As I approached Trinity Campus gates at 8:55 am I began to suspect that I had calculated my all day wrong. I was supposed to be meeting my science lab group at the entrance at 9 am so that we could take a tour of the geological museum on campus. I reached the gates and looked around for a familiar face; nothing. Everyone around me was surely Irish. I figured I would wait, probably everyone was just running a little late. 9:00 am - still no one from my class at all. WTF. The teacher should be here at least, right? I kept thinking I was at the wrong place or something, but no, this is exactly where they had said to meet. Finally I called Jordy who is also in the class, he reassured me that we were supposed to be meeting there and that he was on his way with Ross and Katie, they would be there shortly. So I continued to wait, eventually they showed up, but no one else had. Not even the teacher. We decided that we should walk over to the museum to see if maybe they had met in there instead. Nope, nothing. The museum wasn't even open yet. We didn't really know what to do at this point. We didn't want to walk all the way home or leave and miss them so we sat around until 9:30 when we said screw it, and decided to walk back. As we were leaving we meet a group of familiar faces who told us that we were supposed to meet at the gates at 9:30 am instead of the normal 9 am. Apparently we didn't get the memo, and missed out on an extra half hour of much needed sleep. - of course that would happen to us.
Once inside the museum I was wishing that we hadn't met up with the group at all because it was so boring. There were literally like 7 rows of display cases that were filled on both sides with rocks and minerals. Yeah, rocks are cool - kind of - and some of them were pretty, but seriously we did not need to spend and hour and half staring at all of them. It might have been a bit more interesting if the professor had been a little enthusiastic and actually explained some of them or something; but no, he just stood there the whole time. First of all, this guy is young and very awkward. He doesn't really speak, which is not like your normal college professor. I mean he is nice, but if he really expected us to learn something, he should have pointed out the key things that we were supposed to be looking at, at least. Then when we were about to leave he asked me what the difference was between sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, and I was like uggghhhh, no clue, because I didn't know that's what we were supposed to be looking at. I had spent all my time looking at how pretty the diamonds and gems were, not actually learning anything. haha
So yeah, I guess he caught me. He pointed me in the direction of the 3 sections to go look at. It took me about 5 minutes, and I can proudly say that I know now the difference between the three types of rock. Hopefully I won't forget because I have a hunch it will make it onto an exam. (photo: courtesy of Google) Now you can be experts like me!
After the tour of the geological museum, I had another museum visit to go to, on Kildare St, with a different class of mine. This museum was about a 10 minute walk from the other, and the entire walk I just kept hoping that it was more interesting than the last one. We met at the National Museum of History & Archaeology at about 11:15 am. As I walked up I noticed that the building was much prettier than the other and looked promising. Our teacher brought us around on a little guided tour of the museum and explained all of the important artifacts to us that related to what we had been learning in class. Automatically I knew I was going to get more out of this visit than the last one.
At first we basically looked at old tools that archaeologists have discovered from the Mesolithic and Neolithic ages in Ireland. It was neat to see all the tools made from rocks, bone and wood. It was weird to imagine that people actually used these things because simple items that we take for granted today - like a sharp knife, or drill - were not invented. They also had a display of a burial tomb which had human bones in it. Sad to look at, but interesting none the less. Next we made our way around the the Bronze age section. Apparently this was a time when people really liked to display their wealth. We saw an array of different gold jewelry that was worn way back then. Torcs, bracelets, robe fasteners, it was really fun to look at. Now, I couldn't imagine wearing half the things we saw, but I have respect for the idea that if someone wore these gaudy necklaces they would have been perceived as very wealthy and powerful.
Next we made our way around to look at different swords and shields. We got to see the bones of a viking. They really were massive people, on average they would stand to be almost 7 feet tall. They also had a few human skulls on display that were in good condition, but full of dents and cracks where you can see that they were struck with an axe or hammer or something very hard, causing death. Again, it was weird to look at these things because it brings about a real sense of our history. Those skulls were from a real person. Something very tragic happened to that person, and we are putting him on display looking at him. It's kind of weird. We know nothing about who this person really was, just that he was possibly a warrior of some kind. I don't like thinking about it really, but I kept doing it. Imagine, someday some type of species may collect our bones and teeth and put them on display after we have gone extinct.
The last thing we looked at was definitely the most gut- wrenching. All over Ireland -and many other places- there are Peat Bogs.
