Another day, another UK management failure to add to a growing list. The British Museum has now fessed up that there were thefts and sales from items in the collection having initially ignored a whistleblower.
It has been a pile-up recently. The Criminal Crime Review Commission left Andrew Malkinson to linger in prison despite knowledge of evidence that could have freed him years earlier. The Post Office computer foul up where no one investigated to find the IT fault, instead sending innocent people to prison, some to suicide or early death – and still the top brass has still not been dealt with for the ‘mistake’ and some victims are still uncompensated. Never mind hospital horrors where whistleblowers get nuked rather than the management admit fault.
Where did competence and responsibility go? All the Saturnine virtues of – face facts, take responsibility and earn respect – have slid down the sink hole. Maybe it is a fantasy that it was in place before, but it does seem monumentally worse. A moral decay – power and status without either capability or integrity.
The British Museum was founded by an Act of Parliament on 7 June 1753, which puts its Jupiter in the UK 10th conjunct the Moon – so it is a shining beacon for the UK’s status. And thus its disgrace will be inextricably tied into the UK’s current situation. The British Museum’s Neptune is also conjunct the UK’s 10th house Jupiter, which is suggestive of both scandal and deception.
The UK’s Saturn is being rattled exactly now by the first tr Uranus square which repeats on through 2024 until January 2025 – and the UK Solar Arc Saturn is opposition the Uranus over the rest of this year. Which does sound like a tug of war between the decaying old and the (hopefully) progressive new. The British Museum’s Solar Arc Mars plays into this as it also is opposing the UK Uranus exactly now.
The UK has been in a tailspin since Uranus moved into Taurus in 2019 as it has been rattling up the key Fixed planets in the UK chart – Mars in Taurus, Venus in Aquarius, Neptune in Scorpio and finally Saturn in Leo. One effect of Uranus is to be the torchbearer, shining light on hidden places and this will be especially true with a buried 8th house Mars being constantly triggered throughout this period until 2025 – bringing the rot into the light of day.
Plus the tail end of tr Pluto through Capricorn and its effect on the UK Capricorn Sun. Deconstruction and decay of the old.
Like an addict maybe the rock bottom has to be reached before the ascent into recovery begins. 2024 sees tr Pluto trine the UK Uranus which might start a two year process of significant change. Though it may also take the massive jolt of Solar Arc Mars conjunct the UK 8th house Mars in late 2024 into 2025 to finally get into a better groove.
Mind you I am not sure it was not ever thus and we are just more aware of it now. But is depressing.
A lot of it is to do with the conditions of the tablets. Technology has had to be developed just to make sense of it. A very slow and tedious process. Not everything they do or did was bad.
There maybe profound change coming, as although there has always been a certain amount of disharmony in society, never as much as there is now. Perhaps a new Law of governing has to put in place to give structure for which we all can cohabit? In the past it was the Church and Parliament, yet both appear have broken down. Transiting Pluto in Aquarius is still in the UK’s 1801 Chart 4th house, trine Uranus in the 12th house. This will make Uranus the stronger of the Planet, as Uranus rules Aquarius. Perhaps some things will emerge that have been hidden from the Public? Also, if my calculations are correct the UK’s Charts Sun/Moon midpoint ( which is in the 1st house) is squaring its Saturn in the 11th house, the house of Groups. Like Marjorie has pointed out, transiting Pluto will also oppose the UK’s Jupiter in the 10th, perhaps forcing a new philosophy on Government or for the spirit of the country to change? The Museum represents old – antiquity. Saturn, along with the UK’s Sun/Moon midpoint may mean the very fabric of Governing and institutions being questioned, along with a push to forge a new way of thinking for our society. One thing is for sure, Pluto, Uranus and our Saturn being activated, it not going to let it rest in the way it has become.
Apparently , and even more alarmingly “The British Museum says the majority of its items are registered, and that five million of its eight million artefacts are available to look at on a public database. However, less than 1 per cent of its collection is on public display and therefore less carefully monitored.” A drains up required.
Thank you for this information – I’d recently heard about the thefts on the news, but not about innocent people having been sent to prison, and some committing suicide or dying early as a result. How horrific!
