The British Museum in London reopens – what to see now

The British Museum in London also reopens on  May 17th after over 3-month closure for coronavirus. The museum remains free, but you have to book before you go; they won’t let you in without a ticket. Remains open from 10 all 17 every day. Not all parts of the museum are open for the moment.

Here you can book for free.

British Museum, Great Russell Road, London

Underground: Goodge Road, Holborn, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Roadway, all in zone 1.

The museum has a second entrance in the Montague Area. 

Interesting and curious things about the British Museum

The British Museum in London owns over 14 millions items, but only 1% of them are on display at any one time. Temporary exhibitions often show ‘hidden’ objects

The British Collection inside the museum was expanded and modernized around 1850 by an Italian librarian and patriot: Sir Antonio Panizzi, regarded as the second founder of the British Gallery

Initially, the museum included in addition to the library, there are also objects of natural history, particularly rocks, fossils and stuffed animals. Due to space constraints, this section was moved to a new museum in South Kensington in 1880; thus, the Nature Gallery

The temporary exhibition on the treasures of Tutankhamun from 1972 was the most successful in UK history, with over 1. 600000 visits. It opened a new chapter in the creation and management of temporary exhibitions

At the beginning of 1900, the museum purchased and demolished well 64 neighbouring buildings to widen

The British Museum was the first public museum in the world that did not belong to the king or the church and the first advertisement to have free admission

The collection of Hans Sloane

The museum started with a collection of Sir Hans Sloane (that of Sloane Square), who was King George II’s personal physician and a scientist and collector. In August 2020, the British Museum decided to remove the statue of Sir Hans Sloane, as he had made money by cheating the slave trade.

During construction of the building that now houses the museum, the largest construction site in Europe was created

The museum was opened in 1759, located in Montagu Home, which used to be where the current museum is today. The current building dates back to 1852 and is based on the temple of Athena Polias, which is located in Turkey

The Egyptian collection is the largest in the world outside of Egypt. The famous Rosetta Stone was presented to King George III in 1802. There are various imported mummies, including the Katebet Mummy. In 1818 came the huge bust of Rameses II

6 million visitors annually

The British Museum in London has around 6 million visitors annually, one of the most visited museums globally after the Louvre and the Metropolitan Gallery in New York City.

From 1840 in the museum commissioned and financed his own archaeological excavations; his greatest discovery was undoubtedly the mausoleum of Halicarnassus. You can now see pieces from this building at the museum. Other important excavations were made at Nimrud and Nineveh.

The Museum also contains the famous Elgin marbles, removed from the Parthenon and brought to the UK by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Every now and then, there are requests (even by British actor Stephen Fry) to give them back to Greece.

Don’t miss the statue of winged lions with human heads from the city Assyrian of Nimrud.

The collections present now reflect Great Britain’s role and its empire, but they are not all taken without permission; many objects are gifts given by foreign heads of state, collectors and others have been bought.

Until 1900, the British Museum in London also housed the British Library, which moved completely to St Pancras in 1997 and left space for the magnificent Great Court, built by Norman Foster and the largest covered square in Europe.

What to see at the British Museum?

If you don’t tour the museum for weeks or months, you will hardly be able to see everything. Too much to see in this museum.

Many visit the museum, especially to see the Egyptian section, which is rightly worth a visit. You will find many mummies, including animals, decorations found in the tomb of Nebamum and coffins. The most important piece of the museum is the Rosetta Stone which allowed to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Don’t miss the huge bust of Ramses the Great, which is on the first floor.

In the section dedicated to Ancient Greece, you will see so many vases to make your head spin. You can follow the rooms from 11 to 23, which are in chronological order to get a sense of the history of Greece. In addition to those of the Parthenon, do not miss the bas-reliefs of the tomb of Shrew in Turkey.

Among the many vases and cups, look for the beautiful Sofilo vase, which is still extraordinary now and the Warren cup in the Greco-Roman section. It is aesthetically beautiful but is famous for depicting two homosexual acts. For years it could not be exposed to the public.