British Museum

The British Museum in London is one of the world's largest and greatest museums of human history and culture. Its collections, which number more than 13 million objects from all continents, illustrate and document the story of human culture from its beginning to the present.

The British Museum

Established	1753
Location	Great Russell Street, London WC1, England
Visitors	4,500,000 (2005) [1]
Director	Neil MacGregor
Website	www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2000 to become the Great Court, surrounding the original Reading Room.

The wonders of the museum bought here to Bloomsbury from all around the world's imagined corners are numberless. How can they be named? As well tally each leaf of a tree. They come here out of the living minds of generations of men and women now dead - Greek and Assyrian, Aztec and Inuit, Chinese and Indian - who have conceived and carved and hammered and tempered and cast these objects to represent the worlds around them, visible and invisible.

The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1887. Until 1997, when the British Library opened to the public, the British Museum was unique in that it housed both a national museum of antiquities and a national library in the same building. Its present chairman is Sir John Boyd and its director is Neil MacGregor.

As with all other national museums and art galleries in Britain, the Museum charges no admission fee, although charges are levied for some temporary special exhibitions.

• Museum Portico, The Africa Garden
  Museum Portico, The Africa Garden
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  Athens, Erechtheion Sculptures from the Acropolis
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  Main Staircase, The Discus-thrower (Discobolos)
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  The King's Library, Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the 18th Century

The History of The British Museum

Though principally a museum of cultural art objects and antiquities today, the British Museum was founded as a "universal museum". This is reflected in the first bequest by Sir Hans Sloane, comprising some 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens, prints by Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle and Far East and the Americas. The Foundation Act, passed on 7 June 1753, added two other libraries to the Sloane collection. The Cottonian Library, assembled by Sir Robert Cotton, dated back to Elizabethan times and the Harleian library was the collection of the first and second Earls of Oxford. They were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library assembled by various British monarchs. Together these four "Foundation collections" included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library, including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf.

The body of trustees (which until 1963 was chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons) decided on Montagu House as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on a site now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost and the unsuitability of its location.

After its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Library and David Garrick's library of 1,000 printed plays, but had few ancient relics and would have been unrecognisable to visitors of the modern museum. The first notable addition to the collection of antiquities was by Sir William Hamilton, British Ambassador to Naples, who sold his collection of Greek and Roman artifacts to the museum in 1782. In the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid. After the defeat of the French in the Battle of the Nile in 1801 the British Museum acquired more Egyptian sculpture and the Rosetta Stone. Many Greek sculptures followed, notably the Towneley collection in 1805 and the Elgin Marbles in 1816.

The collection soon outgrew its surroundings and the situation became urgent with the donation in 1822 of King George III's personal library of 65,000 volumes, 19,000 pamphlets, maps, charts and topographical drawings to the museum. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished in 1845 and replaced by a design by the neoclassical architect Sir Robert Smirke.

Panorama of the Famous Round Reading Room

Roughly contemporary with the construction of the new building was the career of a man sometimes called the "second founder" of the British Museum, the Italian librarian Antonio Panizzi. Under his supervision the British Museum Library quintupled in size and became a well-organised institution worthy of being called a national library. The quadrangle at the centre of Smirke's design proved to be a waste of valuable space and was filled at Panizzi's request by a circular Reading Room of cast iron, designed by Smirke's brother, Sydney Smirke. This is where Karl Marx famously carried out much of his research, and wrote some of his most important works.

The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until their removal to the new British Museum (Natural History), now the Natural History Museum, in 1887. The ethnography collections were until recently housed in the short-lived Museum of Mankind in Piccadilly; they have now returned to Bloomsbury and the Department of Ethnography has been renamed the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

The temporary exhibition Treasures of Tutankhamun, held by the British Museum in 1972, was the most successful in British history, attracting 1,694,117 visitors. In the same year the Act of Parliament establishing The British Library was passed, separating the collection of manuscripts and printed books from the British Museum. The Government suggested a site at St Pancras for the new British Library but the books did not leave the museum until 1997.

