The British Museum Пахомова Л.А.

History The British Museum in London is the United Kingdom's – and one of the world's – largest and most important museums of human history and culture. The oldest museum in the world, it was established in 1753 and was based largely on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on January 15, 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building.

The building The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2000 to become the Great Court, with a tessellated glass roof by Foster and Partners surrounding the original Reading Room.

The collections The British Museum of today is primarily a museum of antiquities and ethnography. Lack of space has meant that it has had to shed its collections of natural history and books, but it still claims the mantle of 'universal museum'. The permanent exhibition on the Enlightenment in the King's Library gives some idea of the original scope of the museum. In London the main collections of Western fine art and global applied art are housed in the independent National Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museums, respectively. However, the British Museum retains its Department of Prints and Drawings, which includes a cartoon by Michelangelo and many other works of artistic merit.

Exibits Parthenon Horses The Egyptian sculpture galleries The Buddha

Exibits Seals of the Indus Vally civilization Gold clothing applique. 400-350 BCE. Crimea The Bimaren casket. 1-st centure CE The Indo-Scythian Manthura lion capital.1-st centure CE Funerary bust of a woman. Mid-late 2-nd century CE.

Exibits Egypt mask, about 1500 BC Sphinx Statue of Venus Mummy from the Bog A 3000 year-old gold cup-one of Britain’s top ten treasurers Livia head