As a past BM visitor I only saw the beautiful facade, not the hidden decay.
As for the objects that were taken in the past, an argument can be made that many were saved from potential destruction by fanatics (such as items in Iraq’s museum, with the help of Bush’s war, or the magnificent giant Buddhas in Afghanistan), or pollution, or looting. Now many can and should be returned to places like Greece and Egypt, knowing they will be well preserved; other places (like Iraq) are probably not sufficiently stable.
Western museums can then consider themselves to have been temporary caretakers and been handsomely paid for their ‘pains’ via the throngs of visitors.
It would be wonderful, but unrealistic, see many ancient sites with their original statues, carvings, vases, etc in situ. But what could be feasible, as some objects have begun to be digitized so they can be viewed from anywhere in 3D, is for this to be done on a large scale and we could walk through an archeological site, as with Google Earth, and ‘see’ everything as it once was. That is, if we even know where everything was taken from, which probably hasn’t always been the case.
Thankyou Marjorie for identifying again the ‘closed-door’ attitude that perhaps just may begin to bring some pathway of closure for all of the people and families ‘effected and affected’ by the Infected Blood Scandal
Thanks Marjorie for looking at this. I think there have always been elements of cover up, lie, and protect the establishment here – and doubtless in many other countries. I watched a documentary about the spy Kim Philby and his friends recently, and what a story of establishment smoke and mirrors that was!
Interesting what you say about UK Saturn, which might represent the establishment and institutions here. I wonder about the effects of transits by quincunx? Both Pluto and Neptune have been pushing on Saturn in recent years, and at some level asking for adjustments. Yet the mythic old king, which might be Saturn in Leo, has resisted both Pluto’s underground rumblings, and Neptune’s dissolving boundaries, and requests for sacrifices to be made. Now Pluto’s underworld secrets and criminal elements surface, and Neptune’s love of scandal appears larger than life. There’s been a yod in place, more or less, with Saturn at the top. Uranus, stomping along in Taurus, arrives to shake up the mess. Not sure anything will ever be enough, but perhaps some progress can be made.
When you add them all up, it just beggars belief.
I’m always taken aback by the apparent ease of lying and covering up that many in positions of power take part in & then the others that become complicit in further covering up for them.
Whilst it’s great that Pluto in Capricorn has been unearthing injustice and incompetence, it’s also sad, in many cases, the amount of innocent lives that have been ruined and/or destroyed.
As another example, I read yesterday about the South Asian women in Coventry who were given radioactive chapatis in the 1960’s without informed consent, as part of a study to look into iron absorption.
On the global stage, when you add in Uranus in Taurus, it’s all been very eye opening.
Hopefully by the time Pluto has settled into Aquarius we’ll have more ‘power to the people.’
Replying to Hugh: Mesopotamian archaeology was a hot ticket in the late 19th/early 20th century. The British Museum started excavating at Ur in the 1850s. R. Campbell Thompson did major work at Ur during WWI. The most famous excavations were by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, but Agatha Christie’s husband, Max Mallowan led several digs all over Iraq in the 1930s. IOW, people were shipping those tablets to the British Museum for nearly 100 years without any controls and a heavy dose of colonial attitudes. On a side note, T.E. Lawrence did field work with both Thompson and Woolley in Syria. In the early 20th century, British archaeologists were often British spies and vice versa.
There are lots of issues with the BM and other Western Museums generally. Leaving aside how some of their collections were acquired they hold a huge number of historically important artefacts which are neither displayed nor fully documented. For example, there are 130,000 cuneiform tablets from the Middle East sitting in the British Museum of which only about 10% have been published. This general listless, drifting, inertia certainly seems to be the defining feature of all British institutions at the moment which certainly need some form of Uranian shake up.
Hugh
How did they get all those tablets and when ?
The British Museum should return the Parthenon Marbles to Athens where they will be placed in a beautifu state of the art museum loving over the Acropolis
They have been in leaky rooms at the British Museum recently – and the director who has resigned told the press 4 years ago that the taking of the marbles would be seen as a “creative act “