ABSTRACT
A tiled panel depicting a roaring lion from Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace at Babylon, loaned to the British Museum by the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, arrived in 2013. The lion was placed right in the center of the gallery of “Later Mesopotamia,” and its arrival threw the shortcomings of the surrounding displays into stark relief. Visitor surveys had shown that the public marched through this gallery without breaking pace, ignoring the Flood tablet, the Map of the World, the Library of Ashurbanipal, and a whole raft of other miraculous and famous exhibits. Since 2005, the British Museum has sought to understand how visitors engage with objects and encourage them to linger thoughtfully over the displays. A drastic overhaul of the existing exhibition was clearly required, and this chapter reveals how the curatorial team confronted familiar objects in new ways with startlingly successful results.
