A Portal Back in Time
Today we are heading to a portal back in time where we will see things from the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Rome, Greece, Babylon, Syria and more. We are heading to the Louvre, which is more than just a museum. The building itself was used as a fortress and palace for around 600 years, including being used by Emperor Napoleon. For the last 230 years or so it's been a museum.
We have an 11:30 AM reservation to get in. We decide to eat breakfast at our hotel to save time, but it is very expensive and turns out not really worth it. Almost everything is picked over when we go in, and there isn't much for food I can eat that is dairy free.
Eventually they bring out some fresh croissants and about three people rush and take them all. They did bring out some eggs, but they are very under cooked and not in a good way. I mainly eat bread with jam as they don't even have peanut butter. The next time they bring out fresh croissants we each get one, but they are disappointing too, almost burnt on the outside and underdone on the inside. Not quite the French cooking we had hoped for.
Its going to take around 45 minutes to get to the Louvre on public transportation. If you arrive too far off your time slot you lose priority and have to stand in the normal line, so we need to be leaving.
Nate finds the quickest route is to walk to a bus stop nearby that will bring us to a metro line. After some trouble finding the stop the bus never shows up and the next bus is showing delayed. We decide we need to take an Uber as the nearest metro station we know to walk to is 20 minutes away and we are supposed to be at the Louvre already in 10 minutes.
The Uber ride was lots of stop and go, moving forward 10-15 feet or through a light then stopping. Every once in a while we would speed down a block and then jerk to a stop. It only takes us around 30 minutes to get there, so faster then if we had walked to the metro station and then rode that, but traveling in the metro underground is nice as far as avoiding all the little stops for lights or pedestrians.
When we get out of the Uber and walk towards the pyramid entrance we see there is some kind of running event going on. It's the Adidas 10K Paris. The runners are running past major Paris landmarks including the Louvre pyramid and Eiffel tower.
We arrive at 11:45 and they still let us in. Kids tickets are free but you have to have proof of age if asked, so we have passports with us. They don't ask, I guess they don't quite look 18 yet.
Nate and I have been to the Louvre twice before and we know it's huge. You could probably spend a week there if you wanted to really see everything. So the best plan, is to have a plan. If you know what you want to see, make sure to find those things first, because you'll eventually be tired and hungry and just want out.
The kids wanted to see the Mona Lisa, so we headed that way. On the way to finding it we pass the Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo.
The Mona Lisa is smaller than expected when we've been walking by paintings that are 10'-15' tall and 20’ wide. It's probably a pretty normal portrait size, just small compared to most other paintings there. It's heavily guarded and because of dumb protestors who sometimes destroy art to try make a point, it's behind glass, and you can only get within about 10’ if you push through a crowd 30’ deep. Nate picks the kids up to see it and get a picture. Then we walk along the side where you can see it a litter closer as you pass by. They keep you from stopping.
Sarcophagus of Djedhor who served as a royal scribe and priest of Min and Hathor.
A few broken pieces from the Decree of Memphis. There are multiple copies of this decree, but the full decree is also found on the Rosetta Stone. This decree was written in Greek, Demotic, and Egyptian, and helped unlock how to decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
The Code of Hammurabi is a stele from Babylon (modern day Iraq). Hammurabi was a very powerful king from the First Babylonian Dynasty who reigned from 1792-1750 B.C. This stele was discovered in 1901 in Susa. On the stele is etched 282 laws of the land. Some of these laws are things like:
Law 196: If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
Law 200: If a man knocks out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
So an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth goes way back!
The Louvre also has many wall reliefs from the Royal Persian Palace that was built by King Darius I in Susa. He reigned from 522-486 B.C. He is mentioned in the Bible in the book of Ezra 5 & 6 assisting the Jews in the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.
Another impressive thing from the palace in Susa is the massive column capital that was part of the audience hall of the palace. The capital is about 5.3 meters tall, but the overall height would have been about 21 meters tall, or 69'. The palace in Susa is also where the biblical story of Esther takes place.
