[MR] National Museum of Scotland Goes Virtual

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots,

Today the BBC announced that the National Museum of Scotland has gone
virtual in partnership with Google.

Google Streetview has been brought inside, and one can now explore the
collections using the same technology that allows you to walk around almost
anywhere Google has mapped. I tried this out, and yes, it is a bit clunky,
plus you can't really zoom in enough to see the details. The big problem
for me is that the National Museum of Scotland is HUGE. As I remember it,
the medieval collections are scattered across at least two floors. There
are no navigational guides available on Google. I searched my stuff in vain
for the paper map I picked up when I was there last year. So if you don't
mind stumbling through the virtual galleries, eventually you will come to
the medieval sections and all their very cool stuff. Otherwise, you can
download a PDF map at
https://www.nms.ac.uk/media/1156421/scotlandmap_dec2017_final.pdf .

NMS has also partnered with Google Art and Culture to present slide shows
of 1,000 objects from the museum. This is better, though limited to the
themed exhibits. Currently there are four slide shows, and two are of
special interest to us: "Scotland's Early Silver" and "St. Andrew and the
Saltire", both showing and explaining some objects from the middle ages.

Access to both the NMS Virtual Tour and to the themed exhibits is found at
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/national-museum-of-scotland .

Perhaps of more use is to go to the NMS's own web site and search by
"subject" or "theme": https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/ .
Obviously you can search by "Celtic" or "Medieval", but some of their
topics are rather jumbled. For example, under subject "Kings and Queens"
(mostly 18th C), you will find the famous "Lewis Chessmen" (yes, they have
one of the pawns chewing his shield!), and also "Pictish Symbols" which
includes many of NMS's fine carved stones from that era. In addition to
showing the objects themselves, there are interesting slide shows and
videos about how the treasures were recovered and conserved.

You can spend a lot of time in the online museum, and come back whenever
you want, but there is nothing better than seeing the treasures for
yourself. If you are fortunate enough to visit Edinburgh, the museum is a
must. Plan ahead, pick up a map when you arrive, and ask one of their
friendly docents for advice. Don't overload yourself; you can do several
galleries in a day, and come back for more later. Best of all, except for
some special shows, admission to the National Museum of Scotland is free.

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