They are wetland areas that form when plant material is inhibited from decaying fully by the acidic and anaerobic conditions. So basically when anything makes its way into a peat bog it is preserved almost perfectly. Around the Bronze and Iron ages in Ireland, the people began to place their dead ones in bogs as some sort of ritual associated with nature gods and spirits. So yes, that photo you see above was a real human. (I did not take this photo, cameras were not allowed in the museum. This is not one of the preserved bodies I saw, today but I wanted to give an example of just how preserved they were). It made my stomach turn to look at these people. Much worse than looking at just bones. So much detail is still on them. You can see facial features, fingers and toes, hair, teeth, it really was disgusting; yet I couldn't look away. I was so amazed that the acidic water could save so much of a body. Skin had turned to this thick leather looking coating. You could tell that if you were able to touch them they would be hard. As gross as it was it was so intriguing and I learned a lot from this museum. Overall it really was quite a good trip.
Once inside the museum I was wishing that we hadn't met up with the group at all because it was so boring. There were literally like 7 rows of display cases that were filled on both sides with rocks and minerals. Yeah, rocks are cool - kind of - and some of them were pretty, but seriously we did not need to spend and hour and half staring at all of them. It might have been a bit more interesting if the professor had been a little enthusiastic and actually explained some of them or something; but no, he just stood there the whole time. First of all, this guy is young and very awkward. He doesn't really speak, which is not like your normal college professor. I mean he is nice, but if he really expected us to learn something, he should have pointed out the key things that we were supposed to be looking at, at least. Then when we were about to leave he asked me what the difference was between sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, and I was like uggghhhh, no clue, because I didn't know that's what we were supposed to be looking at. I had spent all my time looking at how pretty the diamonds and gems were, not actually learning anything. haha
So yeah, I guess he caught me. He pointed me in the direction of the 3 sections to go look at. It took me about 5 minutes, and I can proudly say that I know now the difference between the three types of rock. Hopefully I won't forget because I have a hunch it will make it onto an exam. (photo: courtesy of Google) Now you can be experts like me!
After the tour of the geological museum, I had another museum visit to go to, on Kildare St, with a different class of mine. This museum was about a 10 minute walk from the other, and the entire walk I just kept hoping that it was more interesting than the last one. We met at the National Museum of History & Archaeology at about 11:15 am. As I walked up I noticed that the building was much prettier than the other and looked promising. Our teacher brought us around on a little guided tour of the museum and explained all of the important artifacts to us that related to what we had been learning in class. Automatically I knew I was going to get more out of this visit than the last one.
At first we basically looked at old tools that archaeologists have discovered from the Mesolithic and Neolithic ages in Ireland. It was neat to see all the tools made from rocks, bone and wood. It was weird to imagine that people actually used these things because simple items that we take for granted today - like a sharp knife, or drill - were not invented. They also had a display of a burial tomb which had human bones in it. Sad to look at, but interesting none the less. Next we made our way around the the Bronze age section. Apparently this was a time when people really liked to display their wealth. We saw an array of different gold jewelry that was worn way back then. Torcs, bracelets, robe fasteners, it was really fun to look at. Now, I couldn't imagine wearing half the things we saw, but I have respect for the idea that if someone wore these gaudy necklaces they would have been perceived as very wealthy and powerful.
Next we made our way around to look at different swords and shields. We got to see the bones of a viking. They really were massive people, on average they would stand to be almost 7 feet tall. They also had a few human skulls on display that were in good condition, but full of dents and cracks where you can see that they were struck with an axe or hammer or something very hard, causing death. Again, it was weird to look at these things because it brings about a real sense of our history. Those skulls were from a real person. Something very tragic happened to that person, and we are putting him on display looking at him. It's kind of weird. We know nothing about who this person really was, just that he was possibly a warrior of some kind. I don't like thinking about it really, but I kept doing it. Imagine, someday some type of species may collect our bones and teeth and put them on display after we have gone extinct.
The last thing we looked at was definitely the most gut- wrenching. All over Ireland -and many other places- there are Peat Bogs.
They are wetland areas that form when plant material is inhibited from decaying fully by the acidic and anaerobic conditions. So basically when anything makes its way into a peat bog it is preserved almost perfectly. Around the Bronze and Iron ages in Ireland, the people began to place their dead ones in bogs as some sort of ritual associated with nature gods and spirits. So yes, that photo you see above was a real human. (I did not take this photo, cameras were not allowed in the museum. This is not one of the preserved bodies I saw, today but I wanted to give an example of just how preserved they were). It made my stomach turn to look at these people. Much worse than looking at just bones. So much detail is still on them. You can see facial features, fingers and toes, hair, teeth, it really was disgusting; yet I couldn't look away. I was so amazed that the acidic water could save so much of a body. Skin had turned to this thick leather looking coating. You could tell that if you were able to touch them they would be hard. As gross as it was it was so intriguing and I learned a lot from this museum. Overall it really was quite a good trip.
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