Last updated on .
The British Museum in London, England, is one of the world’s greatest museums. Its permanent collection is among the largest in existence.
History of the British Museum
The origins of the British Museum can be traced back to Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish doctor and collector who bequeathed his private collection of over 71,000 items to the British nation. After Sloane died, King George II established the British Museum on June 7, 1753.
The museum opened to the public on January 15, 1759, in the Montagu House. It was the first public national museum in the world, not belonging to any church or crown. Over the years, the collection grew exponentially as the British Empire expanded and explored new lands. Some of the collection was acquired controversially.
Buildings of the British Museum
As the collection grew, the East Wing was built between 1823 and 1828, the northern half of the West Wing between 1826 and 1831, and the North Wing between 1833 and 1838. In 1842, the Montagu House was demolished to build the southern half of the West Wing, which was completed in 1846. Finally, the colonnaded South Wing was built between 1843 and 1847.
The central courtyard was once occupied by the British Library. In the late 1990s, it was redeveloped and opened in 2000 as the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court. It’s the largest covered square in Europe. The roof contains over 4,878 unique steel members connected at 1,566 unique nodes and 1,656 pairs of glass windowpanes. It was designed by BuroHappold Engineering.
Today, the British Museum covers an area greater than 92,000 square meters. There are almost 100 galleries open to the public, yet less than 1% of the collection of over 13 million items is on display.
Visiting the British Museum
The British Museum is located on Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury, which is in the London Borough of Camden. The nearest tube stations are Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, and Russell Square. It’s open daily from 10am to 5pm, and until 8:30pm on Fridays. Admission is free (as of August 2024). Bags may be searched before entry. Check the official website for more info.
The Great Court contains the Great Court Restaurant, Court Cafés, and museum shops. A pizzeria is located on the ground floor through Room 12.
Collection of the British Museum
Because my only visit to the museum thus far was in November 2004, this post is a much shorter version of what it should be. I was only interested in a few pieces in the collection, therefore I didn’t dedicate nearly as much time as I should have to the rest of the museum. On a future visit, I will greatly expand this post with more info and photos. Also, I apologize in advance for the terrible low quality photos below.
Rosetta Stone
The primary reason for my visit was to see the Rosetta Stone and the Greek antiquities collection. First, I visited the Rosetta Stone. It was discovered in 1799 in Egypt by French soldiers. In 1801, after the French surrendered to the British, the stone was transferred to the British Museum.
The Rosetta Stone contains three panels of a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. The translation of hieroglyphics into demotic (ancient Egyptian script) and Ancient Greek became the key to deciphering hieroglyphics, and opened windows into ancient Egyptian history. There have been several calls for its repatriation to Egypt.
Ancient Greece
My next visit was to the collection from ancient Greece. In one room, I viewed a Roman copy of an original Greek bust of Pericles. In another, I admired ancient sculptures from the Nereid Monument, a tomb from Xanthos, which is near present-day Fethiye in Turkey. The tomb was built around 390 BC, probably for Lycian ruler Arbinas. It was rediscovered in the early 1840s by British archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860).
Parthenon Marbles
The next rooms contained the Elgin Marbles, taken from the Acropolis in Athens by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin (1766-1841) between 1801 and 1812. Bruce removed about half of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon as well as pieces of the Erechtheion and Propylaia.
There have been several campaigns generating great public support for the return of the marbles to Greece, including the support of UNESCO. Most of the rest of the surviving sculptures are displayed at the Acropolis Museum.
A Caryatid removed from the Erechtheion is one of the most important pieces of the collection. Bruce took one of the Caryatids while the other five are on display at the Acropolis Museum.
Byzantine Icons
Finally, I walked through a room containing several Byzantine icons.
Russell Square
To get to the British Museum, I took the tube to the Russell Square station and walked through Russell Square. It was laid out in 1804.
Hotel Russell
On the east side of Russell Square is the Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel, which was formerly known as the Hotel Russell. It was built in 1898 by Charles Fitzroy Doll (1850-1929) and opened in 1900. Doll also designed the dining room on the Titanic, which was based on the dining room of the Hotel Russell.