There are also sphinx that came from the palace of Sargon II, who was King of Assyria from 722-705 B.C. Sargon was the king who conquered Israel and sent them into captivity. He's mentioned in the Book of Isaiah 20:1. These sphinx used to guard the entrance to his palace.
Wall relief to the left of the sphinx shows King Sargon II and his son Sennacherib. Sennacherib is the king in the Bible who faces off against Judah's King Hezekiah
2 Kings 18-19
By this time we are getting hungry and Nate's back is in pain. We rush to find one more important artifact before going to find lunch.
The Mesha Stele/Moabite Stone is probably one of the most important Biblical artifacts in the Louvre. It was first discovered in 1869 in Jordan by a missionary who was shown it by locals. It was in perfect condition at the time. When word got out about it interest began to grown. In 1869 a French archeologist was sent to make a squeeze impression of it which takes paper mâché and presses in into the cracks and then dries to give a perfect impression. While the squeeze was drying there was a squabble between the team and locals, and the locals ended up breaking the artifact into pieces to try get more money from interested parties. 2/3 of the fragments were collected, but the rest was reproduced off of the squeeze.
The Mesha Stele references several people from the Bible. King Omri who lead the northern kingdom of Israel,, and his son Ahab (married to Jezebel) who oppressed Moab (1 Kings 16: 23-34). After Ahab died, Mesha king of Moab revolted against Israel (2 Kings 3:4-5). It talks about Moab attacking the city of Ataroth that was built by the people of Gad from old (Numbers 32:34). Gad was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. It also mentions them tearing down alters to the God of Israel "YHWY" (Yahweh spelled in Hebrew has no vowels).
A carving of the god Baal who was worshiped in Syria and Canaan, he was considered a storm god. He is seen holding a club in his right hand and a spear symbolizing lighting in his left. There's an epic showdown between 450 prophets of Baal and the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18) that is a good read if you have never read it.
By this time we had to find lunch as it is about 2:30. We head to the exit and find a food court on the way to the metro. We grab pizza for the kids and Nate and I order from a Thai place that turned out to be SUPER slow. Everyone is coming up looking for their food, wondering if they had been forgotten, ours takes 25 minutes…not what we expect for fast food. Thankfully that gave the kids time to eat, as Nate and I can eat quickly.
As I'm finishing up my food, Nate takes the kids down to a macaroon shop to let them each pick out a flavor. Once again 3 people push past him in line, which is very irritating, and apparently very French.
We rush to the metro and then have to catch a bus for the last little leg. We find out we could have just walked to that station in the morning but Google wouldn't direct us that way, like it didn't know there was a sidewalk or something. Could have saved us a 30 euro Uber ride as we had already bought a metro day pass…oh well.
We had already checked out of our hotel in the morning but we kept one room key in case we needed to use it to get into the parking garage. This also allowed us to use the bathroom on the main floor of the hotel before we headed to our car.
Nate knew only the far left of three elevators would bring us down to the car but we kept hitting the down arrow and the light would turn off, similar to when we arrived. Eventually we have to ask the front desk. They say you need to hit the up arrow, then once on the elevator we can request the basement floor…would have been nice to know that before!
Trying to navigate our way out of Paris isn't easy, at one point we miss a turn and it requires us to weave around another way, which adds 10 more minutes to our trip home. About 20 minutes later we finally make it onto a freeway.
The drive back to Eindhoven is about 4.5 hours long. We stop for gas just after getting into Belgium. We want to grab some food and we get in line, then a worker said they are closing and wouldn't serve anyone else. So we just grab a snack of some baby carrots and chips from the store and leave. 20 minutes down the road is a Burger King at a different gas station stop, so we get some real food there.
We let the kids get kid's meals which includes a burger, fries, and a little ice cream sundae…a little sketchy for the car, but it made them happy.
We finally arrive home around 9:30 PM, the end of a whirlwind weekend.
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