The World's Most Crowded Museum

After exploring the Castel Sant'Angelo we trekked through the streets in the scorching Roman sun towards the Vatican Museum. The title of this post is NOT an exaggeration, and I got my first glimpse of what was to come when we had to stand in a line that snaked around a good portion of the walls of Vatican City just to get in. After about 30 minutes we finally entered the museum and were shuttled through the ticket booth into the main atrium, which meant I could breath and move without touching anyone at all! Our professors decided that there was no way we could stay together as a group of 21 in this museum, so they told us to go explore on our own and meet back up at the dorms in 4 hours (which we used every minute of). Our ultimate plan was to follow the museum corridors through the Sistine Chapel, and into St. Peter's Basilica. The first wing that I went into contained early christian and Roman sculpture. The following pictures are highlights of what I thought was particularly funny or amazing.


This little guy was resisting being dragged into hell so hard that I just had to take a picture of him.


These three are already in hell, but they really don't seem too concerned about it. To me it seems that they're just looking at each other and shrugging.


This creepy sheep was staring at me from the corner of a sarcophagus......he disturbs me.


Why is this guy so angry about carrying a lamb?


This is the only lovingly romantic scene that I've ever come across in Roman art. I thought it was really touching.


These two guys were positioned together so perfectly. They're comparing their muscles. HWAH!


This woman's hair freaks me out. Forget the fact that she's naked, their appear to be snails living on her head!


This was just some really beautifully carved foliage. It was very detailed too. On the far left there is a tiny little mouse.


See?


This is our good friend Augustus looking all sexy. Might be better if he didn't have what looks like a wedding veil on his head, though.

After I was through looking around in that wing I headed to towards the other side of the museum and started the long trek through winding corridors towards the Sistine Chapel. The following pictures are of things I saw along the way.


This right here has got to be the reason that you never see any depictions of the Ancient Romans smiling. These guys haunt my nightmares now.


Just a small sample of the bizarre hair styles that were popular in the Roman empire at various points. I really wish I could show you all of them, but these are the weirdest.


"what's up eagle?" Our lovely friend Ganymede just chillin' with an eagle......who is about to rape him.


All statues used to have eyes like this. Isn't it freaky? They all used to be painted too.


This Cupid was contorted in some interesting ways. Not really sure what he's trying to do.


Dianna is so beautiful and elegant. For those of you who don't know she's the goddess of the hunt.


Obviously I like Dianna, but I don't know why. After all, she hates men and is sworn to be a virgin forever. Boo!


The exhibits weren't the only amazing things to look at. The very hallways that we were walking through were once palaces for the Popes and they were beautifully decorated.

Here is even more lovely decoration. Take it all in.


I love the idea of having little tombs to hold your ashes like this one. It's in the shape of a Roman temple. I just love all things that are done in miniature.


Doggy!!


This could very well be the worlds biggest bathtub and I sooo wanted to get into it. They had about four different tubs all this same size. They were from the baths of Caracalla.


Demon Goat!


I just liked this one because it was so beautiful and flowing. The instrument she's playing is a lyre.

This type of sculpture with a head attached to a square base is called a herm. These things are everywhere in Roman museums. The reason I've included this picture is to show the censorship present in the Vatican Museum. Herms normally have penises attached at the bottom. Here you can see the hole where it used to be right below the giant crack. All herms in the Vatican Museum are missing their penises and all male statues are either missing theirs (though not their testicles for some odd reason) or their covered up with fig leaves that the Popes had placed there at later dates.


Just a really cool colossal statue. There was a whole room filled with them.


Here's another elegant statue of our friend Augustus. Here he's dressed for the role of a priest.


I took a little detour from the main path to visit the tiny Egyptian section. Here you can see the mummy that they had on display. Look how perfectly the hands are preserved.


This is a perfect example of syncretism, which I wrote a paper on once. Syncretism is the combining of two cultures in one object, or in this case one god. This is a depiction of Hermes by Romans who were living in Egypt. They've added the Egyptian element of the dog head and sun disk above his head, but he's still dressed as a Roman and carries the typically Graeco-Roman caduceus (wand thingy) and money purse. This kind of cultural interaction is so fascinating to me.


A cool little scorpion with the head of a woman.


It was a long way to the Sistine Chapel and eventually we left behind the ancient objects and we were focused on the beauty of the actual building around us. Just look at this coffered ceiling!


The colors were so bright!


This looks so 3D.....but it isn't. It's just a flat painting.


This ceiling was so elaborate that it was really impossible to take it all in. Especially since I was in a veritable river of people.


Awesome, just awesome.


The demon in this fresco looked so weird I just had to take a picture. It's the giant hairy nipples that really make him scary.


Here you get an idea of the size of the wall paintings that we were looking at. You also get some idea of how crowded it was.


The colors in this little plaque were so brilliant I was memorized.

This is a ceiling fresco that shows a crucifix standing over a broken statue of Mercury. It made me so immensely sad. I was a little depressed after that.


I really love it when they put gold tiles into mosaics.


This is the last picture that I took before we entered the Sistine Chapel. It's pretty much impossible to describe the experience of the Sistine Chapel, and sadly they don't let you take pictures while you're in there. It was just so beautiful and overwhelming. The colors were really bright and looked like they'd just been painted, though of course they are over 400 years old. There were so many people visiting the Sistine Chapel that we were only able to stay there for about 10 minutes before we were shuttled out. With that our two and a half hour tour of the Vatican Museum and its subsequent hallways was complete. Next we followed the crowd out of the Sistine Chapel and around to St. Peter's Basilica.