The British Museum

The British Museum is a public institution dedicated to history, culture and art of ancient man. It is located in Bloomsbury area of London and is a home of over 8 million exhibits! The museum is one of the largest and the most comprehensive in the world. It has presented the history of human culture from the very beginning to the present day.

The British Museum consists of a wide range of different departments: ‘Britain, Europe and Prehistory’; ‘Asia’; ‘Africa’; ‘Oceania and the Americas’; ‘Coins and Medals’ – and this is only the tip of an iceberg!

What you can find in British Museum?

The museum was established in 1753 using the collections of scientist and physician Sir Hans Sloane. His collection consisted of around 40000 books, 7000 manuscripts and other numerous extensive natural history specimens. However, the British Museum wasn’t opened to the public until  January  1759. Today, it no longer houses books or manuscripts, which are now stored as a part of the British Library. Nevertheless, it still possesses its collection of artefacts of many cultures of the world, not only the ancient ones but also modern.

The British Museum has the world’s second largest collection of Egyptian antiques. The collection is a great illustration of the cultures of the Nile Valley from Predynastic Neolithic to the Coptic period. After the victory of the British over the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte in the battle of Nile, British army collected numerous Egyptian antiques, including the Rosetta Stone! Other section of the museum, which is worth visiting is the Department of Greece and Rome. Key highlights of this department are among many: „The Parthenon Marbles”; one of the six remaining Caryatids; two colossal free standing figures identified as the ‘Maussollos’ and his wife Artemisia from the Mausoleum in Halicarnassos.

Department of the Middle East possesses an enormous amount of the most important collections from the ancient regions of Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Sumeria such as: The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III; plastered human skull from Jericho, which is considered to be a very early form of portraiture dated between 7000-6000 BC. Another greatly fascinating section is the Department of Prints and Drawings, which houses works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Rembrandt, Claude, Watteau and many more.

See also The Victoria and Albert Museum.

The most interesting facts according to Connect Click:

• The British Museum has the largest online database of objects in the collection in the world.
• The collection of the British Museum is considered to be controversial, because it consists of artefacts taken from another cultures such as Greece or Egypt. The official statement of the museum is: „‘reductionism’ premise , that whatever was made in a country must return to an original geographical site would empty both the British Museum, as well as, any other great museums of the world.”