History Underfoot

It's safe to say that in Canada we did not ask ourselves, "Which medieval church should we visit this week?," and we never encountered a church website welcoming visitors with the statement, "We've been serving God here since 1352."


I confess to wondering how much original masonry is needed to qualify a church as medieval. According to Wikipedia, for example, "Some original twelfth century masonry survives" in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in nearby Fen Ditton, and the tower dates from the thirteenth century":

 
Yesterday's adventure--an outing to two museums--was another lesson in Cambridge's rich local history.

The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, founded in 1728, displays artifacts related to the earth sciences:

It also chronicles the study of natural history at the university. In addition to a collection of 10,000 fossils ...

... the museum has an exhibit about Charles Darwin, one of Cambridge's famous alumni.

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology displays items that Captain Cook brought back from his travels, along with a bewildering assortment of other cultural artifacts, including this reminder of Canada:

The highlight, however, was an exhibit of local archaeological finds from the Cambridge area, including one that inspired Sylvia Plath's poem, "All the Dead Dears":

In the Archæological Museum in Cambridge is a stone
coffin of the fourth century A.D. containing the skeletons
of a woman, a mouse and a shrew. The ankle-bone of the woman
has been slightly gnawed.

Rigged poker -stiff on her back
With a granite grin
This antique museum-cased lady
Lies, companioned by the gimcrack
Relics of a mouse and a shrew
That battened for a day on her ankle-bone.

...

Both museums are fine indeed, by ordinary standards, but we were spoiled already by the Fitzwilliam.