Elias Asmole believed that knowlege could be gained through the study of objects and so gave his collection to start a museum in Oxford in 1677. When students got tired of wordsin the myriad of libraries acorss the city they could come here.
I need a few days in the Ashmolean and a few weeks to savour it, helped by a hundred ‘grabs’ with the iPad as I went around. Visitors were asked to name the 20 things to see if you had little time – I’d go for the maps and timelines and collections such as these that cover nearly 1500 years in a few coins and notes. Here an Anglo Saxon, then a Mercian Penny. Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror and Edward III. Henry VII, Edward IV and Elizabeth I.
Mind Bursts 