The magnificent original main entrance hall of the museum.
The entrance is now from the lower level This page is about the National Museum of Scotland, more affectionately known as the Chamber's Museum in Edinburgh, which has, according to its website,
a collection of objects and specimens numbering some 12 million items. The core building with its grand Chamber Street frontage was partly opened in 1866, and finally completed in 1904. It was extended to the rear in the 1930s, and then the modern wing was added, opening in 1995. Various organisations and museums have contributed to this final institution including: the Industrial Museum of Scotland, the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, the National Museum of the Antiquities of Scotland, and the Royal Scottish Museum. The resulting collection is huge and eclectic. This page shows a little of the buildings themselves, and some of the forms of display.
The architect was Frances Fowke who also designed the Royal Albert Hall in London
The entrance is now through the original basement; not as inspiring as the architect's intent
The facade of the Victorian building on Chambers Street in Edinburgh with the new buildings on the far right
The new buildings were opened in 1996
Probably the world's most famous dog,
Greyfriars Bobby,
sits across the road from the modernist corner tower; his nose worn out by millions of hands touching it each year
A pigeon on the roof garden of the museum surveys Edinburgh Castle
Costumes against a background of vintage radiators
Glass vases on glass shelves hanging over the space of a gallery
An architectural 'lacuna' making a passage up through three stories of the new building
Suspended in one of the science halls these early aircraft fill the volume overhead
Dating from 1811. This 9 metre high water pump is called an
'Atmospheric Engine' (Go to an animation of its action).
A precursor of the locomotive steam engine, it makes use of the way steam's conversion to water creates a vacuum, that may be used to drive a pump
Dating from 1861. A steam locomotive engine of the type common by the middle of the nineteenth century which used the techniques developed from stationary engines. This one, as the brass plate on the side of the engine shows, was manufactured in Leith
Dating from 2000. This acceleration cavity formed a small part of Large Electron Positron (LEP) Collider at CERN. It together with another 127 such cavities accelerated electrons and positrons to near the speed of light to allow observation of the particles shed by their collision
A late 19th century 'pacing bicycle' used to allow competitors the advantage of its slipstream. Pacing bicycles were replaced by motorised vehicles in the twentieth century
A case arranged to display wolves hunting
This hall is devoted to natural history with fauna from around the world and interactive explanation consoles at many of the exhibits. Overhead fish fly
In this cabinet cooking utensils from very different ages and various regions of Scotland are brought together in one display
The mixture of forms of display is striking: ancient objects such as these bowls and the canoe are in cabinets with carefully controlled atmospheres, other items need protection from dust and hands, while others like the train and the Buddha are offered freely to be touched and explored.
A prehistoric boat that has slipped through the museum's catalogue, but is hewn from a single tree trunk, and here awaits a better caption
Nubian statue of the god Arensnuphis dating from the first century BC. Nubia at the time held similar religious beliefs to its neighbour Egypt
A Buddha on display in the main entrance hall. Nearly all of the collections from Asia have been in limbo for some years - we are told awaiting new galleries opening
The Buddha Amida, an early 1900s bronze statue from Japan where he is venerated by the 'Pure Lands' tradition, one of the largest Buddhist sects in modern Japan
Chalk drawing of Burns by Archibald Skirving with the pistols he used while working as an exciseman in Dumfries - taxmen were so hated in those days that protection was necessary!
An oak carving from about 1500 of St Andrew (whose cult following can be dated back to the ninth century) carrying his cross and a book. The flag of St Andrew is an X-shaped cross called the Saltire which has been adopted in Scotland as the national flag since the fourteenth century
Collection of communion silverware dating from the 1720s to the 1880s and mostly made in Edinburgh
This circular gallery has an incised window in the form of a cross and is used to display religious objects centring on the brass lectern
The next page
stays in Scotland and gets out into the countryside near Moffat. Pictures from Loch Skeen - sequestered although accessible.
The last page had images from a walk around a Cairo suburb
To the magnificent collection on display at the Egypt Museum in Cairo