With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum now empty, the process of demolition for Lord Foster's glass-roofed Great Court could begin. The Great Court, opened in 2000, while undoubtedly improving circulation around the museum, was criticised for having a lack of exhibition space at a time when the museum was in serious financial difficulties and many galleries were closed to the public. In 2002 the museum was even closed for a day when its staff protested about proposed redundancies. A few weeks later the theft of a small Greek statue was blamed on lack of security staff.

Controversy

A few of the Parthenon Marbles (popularly known as the Elgin Marbles) from the East Pediment of the Parthenon.

It is a point of controversy whether museums should be allowed to possess artefacts taken from other countries, and the British Museum is a notable target for criticism. The Parthenon Marbles and the Benin Bronzes are among the most disputed objects in its collections, and organisations have been formed demanding the return of both sets of artefacts to their native countries of Greece and Nigeria respectively.

The British Museum has refused to return either set, or any of its other disputed items, stating that the "restitutionist premise, that whatever was made in a country must return to an original geographical site, would empty both the British Museum and the other great museums of the world".[2] The Museum has also argued that the British Museum Act of 1963 legally prevents it from selling any of its valuable artefacts, even the ones not on display. Critics have particularly argued against the right of the British Museum to own objects which it does not share with the public.

Supporters of the Museum claim that it has provided protection for artefacts that may have otherwise been damaged or destroyed if they had been left in their original environments. While some critics have accepted this, they also argue that the artefacts should now be returned to their countries of origin if there is sufficient expertise and desire there to preserve them.

The British Museum continues to assert that it is an appropriate custodian and has an inalienable right to its disputed artefacts under British law.

The Building

Corner of The Great Court, with Easter Island moai.

The current structure replaced Montagu House of 1686.

The Greek Revival façade facing Great Russell Street is a characteristic building of Sir Robert Smirke, with 44 columns in the Ionic order 13.7 metres (45 ft) high, closely based on those of the temple of Athena Polias at Priene in Asia Minor. The pediment over the main entrance is decorated by sculptures by Sir Richard Westmacott depicting The Progress of Civilisation, consisting of fifteen allegorical figures, installed in 1852.

The construction commenced around the courtyard with the East Wing (The King's Library) in 1823-28, followed by the North Wing in 1833-38, original this housed amongst other galleries a reading room now the Wellcome Gallery, work was also progressing on the northern half of the West Wing (The Egyptian Sculpture Gallery) 1826-31, then Montagu House was demolished from 1842 to make room for the final part of the West Wing completed in 1846 and the South Wing with its great colonnade, this was initiated in 1843, and completed in 1847 when the Front Hall and Great Staircase were opened to the public.

In 1846 Robert Smirke was replaced as the Museum's architect by his brother Sydney Smirke, whose major addition was the Round Reading Room 1854-57; at 42.6 metres (140 ft) in diameter it was then the second widest dome in the world, the Pantheon in Rome being slightly wider.

The next major addition was the White Wing 1882-84 added behind the eastern end of the South Front, the architect being Sir John Taylor.

In 1895 the Trustees purchased the 69 houses surronding the Museum with the intention of demolishing them and building around the West, North and East sides of the Museum new galleries that would completely fill the block on which the Museum stands. Of this grand plan only the Edward VII galleries in the centre of the North Front were ever constructed, these were built 1906-14 to the design of Sir John James Burnet and now house the Asian and Islamic collections.

The Duveen Gallery housing the Elgin Marbles was designed by the American Beaux-Arts architect John Russell Pope. Although completed in 1938 it was hit by a bomb in 1940 and remained semi-derelict for 22 years before reopening in 1962.

The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court is a covered square at the centre of the British Museum designed by the engineers Buro Happold and the architects Foster and Partners. The Great Court opened in December 2000 and is the largest covered square in Europe. The roof is a glass and steel construction with 1,656 uniquely shaped panes of glass. At the centre of the Great Court is the Reading Room vacated by the British Library, its functions now moved to St Pancras. The Reading Room is open to any member of the public who wishes to read there.

Currently there are nearly one hundred galleries open to the public although the less popular have restricted opening times.

The Departments

The British Museum has over 13 million objects in its collections.

