TheBritish Museum is a publicmuseum dedicated tohuman history, art and culture located in theBloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world.[3] It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.[a] Established in 1753, the British Museum was the first public national museum.[4] In 2023, the museum received 5,820,860 visitors. At least one group rated it the most popular attraction in the United Kingdom.[2]
At its beginning, the museum was largely based on the collections of the Anglo-Irish physician and scientist SirHans Sloane.[5] It opened to the public in 1759, inMontagu House, on the site of the current building. The museum's expansion over the following 250 years was largely a result of British colonisation and resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, or independent spin-offs, the first being theNatural History Museum in 1881. Some of its best-known acquisitions, such as the GreekElgin Marbles and the EgyptianRosetta Stone, are subject to long-term disputes andrepatriation claims.[6][7]
In 1973, the British Library Act 1972[8] detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separatedBritish Library in the sameReading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is anon-departmental public body sponsored by theDepartment for Culture, Media and Sport. Like all UK national museums, it charges no admission fee except for loan exhibitions.[9]
Although today principally a museum of cultural art objects andantiquities, the British Museum was founded as a "universal museum". Its foundations lie in the will of theAnglo-Irishphysician andnaturalist SirHans Sloane (1660–1753), a London-based doctor and scientist fromUlster. During the course of his lifetime, and particularly after he married the widow of a wealthy Jamaican planter,[10] Sloane gathered a largecollection of curiosities, not wishing to see his collection broken up after death, he bequeathed it to KingGeorge II, for the nation, for a sum of £20,000 (equivalent to £3,846,793 in 2023) to be paid to his heirs byParliament[11]—intentionally far less than the estimated value of the artefacts, contemporarily estimated at £50,000 (equivalent to £9,616,983 in 2023) or more according to some sources, and up to £80,000 (equivalent to £15,387,173 in 2023) or more by others.[12][13]
At that time, Sloane's collection consisted of around 71,000 objects of all kinds[14] including some 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens including 337 volumes of dried plants,prints and drawings including those byAlbrecht Dürer and antiquities fromSudan,Egypt,Greece,Rome, theAncient Near andFar East and theAmericas.[15]
The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public and aiming to collect everything. Sloane's collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests.[18] The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary andantiquarian element, and meant that the British Museum now became bothNational Museum and library.[19]
The body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion,Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from theMontagu family for £20,000. The trustees rejected Buckingham House, which was later converted into the present dayBuckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost and the unsuitability of its location.[20][d]
With the acquisition of Montagu House, the first exhibition galleries andreading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759.[21] At this time, the largest parts of collection were the library, which took up the majority of the rooms on the ground floor and the natural history objects, which took up an entire wing on the first floor. In 1763, the trustees of the British Museum, under the influence ofPeter Collinson andWilliam Watson, employed the former student ofCarl Linnaeus,Daniel Solander, to reclassify the natural history collection according to theLinnaean system, thereby making the museum a public centre of learning accessible to the full range of European natural historians.[22] In 1823,George IV gave theKing's Library assembled by George III,[23] and Parliament gave the right to a copy of every book published in the country, thereby ensuring that the museum's library would expand indefinitely. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several further gifts, including theThomason Collection of Civil War Tracts andDavid Garrick's library of 1,000 printed plays. The predominance of natural history, books and manuscripts began to lessen when in 1772 the museum acquired for £8,410 its first significant antiquities in SirWilliam Hamilton's "first" collection ofGreek vases.[24]
Entrance ticket to the British Museum, London 3 March 1790
From 1778, a display of objects from theSouth Seas brought back from the round-the-world voyages of CaptainJames Cook and the travels of other explorers fascinated visitors with a glimpse of previously unknown lands. The bequest of a collection of books,engraved gems, coins, prints and drawings byClayton Mordaunt Cracherode in 1800 did much to raise the museum's reputation; but Montagu House became increasingly crowded and decrepit and it was apparent that it would be unable to cope with further expansion.[25]
The museum's first notable addition towards its collection of antiquities, since its foundation, was by SirWilliam Hamilton (1730–1803), British Ambassador toNaples, who sold his collection of Greek and Roman artefacts to the museum in 1784 together with a number of other antiquities and natural history specimens. A list of donations to the museum, dated 31 January 1784, refers to the Hamilton bequest of a "Colossal Foot of anApollo in Marble". It was one of two antiquities of Hamilton's collection drawn for him by Francesco Progenie, a pupil ofPietro Fabris, who also contributed a number of drawings of Mount Vesuvius sent by Hamilton to theRoyal Society in London.
