Q-Eng

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博物館の歴史は古く、興味深い。 しかし現在のような博物館は19世紀から。
英語はTED-Eｄではやさしい部類。 特殊な語や固有名詞は気にしない方がよいでしょう｡

易　　06分・・140wpm　　2015/05/10 新出　04/03

字幕：上の動画は開始後 で字幕On/Off､ で言語選択。文字ｻｲｽﾞはｵﾌﾟｼｮﾝから｡
　　　　動画を見るとき、パソコンで画面全体を拡大するときれい。

★下記英文はマウスオーバー辞書が使えます｡

Hello, everyone. Let's begin our guided tour. Welcome to the Museum of Museums. Museums have been a part of human history for over 2000 years. But they weren't always like the ones we visit today. The history of museums is far older and much stranger than you might imagine.

We'll start over here in the Greek wing. Our word museum comes from the Greek mouseion, temples built for the Muses（ミューズ：文芸の女神）, the goddesses of the arts and the sciences. Supplicants asked the Muses to keep watch over academics and grant ingenuity to those they deemed worthy. The temples were filled with offerings（供え物） of sculptures, mosaics, complex scientific apparatuses, poetic and literary inscriptions（碑文）, and any other tribute that would demonstrate a mortal's worthiness for divine inspiration.

We have arrived at the Mesopotamian wing. The first museum was created in 530 B.C. in what is now Iraq. And the first curator was actually a princess. Ennigaldi-Nanna started to collect and house Mesopotamian antiquities in E-Gig-Par, her house. When archeologists（考古学者） excavated the area, they discovered dozens of artifacts neatly arranged in rows, with clay labels written in three languages. She must have had interesting parties.

The tradition of collecting and displaying intriguing（興味をそそる） items began to be mimicked, as you can see here in the Roman Empire wing. Treasure houses of politicians and generals were filled with the spoils（戦利品） of war, and royal menageries（王立の見世物動物園） displayed exotic animals to the public on special occasions, like gladiator（剣闘士） tournaments.

As you can see, we have a lion here and a gladiator, and, well, the janitor（管理人） ought to be in this wing clearly. Moving on, hurry along. The next step in the evolution of museums occurred in the Renaissance（ルネサンス）, when the study of the natural world was once again encouraged after almost a millennium of Western ignorance.

Curiosity cabinets, also referred to as Wunderkammers, were collections of objects that acted as a kind of physical encyclopedia, showcasing artifacts. Just step into the wardrobe here. There you go. Mind the coats. And we'll tour Ole Worm's cabinet, One of the most notable Wunderkammers belonged to a wealthy 17th-century naturalist, antiquarian（古物収集家）, and physician Ole Worm. Ole Worm collected natural specimens, human skeletons, ancient runic texts（古代ルーン文字：ゲルマンの古語）, and artifacts from the New World.
　　Wunderkammer独語＝Cabinets of Wonder 驚異の部屋

In other curiosity cabinets, you could find genetic anomalies, precious stones, works of art, and religious and historic relics. Oh my. You might not want to touch that. These cabinets were private, again, often in residencies, curated by their owners, rulers and aristocrats, as well as merchants and early scientists.

Now, who hears a circus organ? In the 1840s, an enterprising young showman named Phineas T. Barnum purchased some of the more famous cabinets of curiosity from Europe and started Barnum's American Museum in New York City. A spectacular hodgepodge（寄せ集め） of zoo, lecture hall, wax museum, theater, and freak show that was known for its eclectic residents, such as bears, elephants, acrobats, giants, Siamese twins, a Fiji mermaid, and a bearded lady, along with a host of modern machinery and scientific instruments.

Museums open to the public are a relatively new phenomenon. Before Barnum, the first public museums were only accessible by the upper and middle classes, and only on certain days. Visitors would have to apply to visit the museum in writing prior to admision, and only small groups could visit the museum each day. The Louvre（ﾙｰﾌﾞﾙ） famously allowed all members of the public into the museum but only three days a week.

In the 19th century, the museum as we know it began to take shape. Institutions like the Smithsonian were started so that objects could be seen and studied, not just locked away. American museums, in particular, commissioned experiments and hired explorers to seek out and retrieve（回収する） natural samples. Museums became centers for scholarship and artistic and scientific discovery. This is often called the Museum Age.

Nowadays, museums are open to everybody, are centers of learning and research, and are turning into more hands-on（体験型） institutions. But the question of who gets to go is still relevant as ticket prices can sometimes bar admission to those future scholars, artists and targets of divine inspiration who can't afford to satisfy their curiosity. Thank you all for coming, and please, feel free to stop by the gift shop of gift shops on your way out.