(Some 8 million forming the Permanent Collection in addition to the 6 million objects donated by the Wendorf Collection of Egyptian and Sudanese Prehistory)]

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The British Museum - Throne Relief Cast from the Hall of the Hundred Columns, Persepolis

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  Ancient Egypt
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  Ancient Greece
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  Ancient Rome
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  Middle East

Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan

The British Museum houses the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. An unequalled collection of immense importance for its range and quality, comprising objects of all periods from virtually every site of importance in Egypt and the Sudan. Objects illustrating every aspect of the cultures of the Nile Valley (including Nubia), from the Predynastic Neolithic period (c. 10 000 BC) through to the Coptic (Christian) times (12th century AD), a time-span of nearly 11,000 years.

The British Museum, Room 4 - Monumental Egyptian Sculpture

A representative selection of 4% of the entire collection is on display in the Museum's seven permanent Egyptian galleries, including monumental sculptures adorning the Museum's largest exhibition space (Room 4). Also contained in the upper galleries are a selection of the Museum's famous collection of 140 mummies and coffins, the largest outside Cairo. A high proportion of the collection of more than 110,000 objects comes from tombs or contexts associated with the cult of the dead, and it is these pieces, in particular the mummies, that remain among the most eagerly-sought exhibits by visitors to the Museum.

The Wendorf Collection

In autumn 2001 Professor Fred Wendorf, Henderson Memorial Chair at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Texas, generously donated his entire collection of artefacts and environmental remains excavated over a period of 40 years to The British Museum. The Wendorf Collection consists of more than 6 million prehistoric artifacts from excavations between 1963 and 1997 in Egypt and the Sudan conducted by Fred Wendorf, Emeritus Professor of Prehistory at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. This important collection of material was been given to the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at The British Museum.

The Egyptian collection currently stands at over 110,000 objects. Comparably, other great Egyptian collections can be found at The Egyptian Museum, Cairo (140,000 objects), , Musée du Louvre, Paris (50,000 objects) , Petrie Museum, London (80,000 objects), The Museo Egizio, Turin (32,500 objects), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (36,000 objects), Āgyptisches museum (The Neues Museum), Berlin (23,000 objects), Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (40,000 objects), The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Pennsylvania (42,000 objects), The Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago (30,000 objects)

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The British Museum, Room 4 - Colossal Granite head of Amenhotep III (1350 BC). The statue wears the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.

The British Museum, Room 4 - Colossal bust of Ramesses II, the 'Younger Memnon' (1250 BC). One of the largest pieces of Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum

Key highlights of the collections include:

• The Rosetta Stone (196 BC)
• Limestone statue of a husband and wife (1300 BC)
• Colossal bust of Ramesses II, the 'Younger Memnon' (1250 BC)
• Colossal granite head of Amenhotep III (1350 BC)
• Colossal head from a statue of Amenhotep III (1350 BC)
• Colossal limestone bust of Amenhotep III (1350 BC)
• Fragment of the beard of the Great Sphinx (1300 BC)
• List of the kings of Egypt from the Temple of Ramesses II (1250 BC)
• Limestone false door of Ptahshepses (2380 BC)
• Granite statue of Senwosret III (1850 BC)
• Mummy of Cleopatra from Thebes (100 AD)
• Amarna Tablets (Collection of 94 out of 382 tablets found, second greatest in the world after the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin (202 tablets)) (1350 BC)

Department of Asia

The scope of the Department of Asia is extremely broad, its collections of over 70,000 objects covers the material culture of the whole Asian continent (from East Asia, South and Central Asia, South-East Asia and the Islamic world) and from the Neolithic up to the present day.

Key highlights of the collections include:

• The most comprehensive collection of sculpture from the Indian subcontinent in the world, including the celebrated Buddhist limestone reliefs from Amaravati
• An outstanding collection of Chinese antiquities, paintings, and porcelain, lacquer, bronze, jade, and other applied arts
• A fine collection of Buddhist paintings from Dunhuang in Central Asia and the Admonitions Scroll by Gu Kaizhi
• A broad range of Islamic pottery, paintings, tiles, metalwork, glass, seals, and inscriptions.
• The most comprehensive collection of Japanese pre-20th century decorative arts in the western world

Department of the Middle East (Ancient Near East)

With approximately 280,000 objects in the collection, the British Museum has the greatest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities outside Iraq. The holdings of Assyrian, Babylonian and Sumerian antiquities are among the most comprehensive in the world.

