A bullet from the blue at the British Museum

Last Saturday I was telling again at the British Museum. I wouldn't normally blog about a place I posted on before, but the museum is so big and so full of wonderful objects from all over the world that I set myself the task of finding something I'd never seen before. It led me to the Ancient Greece gallery and amidst all the urns and other classical antiquities I found these lead sling bullets which date from the 4th century BC....

Now this is a museum filled with priceless and sometimes unique objects, from the Anglo Saxon Sutton Hoo Helmet, to the Egyptian Rosetta Stone and the beautifully crafted Elgin Marbles, which I suppose stand out far more than these sling bullets. In fact they are quite common and can be found for sale on the Internet. But what appealed to me was the markings on one of them.. On one side is a winged thunderbolt and on the other the inscription "take that"!

It is that inscription that caught my eye, because it made me laugh and that's the point. It just confirms what I have found with stories and storytelling; that people in the past were not that different to us and I'm sure that the person who made the bullet over 2300 years ago enjoyed the sentiment just as much as I did last Saturday.

Thanks to Alice and her volunteers...