I visited a few museums while I was in London, and the British Museum was particularly interesting because I was with a pastor giving a tour that focused on connections with the Bible. Thankfully, we were allowed to take pictures, so I have included some below.
This is a game board from Ur, the place where Abraham was from. The game is called simply, the “Royal Game of Ur” and seems to have been quite popular. Abraham may very well have played this game. I took pictures of the instructions on how to play, but I haven’t taken the time to learn it yet. Also, there was a tablet from Ur detailing the Pythagorean Theorem–long before Pythagoras was born. So, Abraham may also have known the Pythagorean Theorem!
This is a statue of King Thutmose III, one of the candidates for the Pharaoh during the time of Moses and the 10 plagues.
This is a picture of one of the kings of Israel paying tribute to the king of Assyria. If I remember correctly, the stone carving mentions Omri, who was the father of King Ahab. The pastor said that this may be the only image of an Israelite king. Even though the Israelites did make a lot of idols, apparently the 2nd commandment did dissuade them from making images of themselves.
This is a picture of Assyrian captives doing forced labor. The middle group of people–the ones with the caps on their heads–are Israelites from the Northern tribe.
This is an example of a city gate. The pastor referred to Judges 16:3, which talks about Samson pulling up the Philistine city gate and carrying it up a hill. Seeing how large the gates must have been makes Samson’s feat all the more impressive.
This is the Cyrus Cylinder, which discusses the victory of Cyrus the Great over the king of Babylon. It also refers to the repatriation of captives that were taken from their homeland.
Believe it or not, these large silver cups are for wine, and may very well have been the kind of cup that Nehemiah used to serve Darius.
This is a picture of me with the pastor who gave the tour. He was giving a tour to a group from Biola University, and he allowed me to tag along.
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Thanks for sharing these. They are very interesting!
Very cool!
I like to think that Abraham really did know the Pythagorean theorem… Ur was a fairly advanced city, so it doesn’t seem too unlikely.