Trivia – Page 3 – The View From Sari's World

Happy J R.R. Tolkien Day. Did you know it is Tolkien day? Well, it is. Back in 2002 a New York Times journalist asked the chairman of the Tolkien Society if the society had an official “day” something like the James Joyce Society has. They did not, but after much debate the society chose an important date from the book for the reading day. March 25th, is the Downfall of Sauron.

In celebration of Tolkien Day I offer you a few things you may not know about J R. R. Tolkien!

John Ronald Reuel (JRR) Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (currently part of South Africa). At the age of three his mother took him and his brother back to her native England. His father died in South Africa shortly after they left.

Tolkien’s mother taught him Latin when he was 8! Around this time he also started to make up his own languages. This hobby would serve him well when writing The Lord of The Rings. Tolkien maked up a real language for the elves (Elvish) .

Tolkien served during World War 1 but was shipped home after being coming sick. It was during his recovery that he started writing a collection of short stories that would become The Silmarillion. Many of these tales take place long before the Hobbit.

In 1921, Tolkien was offered a post at the University of Leeds. During his tenure, he collaborated with E.V. Gordon on an acclaimed translation of the Middle-English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published by Oxford University Press in 1925.

In the 1930s, Tolkien, C S Lewis and other scholars, authors and philosophers met as a group that they dubbed The Inklings. In the meetings the scholars shared their work and talked philosophy. It was during this time that he started to write a story for his children that would eventualy become The Hobbit. A friend read the book and urged Tolkien to publish it. In 1937 the world was introduced to what would be become one of the best selling trilogies of all time.

Tolkien’s publisher wanted an immediate sequel but it would take Tolkien 15 years to come up with The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Tolkien used many of the stories he had written years ago to fashion a storyline that span generations. It was the publisher’s idea to break the book up into a trilog . The books were published in 1954 &1955.

It took 10 years for them to become best sellers, when affordable paperbacks came into fashion.

The success of the books took Tolkien by surprise. The popularity of the books overwhelmed him and he withdrew from the public eye. Though Tolkien was invited to speak about the books, he was reluctant to do so. He felt the work should speak for themselves; what we think we know about the meaning behind the books is actually based on what scholars have come up with. Tolkien never said these were anti-war books; this is a popular myth that will not die, started by a scholar who was obsessed with all things Middle Earth.

There are many reasons why the trilogy became so popular. Some scholars feel the trilogy is the modern Odyssey, while others see the books as just what the world needed after experiencing two World Wars. The books clearly define heroes and villains at a time when real life in the early 20th century had blurred the lines between the two. Readers love a good myth and Tolkien has certainly given us a great modern myth. These are books that transcend culture, race and religion; which may be why they have been translated into so many languages. Readers worldwide have their own reasons for loving these book, many read the books without knowing anything scholars think we should. Though there are college and high school classes devoted to Tolkien most readers fall in love with his books without having to understand why.

Happy Tolkien Day! If you have read any of this books I would love to hear which is your favorite and why.

Today marks the 225^th anniversary of the British Museum. It opened on January 15^th, 1759. If I had a bucket list a visit to the museum would be number 1. But since a trip to London may be a year or two away I decided to take a virtual tour today to give you:

10 things you don’t know about the British Museum

How to get rid of the thousands of items your heirs don’t want

The origins of the British Museum lie in the will of the physician, naturalist and collector, Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). Over his lifetime, Sloane collected more than 71,000 objects which he wanted to be preserved intact after his death. So he bequeathed the whole collection to King George II for the nation in return for a payment of £20,000 to his heirs. The gift was accepted and on 7 June 1753, an Act of Parliament established the British Museum.

It’s just an old library

The founding collections largely consisted of books, manuscripts and natural specimens with some antiquities (including coins and medals, prints and drawings) and ethnographic material. In 1757 King George II donated the ‘Old Royal Library’ of the sovereigns of England and with it the privilege of copyright receipt.

If you open it, will they come?

The museum first opened its doors on the 15th January 1759 in Montague House, a seventeenth-century mansion on the site of the current Museum. The museum quickly grew in popularity with the masses and with the wealthy who found a new way to one-up each other; bequeaths and “acquisitions” forced the library to move several times to larger locations.

Roughly 80,000 objects are on public display at the British Museum at any one time. This is 1% of the collection. Many of its objects are light sensitive and cannot be displayed.

Can’t make it to the museum? Don’t worry 2 million objects and background information are available to the public through the online catalogue. The app is pretty impressive as well.

The Oldest piece in the museum

The Olduvia stone tool From Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, is 1.8-2 million years old. To date, this is the oldest piece housed in the museum.

So what else would we see?

Among the vast collection are: the Rosetta Stone; statues that once adorned the Parthenon in Athens, Greece; a four-ton stone likeness of the pharaoh Amenhotep III; and several mummified cats from ancient Egypt.

Many objects from the Sutton Hoo burial ship are on display at the museum. This would be reason enough to visit.

Best museum hoax ever!

In 2005, a then little-known hoaxer named Banksy tricked museum staff by putting a ‘cave painting’ of a primitive man pushing a supermarket trolley on display. It was up for only a few days, though you may find it now in the Kentucky Creation museum.

Oddest Piece

A life-size carving of a human skull made from a single block of rock crystal (a clear, colorless variety of quartz). It was acquired by the Museum in 1897 purporting to be an ancient Mexican object. However scientific research conducted by the Museum has established that the skull was most likely produced in the nineteenth century in Europe. As such the object is not an authentic pre-Columbian artifact.

And you thought a mummy might be a little too much

Last March through September, visitors lined up to get a firsthand look at life in ancient Rome. This up close and personal view was only possible because of the terrible tragedy that devastated Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD. The exhibition included casts from in and around Pompeii and of some of the victims of the eruption. A family of two adults and their two children are huddled together, just as in their last moments under the stairs of their villa. The most famous of the casts on display is of a dog, fixed forever at the moment of its death as the volcano submerged the cities. I’m not sure I would want to get that up close. I trip to the museum should not result in tears and sorrow. With that in mind, I will leave you with John Oliver’s take on the British Museum. Hopefully you find him as funny as I do. Enjoy

In celebration of Tolkien Day I offer you a few things you may not know about J R. R. Tolkien!

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10 things you don’t know about the British Museum

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