Tuesday 02/08

This morning was decided to visit the National Museum of Ireland with the focus on "The Bog Body & The Tara Brooch". The visit to the museum was very amazing: there are historical facts about a long range of time from prehistorical Ireland to the last century. I have looked at as many things as I could, but I was very impressed by the Bog Bodies. They are a recent discovery that was made in 2003. The human bodies, without any particular cure or treatment were preserved almost completely. For example I could see a complete untouched hand with nails! Nowadays we can guess a lot about how they died. The two major hypothesyes were that their death was due to a battle or was due to human sacrifice.

Passing to the other subjects, I saw in the museum many marvellous jewels. I found Tara Brooch a very interesting treasure. In particular I was impressed by a very little detail made of a silver chain made of plain wire attached to the brooch by means of a rotatable attachment. This picture is made of an animal head between two human heads.

In the late morning we went to the Science Gallery that at the moment is dedicated to "SEEING". The most impressive event, for me, was a computer made up of 3 robot artists and where the human model become the object. The process took about 30 minutes to finish and produce 3 different pictures. It was amazing to observe the 3 robots that painted the picture! It seemed to me that the robots were working without thinking of painting but surely that is not tru: there was a computer programme that controlled them and it knew how to produce a remarkable result!

In the afternoon we went to visit "The Book of Kells" exhibition that consists of a manuscript that contains the four Gospels in Latin. The majority of academic opinion now tends to attribute it to the scribes of Iona. The illustrations and ornaments of the Book of Kells are very extravagant and complex. I was delighted to see them. It is important to note that the book was produced with the focus on appearance becaus there are numerous uncorrected mistakes in the text.
The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, which was its home for centuries. Today, it is on permanent display at Trinity College Library, Dublin.