London before London

In a post a couple of months back, I examined the concept of patriotism which I suggested might be defined as an ancient love for the land.

I spent this morning exploring the Museum of London. Interesting as some of the other exhibits were, I was captivated by their section London before London. Tracing the history of our great city and its river from the frozen, uninhabited land of 450,000 years ago up to around the time of Christ, I found this excursion into British pre-history surprisingly moving.

There were interesting videos such as the one showing modern hands shaping a flint, just as ancestral hands would have done.

I was able to touch one of these ancient flints, placing my hand where the hand of one of my ancestors would have been, thousands of years ago, steadying the flint to cut the hide and flesh of animals.

A fine collection of animal bones, like those above, showed the sheer size and scale of the long-extinct creatures with whom we shared space. A land which at various times was home to the auroch, a type of wild ox, to reindeer, to straight-tusked elephants, woolly mammoths, cave bears and wolves, as well as a type of hippopotamus.

We could see how ancient roundhouses were built, 3500 years ago, always with their doorways facing the sun at winter solstice.

In fact what struck me most was the evidence that from very early days, the sacred was woven into the everyday lives of our ancestors:

Practical and domestic chores were punctuated by ritual and observance. Gifts of food, pots and metal tools and weapons were entrusted to a nether world of spirits glimpsed in waterholes or beneath the great river’s swirling waters. Other offerings may have been sacrificed during rites of passage such as funerals, or to establish status, create obligations and seal alliances amongst the living.

From the London before London website

I found the whole thing uplifting. Now let’s not romanticise those days, when life was often ‘nasty, brutish and short’. Nonetheless, looking at these objects and stories from the far distant past reinforced for me that sense of love for the land that I think is the essence of true patriotism, and can give rise to a meaningful spirituality.

Another element of the exhibit I enjoyed is that the curators clearly love their work. As well as the artefacts so beautifully displayed, there was poetry around the walls and the sound of birdsong playing in the background. Here is another extract from the website:

… the Thames Valley was home to close-knit communities of hunters, herders and farmers.

These peoples travelled, occupied, worked and transformed the land in ways that best suited their different needs. Life was governed by the rhythm of the seasons and the heavens, and by the changing moods of the great river.

The valley was no anonymous wilderness. Every hill had a name, every well-worn path a purpose, every woodland clearing a significance born of long familiarity. Each succeeding generation learnt to recognise and respect the traces of older presences and other pasts.

The land was rich in meanings and memories.

Absurd as it may seem, given that my own ancestry is unlikely to stretch back to those ancient Britons, it gave me a wonderful sense of continuity.

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