The British Museum

Home to the famous Egyptian collection and the Elgin Marbles, the British Museum is the most famous and perhaps one of the most controversial museums in the country. All its exhibits relate to Mankind and the works of Man, and a some of them were obtained at the time of the British Empire, through means which are seen as dubious at best, and possibly illegal if they were done today.

The most famous example of this are the "Elgin Marbles", marble carvings which were removed from the Parthenon in Greece and brought back to Britain by Lord Elgin in 1801-3 (and can be seen on the main floor, in gallery 18 in the Greece collection). They have been a point of dispute between Greece and the UK for a long time since.. However most people agree that Greece did not have the facilities to look after the marbles correctly and they would have been destroyed by now had they remained in Athens' polluted atmostphere.

The centre point of the museum is a round reading room, built in 1857 which previously stood in an open air courtyard. The courtyard was gradually filled with building until it was all but forgotten; at the end of the last century they were removed, and it is now covered by a geodesic roof by Norman Foster, and known as the Great Court.

The reading room is a working library which the public can enter, if they are silent. Just inside the entrance are glass cabinets with modern first editions which tantalise you as you wonder what literary gems there are in the rest of the building.

In the museum proper around the courtyard there are sections of almost every time and place in the history of mankind: Africa, Egypt, American Indians, China, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ancient Greece.

The British Museum is free to enter but an optional donation of 5 pounds or so is requested. You can also donate your foreign currency in this and many other museums.

Telephone: (020) 7323 8299
Address: Great Russell Street, WC1, London, WC1B 3BA
Website: http://the.british.museum/
Opening hours: Saturday-Wednesday 10.00-17.30; Thursday-Friday 10.00-20.30