The shapes in museums

amphorae photo source : Lorie Pierce

There are an incredible number of distinctive artifact shapes. An amphora seems like an improbable shape for a container for those of us used to flat bottom cans, bottles and boxes. Yet these were the common containers for wine, oils an other traded commodities in the ancient Mediterranean region. They even held hordes of coins.

horde of tetradrachma in amphora photo source : Lorie Pierce

Upon seeing this display, one young girl announced to her family that she had found buried treasure.

A whole year of aquarium

shark jaws photo : Lorie Pierce

Last year, I visited the new aquarium in my city 24 times (or roughly once every two weeks) thanks to a birthday gift of a yearly pass. It was an interesting exercise to visit an attraction so often, but at different times and with varied crowds of others. I took upwards of 1500 images and videos of the aquarium dwellers including staff cleaning the larger tanks from the inside.

There seemed to be something new to see every time. My favourite moments were when the octopus was moving (only 3 of the 24 visits), when cleaners were in the shark tank (2 visits), when the baby cuttlefish were born, when the sea dragons were being fed (one visit) and new bamboo sharks emerged from their egg case (2 visits).

A favourite activity was listening in on the expressions of children seeing live sharks, rays, sea turtles and sawfish for the first time.