Museums

Yesterday we went to the Natural History and The Pitt Rivers museums. Both museums were different but very interesting and impressive.

In the National History museum the main exhibitions were about dinosaurs, insects and many sorts of animals. Human's evolution, fosils and minerals from all over the world.
In the Pitt Rivers each of us had one specific topic to investigate about.

Adrian and Pablo's theme was about the use of smoking and stimulants throughout time: The Mayans were the first culture to use tobacco. Drugs were mostly used for religious rituals, medicinal purposes and connecting to different dimentions.

Melissa's investigation was about magic, witchcraft and wizardry. It was very interesting because it showed the different beliefs from different cultures around the wolrd. Their ideologies had things in common although they lived far appart. There were many sorts of objects used for magical purposes like amulets for protection and talismans for good luck, and healing.

Miriam's topic was about ships and boats. Boats stareted in Mesopotamia as a way of transportation, they evolved into trading and commertial ships. There were  many kinds of vessels from cannoes, to rafts, to big war ships.

Posted by Paulina Ramirez

Museums and literature

In the last couple of days we have visited a couple of museums and some of the most important places for literature that Oxford has to offer, all of this places seem to have a strange mist that takes you to a different time and a place beyond imagination.
Just the architecture of the colleges, churches and museums starts giving you this magical feeling, and even if just for a while, when you enter this places you forget your problems, and everything seems unreal.
The museums are all stuffed with knowledge and history collected throughout time.
The colleges and churches are all magestic and very peaceful and beautiful.
All in all, this is a wonderful city filled with knowledge, mistery and magic.

Literature around Oxford

On a really nice and sunny day we visited: Christ Church College, Alice Shop, Magdalean College & Bridge. We found the architecture most impressive, because it has been preserved for hundreds of years. We discovered that one of the towers was constructed in the norm gothic style. When we entered to the Great Hall, where Harry Potter was filmed, we thought it was going to be more spooky, but realized the contrary. Still it's fascinating and dazzling. 
To conclude our tour we went to Alice Shop where we found ourselves dragged into the magical world L. Carrol created.

Montse, Miriam & Maria

Paolo ucellos "hunt in the forest": Ashmolean Museum

This painting is famous because of perspective and nature.
It was painted in 1470.
It has a nocturnal landscape.
Humans and animals recede coherently to a vanishing to a vanishing point in the centre of the painting.
Bright colours create a mosaic-like surface patterns.
In this painting, hunting is a metaphor for love, the pursuit of beloved and death.
There are also symbols representing Diana (godess of hunt) represented as deer.
(adrian and pablo)

Ashmolean museum.... Musical instruments...

Most of the instruments that were on this room were given to the Ashmolean museum in the 1930s and 1940s by the distinguished London firm of violin makers.
Most of the instruments were several types of bowed and plucked instruments which include the viols that were the ones of common use in the 1500 and other instruments that then became really popular in the 1800 were the violin and the guitar.

(montse y maria)

Ashmolean

We went to see the jewel of King Alfred The Great, one of the mos important archeological jewels in all of England, it was as misterious as it was beautiful, for nobody really knows what it was used for, but it stills looks as magestic as the man who once beared it.

The Court

Last week we went to the court, we witnessed two different cases, both quite interesting.

Being there felt weird, is very different from how it's shown in films or tv shows. I was really impressed about everything, from the clothing to the courtroom; I wasn't expecting to see the jugde dressed with a gawn and a wig and the way they talked to the judge like someone superior, everything seems like we were somehow back in time...

The first case was very confusing about a guy wo smashed the windows of his own car, and then he threw lots of paper into his car, like if he was about to set the car on fire.

The second case was about sexual abusse to a man, it supposedly occurred when this man was a teenager. The problem was that there was any evidence that could prove that the person that made that abuse was guilty.

This experience was very interesting though I think I couldn't be neither part of the jury nor a lawyer or judge, make a desition about the life of someone else is something quite serious.

Beautiful Exeter College

I enjoyed reading your posts about your visit to Exeter College. It's one of my many favourite places in Oxford, but I learned some new things from your reports! I didn't know that the college had an American president among its alumni.

Excellent work!

This is a really interesting blog! Well done. Please tell your readers more about yourselves, who you are and how you come to be in Oxford, with some photographs.
Looking forward to the next instalment!
Robert Swan

Exeter College History

Coat of arms

Exeter College is one of the oldest Colleges of Oxford. It was founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapeldon.  The College was founded to provide an education for clergy. 

18th century photo

At the beginning, most of the members of the College were from Devon and Cornwall. At first, there were not many students because it was small, but when it began to grow it gave room to have more students. After a long time, in 17^th century Exeter became one of the leading colleges of the University with a higher reputation.  In 1618 a chapel was built on the opposite side of the quad among the present Hall. In 18^th century, Exeter went into a decline as many other University’s Colleges. Then, the team sports popularity increased, the Junior Common Room was founded in  1887, and it had numerous groups.

The Exeter Chapel

It is an example of Victorian Gothic Architecture and it was designed by George Gilbert, whom was inspired by the Sainte Chappelle in Paris. The Chapel was restored in 2007. It is a chapel for the College community and the general public. People of all faiths, or none, are welcome to visit the chapel. It has a big organ, so it is in demand for musical concerts.  

It has beautiful stained glass windows, and on the outside part of the chapel, on the top of the columns there are amazing statues of saints.

Exeter College in Fiction

On Monday we went to visit Exeter College located in the city of Oxford. Our first impressions when we entered were that it was, stunning, and we were amazed by its beauty. Once we started walking around the quad we found ourselves traveling back in time, because of its gothic architecture and stained glasses. 

   We were fortunate to visit the building during a sunny day and appreciate the wide variety of colours and details, but add some rain and it turns into a perfect, magical place for fiction. Therefore we've decided to talk about the different fitcional roles Exeter College has played or inspired throughout history.

   For example, there's a detective novel, later turned into a TV programme called: Inspector Morse carried out in Oxford City. In "The Remorseful Day" episode we can see the inspector collapsing in the College's quad.

   Philip Pullman's novel "His Dark Materials" created a fictional institution called Jordan College, which was inspired by Exeter College. Years after this novel was published, it was made into the well known film named "The Golden Compass"

   To conclude, Oxford has been in 533 novels.

Famous Exeter Alumni

Exeter college, in all its years, has produced many alumni that have excelled in their own areas, all of these notable men and women have left their own, personal mark in history, but here, we will only mention a few.

J.R.R Tolkien (1862-1973) perhaps one of the most notable of exeter alumni, Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university, most famous for writing The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit & The Silmarillion which all have a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy word called Arda, and Middle Earth within it.

When we visited the college we actually saw a sculpture of Mr. Tolkien in the chapel, where it stands today as a monument to this great writer. This sculpture was built by his daughter-in-law in 1977.

Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) was the 14th President of the United States, also entered Exeter College.He was a democrat and he took part in the Mexican-American war (1846- 1848) and then became a brigadier general.
He died in New Hampshire, in 1869 at 64 years old.

Samuel Babson Fuld (1981- ) is another notable Oxonian, and he is an American baseball outfielder with the Tampa Bay Rays of MLB
This incredible man has overcome his diabetes by double batting .600 at the age of 10, ranking 19th in the country at the time.
Since then he has become a great player and has won numerous awards for his excellent games.