The British Museum, Room 7 - Reliefs from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud

The collections represent the civilisations of the ancient Near East and its adjecent areas. These include Mesopotamia, Iran (13,000 objects), the Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia, the Caucasus, parts of Central Asia, Syria, Palestine and Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean from the prehistoric period until the coming of Islam in the 7th century AD. The collection includes six iconic winged human-headed statues from Nimrud and Khorsabad. Stone bas-reliefs, including the famous Royal Lion Hunt relief's (Room 10), that were found in the palaces of the Assyrian kings at Nimrud and Nineveh. The famous Royal Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh and Sumerian treasures found in Royal Cemetery's at Ur of the Chaldees.

A representative selection, including the most important pieces, are on display in 13 galleries and total some 4500 objects. The remainder form the study collection which ranges in size from beads to large sculptures. They include approximately 130,000 cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia.

Contemporary collections can be found in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (90,000 objects), The Oriental Institute of Art, Chicago (20,000 objects), Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (7,000 objects)

Key highlights of the collections include:

Nimrud (City in Northern Iraq)

The British Museum, Room 6 - Pair of Human Headed Winged Lions and Reliefs from Nimrud with The Gates of Balawat in the background.

Alabaster bas-reliefs from:

• The North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II
• Central- Palace of Tiglath-Pileser III,
• South-West Palace of Esarhaddon
• Palace of Adad-Nirari III
• South-East Palace ('Burnt Palace')
• The Nabu Temple (Ezida)
• The Sharrat-Niphi Temple
• Temple of Ninurta

The British Museum, Room 6 - Assyrian Sculpture

Sculptures

• Pair of Human Headed Winged 'Lamassu' Lions (883-859 BC)

• Human Headed Winged 'Lamassu' Bull (883-859 BC)
• Human Headed Winged 'Lamassu' Lion (883-859 BC)
• Colossal Statue of a Lion (883-859 BC)
• Rare Head of Human Headed Winged 'Lamassu',

recovered from the remains of the South-West Palace of Esarhaddon

• The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC)
• The White Obelisk (1050-1031 BC)

Nineveh (City in Northern Iraq)

Alabaster bas-reliefs from:

• North-Palace of Ashurbanipal
• Famous Royal Lion Hunt Scenes
• The 'Dying Lion', long been acclaimed as a masterpiece
• The 'Garden Party' Relief
• The White Obelisk, Some of the earliest scenes of Assyrian narrative art
• South-West Palace of Sennacherib

Royal Library of Ashurbanipal

• A large collection of cuneiform tablets of enormous importance approximately 22,000 inscribed clay tablets, now located in the British Museum
• The Flood Tablet, relating part of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Khorsabad (City in Northern Iraq)

• Alabaster bas-reliefs from the Palace of Sargon II
• Pair of Human Headed Winged 'Lamassu' Bulls

Wider Museum Collection

• Cyrus Cylinder from Babylon
• Bronze gates of Shalmaneser III and Ashurnasirpal II from Balawat
• A fine collection of Urartian bronzes, which now form the core of the Anatolian collection
• Oxus Treasure
• The Standard of Ur
• The 'Ram in a Thicket'
• The Royal Game of Ur
• Queen's Lyre

Department of Coins and Medals

The British Museum is home to one of the world's finest numismatic collections, comprising about one million objects. The collection spans the entire history of coinage from its origins in the 7th century BC to the present day.

There are approximately 9,000 coins, medals and banknotes on display around the British Museum. More than half of these can be found in the HSBC Money Gallery (Gallery 68), while the remainder form part of the permanent displays throughout the Museum.

Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities

The Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities of the British Museum has one of the world's most comprehensive collections of antiquities from the Classical world, with over 100,000 objects. These mostly range in date from the beginning of the Greek Bronze Age (about 3200BC) to the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD, with some pagan survivals.

The Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean cultures are represented, and the Greek collection includes important sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens, as well as elements of two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos.

The Department also houses one of the widest-ranging collections of Italic and Etruscan antiquities and extensive groups of material from Cyprus. The collections of ancient jewellery and bronzes, Greek vases and Roman glass and silver are particularly important.

Key highlights of the collections include:

The British Museum, Room 18 - The Parthenon Galleries, Temple of Athena Parthenos (447-438 B.C)

Athenian Akropolis

The Parthenon Gallery ("Elgin Marbles")

• The Parthenon Marbles are one of the finest manifestations of human creation. The Magnificent Relief Frieze showing the Panathenaic procession is considered as the most famous surviving example of art from Ancient Greece, often praised as the finest achievement of Greek architecture, Its decorative sculptures are considered one of the high points of Greek art.

Erechtheion

• The Finest of 6 remaining Caryatids
• Surviving Column

Athena Nike

• Surviving Frieze Slabs

The British Museum, Room 16a - Bassae Sculpture, Temple of Apollo Epikourios (420-400B.C)

Bassae Sculptures

• Sculptures from the temple of Apollo Epikourios ('Helper') at Bassae in Arcadia.
• Twenty three surviving blocks of the frieze from the interior of the temple are exhibited on an upper level.

Mausoleum of Halikarnassos

One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

• Two colossal free-standing figures identified as Maussollos and his wife Artemisia.
• Part of an impressive horse from the chariot group adorning the summit of the Mausoleum
• The Amazonomachy frieze - A long section of relief frieze showing the battle between Greeks and Amazons

Temple of Artemis at Ephesos

One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

• Architectiral fragments from the Archaic and fourth century temples of Artemis
• Marble column drum from the later Temple of Artemis

Asia Minor ('Turkey')

Nereid Monument

• Partial reconstruction of the Monument, a large and elaborate Lykian tomb from the site of Xanthos in south-west Turkey
• Payava Tomb from Xanthos in south west Turkey

Wider Museum Collection

• Material from the Palace of Knossos
• Portland Vase
• The Warren Cup
• Discus-thrower (discobolos)
• Townley Sculptures

Department of Prints and Drawings

The Department of Prints and Drawings holds the national collection of Western Prints and Drawings. It ranks as one of the largest collections in existence alongside the Musee du Louvre and the Hermitage as one of the top three collections of its kind.

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The British Museum, Room 90 - Durer, The Triumphal Arch - One of the largest prints ever produced

Since its foundation in 1808 the Prints and Drawings collection has grown to international renown as one of the richest and most representative collections in the world. There are approximately 50,000 Drawings and over 2 million Prints. The collection of Drawings covers the period 14th century to the present, and includes many works of the highest quality by the leading artists of the European school. The collection of Prints covers the tradition of fine printmaking from its beginnings in the 15th century up to the present, with near complete holdings of most of the great names before the 19th century.

The British Museum, Room 90 - Michelangelo, Epifania - Last surviving large scale cartoon by the artist

There are magnificent groups of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo (including his only surviving full-scale cartoon), Dürer (a collection of 138 drawings is one of the finest in existence), Rubens, Rembrandt, Claude and Watteau, and virtually complete collections of the works of all the great printmakers including unsurpassed holdings of prints by Dürer (a virtually complete collection of Dürer's 99 engravings, 6 etchings and a substantial number of his 346 woodcuts), Rembrandt and Goya. More than 30,000 British drawings and watercolours include important examples work by Hogarth, Sandby, Turner, Girtin, Constable, Cotman, Cox, Gillray, Rowlandson and Cruikshank, as well as all the great Victorians. There are about a million British prints including more than 20,000 satires and outstanding collections of works by William Blake and Thomas Bewick.

