Today I toured the Pierpont Morgan Library on 36th and Madison. My $15 admission included a headset and computerized audio tour of this awesome place. What an accumulation of wealth this guy had managed! The library houses thousands of ancient manuscripts, three original Gutenberg Bibles, original hand-written music by Beethoven and Brahms, etc.
My favorite items on display were the collection of "the earliest evidence of writing as manifested in ancient seals, tablets, and papyrus fragments from the Near East." Picture a piece of stone or marble the size of a wine stopper. Intricately engraved on to these pieces -- some as small as your little finger -- was artwork that, when pressed and rolled onto clay, made reliefs into the clay. The little clay tablets were used to identify personal belongings once they were dry. Here's a picture of one of my favorites.
On special display were a group of diaries from the collection -- all handwritten by famous and common people from as far back as the 1500s. Very interesting. I'm really glad I went.
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