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British Museum, London
See all London Things To Do
The British Museum - London
The British Museum
by dinhyen
Things to Do in London: British Museum tips and photos posted by real travelers and London locals.
British Museum
Great Russell Street, WC1
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• 269 Reviews
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British Museum: Uk's Largest Museum
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  • The British Museum is the largest museum in the UK and one of the oldest museums in the world. I read that it is the most visited attraction in London! It is free to get in, so if the crowds get too much, or your feet get sore, then you can always visit again and again. The egyptian section - with mummies on display is really interesting. There is a nice cafe too if you need a caffeine injection.

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  • Phone: 020 7636 1555
  • Directions: Nearest Tube: Tottenham Court Road or Russell Square
  • Website: www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: A great museum
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  • You could spend a day here and still come away wishing you had seen more! Despite the name, this isn’t a museum about Britain – the collections include artefacts from all over the world (including controversially some that people feel should have stayed where they were, such as the Elgin Marbles from the Acropolis), and span 2 million years of history. Some highlights: ~ From Ancient Egypt (one of my favourite collections): statuary & decorated architecture, inscribed with hieroglyphs; coffins & mummies of individuals; furniture, fine jewellery & other burial goods. ~ From Imperial China: calligraphy, paintings & ceramics (and in 2008 there will be an exhibition featuring some of the Terracotta Army from Xian) ~ From Anglo-Saxon: one of the most impressive collections, the treasures from the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk. ~ From the Aztecs: stone & ceramic sculptures; musical instruments such as drums, decorated with intricate carvings; rare turquoise mosaics. ~ From Iron Age Britain: one of the items that has fascinated me since I first saw it, Lindow Man. This is the body of a man discovered in August 1984 when workmen were cutting peat at Lindow Moss bog in NW England. The conditions in the peat bog meant that the man’s skin, hair and many of his internal organs are well preserved, and scientists have been able to do lots of research to learn about his life and death, concluding that he was probably the victim of a ritual sacrifice by druids. Do open up my 2nd photo to see a view of the museum few people will get – the stunning green glass roof photographed from above. This is part of the wonderful view I enjoy from my office window :) Admission is free, as it is to all the major museums in London. Open every day 10.00-17.30, and later on Thursdays and Fridays.

  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Nearest tube is Holborn (Central & Piccadilly lines) – the museum is signposted from the station. It’s also an easy walk from Russell Square (Piccadilly line), Tottenham Court Road (Central line) & Goodge Street (Northern line)
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: British Museum awe-inspiring
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  • The entrance to British Museum. - London
    The entrance to British
    Museum.
    by ZanieOR
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    By the time we arrived at the British Museum Sunday afternoon after a morning at the markets and a visit to the National Gallery and walking from there, my feet were hurting; plus I'd tripped and skinned my knee and hand during the walk. We only had two hours left before it closed and my friend was determined we hit all the high spots in those two hours, so got us an audio tour. (We had no time to dawdle) In spite of my feet, I was awe-struck at the collection after collection of priceless antiquities, from the Rosetta stone to the Elgin marble from Greece to the mummies and on and on and on. Take it from me. Two hours is not enough. It would be easy to spend a whole day in this wonderful museum.

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  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: The British Museum
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  • I love this museum. especially the Egyptian Department...... I could wander round this place for hours and hours and of course it's completely free (so leave a donation if you can). I have visited this place every summer for the last .... I dunno how many years..... It's always fascinating... and I am not a huge museum fan generally...Nice restaurant too. If I were rich and feeling particularly benevolent I would leave this museum enough money to install air conditioning. Maybe they can't because it would have a diverse effect on the exhibits or something, but it is always unbearably hot in summer, which kind of spoils the experience, in my opinion anyway.

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  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: British Museum - Rosetta stone
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  • The famous Rosetta stone, which made possible the decipher the hieroglyphs. It has writing on it in two languages (Egyptian and Greek), using three scripts (hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek). Amazing again! :) When facing the library, go to the left hand side wing. Don't forget to see also the mummys and statues of the ancient Egypt, Greece, etc.

