Day 24: Everywhere but Europe

Tuesday, June 5, 2012 

More museums!

First was the Naprstek Museum of Asian, African, and American Cultures. 

(My apologies for the quality of the photographs in this post. The lighting today played havoc with my camera, indoors and out.) 

The collection was apparently started by a renowned Czech traveler (for whom it's named) who liked to bring things back from non-European cultures. Like all the Prague museums so far, the Naprstek seemed taller than it was wide. It was centered around an open stairwell similar to those at the Young Art Museum. 

There were intricate mosaics in the many, many staircase landings. 

Some highlights, with photos where there was enough light: 

A map from a Pacific island area made of loose-woven reeds and shells. I assume it was somehow a map of the islands, but I couldn't tell whether the lines represented currents, winds, routes from one island to the next, or something else entirely. I wish I knew. 

A South American pitcher which, I realized, was the same basic shape as pitchers I've seen from Europe, Japan, China, North America, and practically every other part of the world that's ever invented pottery. It wasn't the generic pitcher shape either, but one of those ones with a wide bowl, narrow neck, and tall, arched handle. I thought it was interesting that so many cultures have independently arrived at the same shape. 

Some exquisite Aztec and Mayan metalwork, exhibited - to great and glittering effect - in a dark gallery with nowhere near enough light for photography. 


An actual piece of Mayan writing on a giant stone tablet. 

Some of the more interesting cultural hybrid objects from North America, such as the axe-like thing made of a European gun stock decorated with brass tacks. 

A pair of beautifully decorated human skulls from somewhere in the Pacific. 

An intricate model boat, also from the Pacific. 

The restroom signs were interesting as well. 

Many of my favorite things, as usual, were the wooden and ceramic animals from various cultures. 

After the Naprstek museum, we walked over to an architecture museum that was showing an exhibit on "Earthships" - a series of self-sufficient houses designed to be built out of trash and debris, which people have been building in areas devastated by natural disasters, such as Haiti. (There are pictures on their website.) The photographs are beautiful. Most of the houses use glass or plastic bottles, stacked and cemented together like bricks, and the sunlight shines through them like a multicolored stained glass window. 

On the way back, we passed through Betlemske Náměsti, where I stopped to get gelato at the little Vietnamese food stand again. 

There was sidewalk repair going on a little farther on. I've seen places where the cobblestones and sidewalk tiles have been ripped up, but this is the first time I've seen them being hammered back in. This explains the high-pitched tapping noises we've been hearing at dawn every day. 

Another student and I also saw some sort of long-necked animal - a weasel or one of their many relatives - peeking out from behind a drain pipe on the roof of a nearby building. It ducked into a hole beneath the eaves, flicking a long tail behind it, before we could get a picture of it. We waited for a while, but it never came out again.