Beautifully displaced

and let thy feet, millenniums hence, be set in midst of knowledge.”

I read this phrase the moment I stepped into the Great Court of the British Museum. The words, engraved on the marble floor, caught my attention immediately. I remember standing there, reading them twice, trying to absorb their meaning. As I found out later, they come from a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and they felt both timeless and ironic. I had entered the place reluctantly, with the well known bitterness that many Greeks feel about the Parthenon marbles. Yet, as much as I wanted to resist, I couldn’t help but be impressed. Even at night, with no daylight filtering through the glass roof, the space had an undeniable grandeur.