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  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: Enlightenment at the British Museum
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  • Great Court & Circle Library - British Museum - London
    Great Court & Circle
    Library - British Museum
    by tzuki
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    There are always some exhibitions going on at The British Museum, some of them are permanent exhibitions and others no, however, still very interesting to see. One of my favourites is the Great Court and Circle Library, as the Entrance at the Museum..... hmmmm I can stay hours and hours there, watching and enlightening myself. [See picture :-) Also, there is one piece of Art I really like in the Egypt section.... The Rosetta Stone! If you come to London and to the British Museum, do not miss it! is amazing! The Rosetta Stone data from the Fort St Julien, el-Rashid (Rosetta), Egypt Ptolemaic Period, 196 BC. It is a valuable key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs. The inscription on the Rosetta Stone is a decree passed by a council of priests, one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation. The decree is inscribed on the stone three times, in hieroglyphic (suitable for a priestly decree), demotic (the native script used for daily purposes), and Greek (the language of the administration). The importance of this to Egyptology is immense. Soon after the end of the fourth century AD the knowledge of how to read and write them disappeared. In the early years of the nineteenth century, some 1400 years later, scholars were able to use the Greek inscription on this stone as the key to decipher them. Thomas Young, an English physicist, was the first to show that some of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone wrote the sounds of a royal name, that of Ptolemy. The French scholar Jean-Fran?ois Champollion then realized that hieroglyphs recorded the sound of the Egyptian language and laid the foundations of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language and culture. Height: 114.4 cm (max.) Width: 72.3 cm Thickness: 27.9 cm

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  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: Worlds Oldest Public Museum - The British Museum
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  • Worlds Oldest Public Museum - The British Museum - London
    Worlds Oldest Public Museum -
    The British Museum
    by easyoar
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    The British Museum lays claim to being the Worlds Oldest Public Museum. It has an outstanding collection of items inside from all over the world (some of these are now claimed by the countries they originally came from - The Elgin Marbles from Athens in Greece being a notable example). The museum was established in 1753 so is well over 250 years old. The main building you see is newer being built between 1823-1850. For the millennium celebrations, a Great Court was added by Norman Foster, and this is worth seeing in its own right. Notable exhibits amongst many are Egyptian Mummies, Greek Marbles, a Peat Bog Man, and a stone head from Easter Island. This picture shows the main entrance from Great Russell Street. Oh, and the good news is that the British museum is completely free to enter, although they do ask that you make a voluntary contribution, this is entirely optional.

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  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: Be Enlightened
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  • Ancient civilizations, the History of Art, religion and ritual, languages and translation, are just a few of the things you can learn about in the VERY LARGE museum. We only spent two hours here and we concentrated on Ancient Egypt, Greek Art, and a short visit through The King's Library. This is a large room that was once a library and now contains an exhibit about the 18th century intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment. During this time, people all over Europe were beginning to question "old" knowledge taken from classical authors and the Bible. Reason and first-hand observation were becoming the basis for "new" knowledge. This room is a walk through encyclopedia.....the result of collecting and classifying new information.

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  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: the british museum
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  • the british museum is one of the best museums in the world. to take in all the collections it would probably take several days. the first exibit you will see when you enter the museum is the famous rosetta stone. the high lights of the british museum are the greek, roman, near east, and egyptian collections. some must see exibits are the elgin marbles, the lindow man, and the sutton hoo treasure. open 10:00am to 5:30pm daily. admission is free.

  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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    British Museum: The Great Court of the British Museum
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  • The Great Court of the British Museum - London
    The Great Court of the British
    Museum
    by easyoar
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    Almost as soon as you go through the front entrance of the British Museum, you will find yourself in the Great Court. This is a very new addition to the British Museum, having been built for the year 2000 celebrations by Norman Foster. There is something of the Louvre Pyramid (in Paris France) about it. In the middle of this court is a world famous reading room, with shops selling iitems related to the muesum around the outside of the reading room. If you want to get a good picture, just before you go into the Great Hall, go up the staircase to the left, and once you get up to the first floor, look out for a little opening looking down on to the hall. It's stops people getting in the way of your shot. If I remember correctly, before this great court was built, there was just a big open courtyard which was open air, so you had to go into this to move between different sections of the museum. These days, the Great Hall makes a great focal point.

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  • Phone: 0 20 7323 8299
  • Directions: Holborn tube
  • Website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

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