"Urrrr..." My friend growled when I told him that the first place I wanted to visit was the exhibit from the Royal Tombs of Ur at the Morgan Library. In the end, however, he was forced to admit that both museum and exhibit were fascinating.
Morgan's library, (famously copied for the movie, 'Ragtime'), is full of intriguing books and artifacts. Here we saw Mozart and Shubert's original sheet music, Keats and Whitman's notes in the margins of handwritten editions of their poetry and a seemingly endless array of other one-of-a-kind bits of history.

The Ur exhibit featured artifacts from the oldest known civilization in the world, the Sumerians. Among these were golden gowns of priestesses, an intricate game, a ram with a golden fleece and a harp with a bulls' head at its front that was as tall as I am. (The Sumerian culture believed music was the language the Gods understood so invested a great deal of time in the creation of instruments.) Though the gallery was small, it was as impressive as anything at the Metropolitan.

Among a few other special exhibits were the original drawings for St. Auxperi's story 'The Little Prince'. It was neat to see sketches of characters that never made it into the book. One drawing was crumpled from the authors' tossing, then retrieving it.

The somewhat eccentric tycoon, Pierpoint Morgan was such a collector that he was rumored to have possessed the Grail itself at one point. Superstitious, he painted his ceilings with constellations and signs of the zodiac so that he would always be covered by lucky stars.

The gorgeous building is filled dramatic carved furniture, cool marble hallways and stairs. We wished we could live there too.

I couldn't resist the gift shop and left with Pierpoint Morgan tarot cards, (he had/the museum has a fascinating collection of the oldest decks and this one combines them all into one), Ur-rings (earrings copied from the jewelry of Ur) and beautiful postcards for everyone back home.