great exhibition in many ways: lots of panel explanations to set items in historical context, both objects and documents on exhibit, testimonials from British people who have accomplished the Hajj, and an interesting geographical approach that led one through the main pilgrimage routes to Mecca – from the rest of Arabia and the Middle East, from eastern Eurasia/Indonesia, and of course Britain.

I was particularly impressed by the aerial photographs and aerial video of Al Haram, the "mosque" containing the Kaaba, the holiest shrine of Islam. First, contrary to our usual visual impressions of mosques, this one is a huge flat building surrounding an open courtyard in whose center sits the Kaaba. Second, circumambulation (7 times counter-clockwise) takes place not only in the courtyard around the Kaaba but on the flat roofed building surrounding it. Third, the video does time-lapse photography that shows circumambulation as a galactic spiral, much like the opening part of the YouTube video of a new vision for Al Haram in 2020.

However, visiting this exhibit in particular, I realize the dire need for a new dedicated temporary exhibition room at the British Museum. The current ones are held in the old Reading Room of the Museum, under the central dome. The walls are still lined with leather-bound books from floor to ceiling, but for the Hajj exhibition an internal wall was built in front of the library wall. This meant that upon entry, one had to squeeze along a passageway between the books and that internal wall before making one's way up an temporary internal staircase to access the elevated exhibit floor. All very jury-rigged and artificial. But once there, the Reading Room dome made for an appropriate ceiling, giving the feeling one was in a mosque oneself.

British Museum extension work on Montague Place with
construction site office placed over the street!

The new exhibit room is in the making! At the northwest corner of the Museum, construction is going on that will provide temporary exhibition space in a dedicated room, together with multitudes of space for artefact conservation and scientific analyses, object storage and study rooms, as well as biodiversity and sustainability (i.e. plants on the roof). You can follow the construction (due to be completed at the end of 2013) on the BM's* New Centre website.

* As an American, I always have trouble referring to the British Museum by its initials. But that's the way it's done here! Sorry, folks....