Comparably, worldwide other great collections include:

• Musee du Louvre, Paris (133,000 Drawings, 46,000 Prints)
• State Hermitage, St. Petersburg (39,000 Drawings, 486,000 Prints)
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (11,000 Drawings, 1.5 million Prints)
• Kupferstichkabinett, Museum of Prints and Drawings,. Berlin (110,000 Drawings, 500,000 Prints)
• Royal Collection, London (40,000 Drawings, 150,000 Prints, inc. 600 Leonardo da Vinci Drawings)
• Fitzwilliam, Cambridge (20,000 Drawings, 180,000 Prints)
• Uffizi Gallery, Florence (120,000 Drawings and Prints)
• National Gallery of Art, Washington (100,000 Drawings and Prints)
• Moma, New York (6000 Drawings, 50,000 Prints)
• Brooklyn Museum, New York (2,000 Drawings, 40,000 Prints)
• The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (11,500 Drawings, 60,000 Prints)
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (150,000 Drawings and Prints)

Africa, Oceania and the Americas: The collection mainly consists of 19th- and 20th-century items although the Inca, Aztec, Maya and other early cultures are well represented; collecting of modern artifacts is ongoing.

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Displaying The British Museum's outstanding ethnography collections

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The British Museum, Room 90 - Michelangelo, Epifania - Last surviving large scale cartoon by the artist

The collections of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas comprise around 350,000 objects, representing the cultures of indigenous peoples throughout the world. The collection is complemented by the Sainsbury African Galleries of over 200,000 objects0, bringing the combined collection to over half a million).

The British Museum houses one of the world's finest and most comprehensive collections of material from Africa . Over half a million objects from two million years of history tell the story of a vast continent, a continent of many rich and diverse cultures. The African collection at the British Museum tells the largely unwritten history of Africa .

The Sainsbury African Galleries provides a substantial and permanent exhibition space for one of the finest collections of African art and artefacts in the world. The collections comprises over 200,000 objects and encompasses both archeological and contemporary material, which includes both unique masterpieces of artistry and objects of everyday life.

The Sainsbury galleries display the greatest permanent collection of African arts and culture in Europe including many contemporary works. Over 600 objects from across the Africa reveal the diversity and vitality of the continent's artistic achievements.

Highlights of the collection include a magnificent brass head of a Yoruba ruler from Ife, Nigeria; Asante goldwork from Ghana and the Torday collection of Central African sculpture, textiles and weaponry.

Horniman (80,000 objects) Pitt Rivers Museum ( Musée du quai Branly (300,000 objects) Boston Museum of Fine Arts (100,000 Japanese pieces) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (11,000 object) Brooklyn Museum (11,000 objects)

Prehistory and Europe: The prehistoric collections cover Europe, Africa and Asia, the earliest African artefacts being around 2,000,000 years old. Coverage of Europe extends to the present day.

Conservation, Documentation and Science: This department was founded in 1924. Conservation has six specialist areas: ceramics & glass; metals; organic material (including textiles); stone, wall paintings and mosaics; Eastern pictorial art and Western pictorial art. The science department has and continues to develop techniques to date artefacts, analyse and identify the materials used in their manufacture, to identify the place an artifact originated and the techniques used in their creation. The deparment also publishes its findings and discoveries.

Learning and Audience: This department covers all levels of education, from casual visitors, schools, degree level and beyond. The Museum's various libraries hold in excess of 350,000 books, journals & pamphlets covering all areas of the museum's collection. Also the general Museum archives which date from its foundation in 1753 are overseen by this department; the indivdual departments have their own separate archives covering their various areas of responsibility.

The Collections

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The Egyptian sculpture galleries

Highlights of the collections include:

• The Elgin Marbles, carvings from the Athenian Parthenon
• The Portland Vase
• The Rosetta Stone
• The Stein collection from Central Asia
• The Clock Room
• Works by Albrecht Dürer: more than 100 drawings and 900 prints
• Egyptian Mummies
• The Benin Bronzes
• The Cyrus Cylinder and many other Persian artifacts
• Anglo-Saxon artifacts from the Sutton Hoo burial
• The Lewis Chessmen
• The Mold cape (a Bronze age gold ceremonial cape)
• The basalt moai (statue) Hoa Hakananai'a from Easter Island
• The Mildenhall Treasure

External links

• Official website of The British Museum
• A list of important dates in the British museum's history from the official website