Exercise 6. Find the antonyms

1.unique A. old

2.old B. ordinary

3.rapidly C. common

4.new D. high

5.more E. similar

6.low F. inside

7.eminent G. full-time

8.outside H. young

9.different I. less

10.part-time J.slowly

UNIT 11. OXFORD MUSEUMS

Oxford is well known for its museums and collections. They provide an important resource for scholars internationally, and welcome visits from members of the public. Admission is free, except for the Botanic Garden, where visitors are charged a small admission fee, and Christ Church Picture Gallery, which makes a small charge, with concessions for children, students and senior citizens.

· The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology was founded in 1683. It is one of the oldest museums in the world and was the first museum in Britain to be open to the public.

· The University Museum of Natural History houses the University's scientific collections of zoological, entomological, palaeontological and mineral specimens.

· The Pitt Rivers Museum is a world famous ethnographic museum, celebrating human cultural creativity.

· The Museum of the History of Science houses an unrivalled collection of historic scientific instruments.

· The Bate Collection of Musical Instruments includes historical woodwind, brass and percussion instruments; over a dozen historical keyboard instruments; and a complete bow-maker's workshop.

· Christ Church Picture Gallery holds an important collection of Old Master paintings and drawings totaling 300 paintings and almost 2,000 drawings.

· The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Britain, and the most compact yet diverse collection of plants in the world.

· The Harcourt Arboretum, which is home to informal gardens, walks and rides. The Arboretum forms an integral part of the plant collection of the Botanic Garden.

With the opening of its doors on 24 May 1683, the Ashmolean Museum provided a setting in which the private collection emerged into the public domain. Even the use of the term “Museum” was a novelty in English.

The collection presented to the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) was in origin already half a century old by this time, having been founded by John Tradescant and displayed to the public. The contents were universal in scope, with man-made and natural specimens from every corner of the known world.

By the time it passed to Ashmole, the collection of miscellaneous curiosities had grown in scale and stature to the point where its new owner could present it to the University as a major scientific resource.

The Collections of the Ashmolean Museum are divided between five departments.

Antiquities Collections cover a wide range in both space and time. From the Palaeolithic to Victorian periods; from Egypt and the Middle East to Europe and Britain.

Cast Gallery Collection comprises casts from sculpture from museums around the world mainly from Roman and Greek conUNITs.

Eastern Art Collections cover a large area of the Orient, from the Islamic world of the Middle East through India, Tibet and South East Asia, to China, Japan and Korea.

Heberden Coin RoomCollections cover coins and medals from around the world, but most notably Greek, Roman, Celtic, Byzantine, Medieval, Islamic, Indian and Chinese.

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History houses the University's scientific collections, accumulated in the course of the last three centuries.
The purpose of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History is to assemble, preserve, and exhibit the University's natural history collections and to promote research, teaching, and public education in the natural sciences based on the museum's collections.

The Pitt Rivers Museum was founded in 1884 when Lt.-General Pitt Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, gave his collection to the University. His two conditions were that a museum was built to house it and that someone should be appointed to lecture in anthropology.
The Museum displays archaeological and ethnographic objects from all parts of the world. The General's founding gift contained more than 18,000 objects but there are now over half a million. Many were donated by early anthropologists and explorers. The extensive photographic and sound archives contain early records of great importance. Today the Museum is an active teaching department of the University of Oxford. It also continues to collect through donations, bequests, special purchases and through its students, in the course of their fieldwork.

The Museum of the History of Science houses an unrivalled (не имеющий себе равных, непревзойденный) collection of historic scientific. By virtue of the collection and the building, the Museum occupies a special position, both in the study of the history of science and in the development of western culture and collecting. The present collection of the Museum preserves the material relics of past science, including a unique library of manuscripts, incunabula, prints, printed ephemera and early photographic material. As a department of the University of Oxford, the Museum has a role both in making these relics available for study by historians who are willing to look beyond the traditional confines of books and manuscripts as well as presenting them to the visiting public. The objects represented - of which there are approximately 10,000 - cover almost all aspects of the history of science, from antiquity to the early twentieth century. Particular strengths include the collections of early mathematical and optical instruments, together with apparatus associated with chemistry, natural philosophy and medicine.

The Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, in the Faculty of Music at Oxford University, is the most comprehensive collection in Britain of European woodwind, brass and percussion.

In 1963 Philip Bate generously gave to the University of Oxford his extensive and systematic collection of European orchestral woodwind instruments. Since then he has continued to augment the Collection with gifts and loans. As a result of his original conditional of gift, that students should be able to play these historic instruments, the Bate Collection is unique in that many of its instruments are used.

There are on display more than a thousand instruments, by all the most important English, French and German makers, which show the musical and mechanical development of all wind and percussion instruments from the Renaissance and the Baroque to modern times.

Christ Church is unique among the Oxford or Cambridge colleges in possessing an important collection of Old Master paintings and drawings. The collection is strong in Italian art, from the 14th century to the 18th century: there are some good panel paintings by early, often anonymous masters. The Picture Gallery at Christ Church represents one of the most important private collections in the country and includes work by many renowned masters including Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dürer, Raphael and Rubens. Naturally, for reasons of space and conservation, the entire drawings collection cannot be shown. However, a selection of drawings is always on view, and this is changed every two to three months.

The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain. Throughout its three hundred and eighty year history the Garden has continually evolved and developed to the point that today it is recognised as a classic yet contemporary botanic garden at the heart of the University and City of Oxford.

The first major figure in the history of the Garden was Sir Henry Danvers, who gave five thousand pounds (equivalent to £3.5 million today) to set up a physic garden for "the glorification of God and for the furtherance of learning". Today the Garden is still committed "to promoting learning and glorifying nature".

Gardening at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden is seen as a process rather than a product. During the last four centuries it has been essential that successive generations of gardeners have ensured that the Garden has been used by the University and other visitors.

Today, people of all ages and backgrounds use the Garden. Undergraduates studying biological sciences and related subjects at the University of Oxford visit the Garden to learn about many aspects of plant biology. Over 6,500 school children visit the Garden each year as part of the Schools Education Program. Many of these children visit glasshouses such as the Palm House, where they find cocoa, oranges, bananas and coconuts, and the Cactus House where they can escape to the desert. The Garden ensures that adults as well as children can benefit from the Garden's Education Program. Each year more than 5,000 adults attend courses and tours at the Garden to learn more about botany, horticulture and gardening.

Six miles south of Oxford is the Harcourt Arboretum. This is an integral part of the plant collection of the Botanic Garden.

There are no walls, glasshouses or straight lines at the Arboretum - it is almost as if it were designed to be the antidote to the formality of the Botanic Garden in central Oxford.

In May and June the Arboretum is ablaze with azaleas and rhododendrons and in October the Japanese maples can brighten even the dullest day. But there is more. In spring there is a quintessentially English 10-acre woodland and in summer a 37-acre meadow full of wild flowers.

There are a lot of the plants from mountainous parts of the world. Six beds have been planted with species from the Pyrenees, the Pindhos Mountains, the Himalayas, the Drakensburg Mountains, the Chilean Andes and South Island of New Zealand.

The Arboretum has been part of the University since 1963. Today many visitors come to the Arboretum to enjoy a unique blend of Garden and Nature - the transition from one to the other being almost imperceptible.

EXERCISES

Exercise 1. Why are these dates important for Oxford Museums?

1. 24 May 1683

2. 1617-1692

3. 1884

4. 1835

5. 1963 (two events)