TheRosetta Stone on display in the British Museum in 1874
In the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. After the defeat of theFrench campaign in theBattle of the Nile, in 1801, the British Museum acquired more Egyptian sculptures and in 1802 KingGeorge III presented theRosetta Stone – key to the deciphering of hieroglyphs.[26] Gifts and purchases fromHenry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with theColossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, laid the foundations of the collection of Egyptian Monumental Sculpture.[27] Many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, theCharles Towneley collection, much of it Roman sculpture, in 1805. In 1806,Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, ambassador to theOttoman Empire from 1799 to 1803 removed the large collection of marble sculptures from theParthenon, on theAcropolis of Athens and transferred them to the UK. In 1816 these masterpieces of western art were acquired by the British Museum by Act of Parliament and deposited in the museum thereafter.[28] The collections were supplemented by theBassae frieze fromPhigaleia, Greece in 1815. The Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase ofAssyrian andBabylonian antiquities from Mary Mackintosh Rich, the widow of AssyriologistClaudius James Rich.[29]
In 1802 a buildings committee was set up to plan for expansion of the museum, and further highlighted by the donation in 1822 of theKing's Library, personal library of King George III, comprising 65,000 volumes, 19,000pamphlets, maps, charts andtopographical drawings.[30] Theneoclassical architect, SirRobert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an eastern extension to the museum "... for the reception of theRoyal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it ..."[31] and put forward plans for today's quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated OldMontagu House was demolished and work on the King's Library Gallery began in 1823. The extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. However, following the founding of theNational Gallery, London in 1824,[e] the proposed Picture Gallery was no longer needed, and the space on the upper floor was given over to theNatural history collections.[32]
The first Synopsis of the British Museum was published in 1808. This described the contents of the museum, and the display of objects room by room, and updated editions were published every few years.
Left to Right:Montagu House, Townley Gallery and SirRobert Smirke's west wing under construction, July 1828
As SirRobert Smirke's grandneo-classical building gradually arose, the museum became a construction site. TheKing's Library, on the ground floor of the East Wing, was handed over in 1827, and was described as one of the finest rooms in London. Although it was not fully open to the general public until 1857, special openings were arranged duringThe Great Exhibition of 1851.
SirThomas Grenville (1755–1846), a trustee of the British Museum from 1830, assembled a library of 20,240 volumes, which he left to the museum in his will. The books arrived in January 1847 in twenty-one horse-drawn vans. The only vacant space for this large library was a room originally intended for manuscripts, between the Front Entrance Hall and the Manuscript Saloon. The books remained here until the British Library moved toSt Pancras in 1998.
The opening of the forecourt in 1852 marked the completion ofRobert Smirke's 1823 plan, but already adjustments were having to be made to cope with the unforeseen growth of the collections. Infill galleries were constructed forAssyrian sculptures andSydney Smirke'sRound Reading Room, with space for a million books, opened in 1857. Because of continued pressure on space the decision was taken to move natural history to a new building inSouth Kensington, which would later become theBritish Museum of Natural History.
Roughly contemporary with the construction of the new building was the career of a man sometimes called the "second founder" of the British Museum, the Italian librarianAnthony Panizzi. Under his supervision, the British Museum Library (now part of theBritish Library) quintupled in size and became a well-organised institution worthy of being called a national library, the largest library in the world after theNational Library of Paris.[19] Thequadrangle at the centre of Smirke's design proved to be a waste of valuable space and was filled at Panizzi's request by a circular Reading Room of cast iron, designed by Smirke's brother, Sydney Smirke.[34]
Until the mid-19th century, the museum's collections were relatively circumscribed but, in 1851, with the appointment to the staff ofAugustus Wollaston Franks to curate the collections, the museum began for the first time to collect British and European medieval antiquities,prehistory, branching out into Asia and diversifying its holdings ofethnography. A real coup for the museum was the purchase in 1867, over French objections, of theDuke of Blacas's wide-ranging and valuable collection of antiquities. Overseas excavations continued andJohn Turtle Wood discovered the remains of the 4th century BCTemple of Artemis atEphesus, anotherWonder of the Ancient World.[35]
The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until their removal to the new British Museum of Natural History in 1887, nowadays theNatural History Museum inSouth Kensington. With the departure and the completion of the new White Wing (fronting Montague Street) in 1884, more space was available for antiquities andethnography and the library could further expand. This was a time of innovation as electric lighting was introduced in the Reading Room and exhibition galleries.[36]
TheWilliam Burges collection ofarmoury was bequeathed to the museum in 1881. In 1882, the museum was involved in the establishment of the independentEgypt Exploration Fund (now Society) the first British body to carry out research in Egypt. A bequest from Miss Emma Turner in 1892 financed excavations in Cyprus. In 1897 the death of the great collector and curator,A. W. Franks, was followed by an immense bequest of 3,300finger rings, 153 drinking vessels, 512 pieces of continental porcelain, 1,500netsuke, 850inro, over 30,000bookplates and miscellaneous items of jewellery and plate, among them theOxus Treasure.[37]
In 1898 BaronFerdinand de Rothschild bequeathed theWaddesdon Bequest, the glittering contents from his New Smoking Room atWaddesdon Manor. This consisted of almost 300 pieces ofobjets d'art et de vertu which included exquisite examples of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass andmaiolica, among them theHoly Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris forJohn, Duke of Berry. The collection was in the tradition of aSchatzkammer such as those formed by theRenaissance princes of Europe.[38] Baron Ferdinand's will was most specific, and failure to observe the terms would make it void, the collection should be
placed in a special room to be called the Waddesdon Bequest Room separate and apart from the other contents of the Museum and thenceforth for ever thereafter, keep the same in such room or in some other room to be substituted for it.[38]
These terms are still observed, and the collection occupies room 2a.
Opening of The North Wing, KingEdward VII's Galleries, 1914
By the last years of the 19th century, The British Museum's collections had increased to the extent that its building was no longer large enough. In 1895 the trustees purchased the 69 houses surrounding the museum with the intention of demolishing them and building around the west, north and east sides of the museum. The first stage was the construction of the northern wing beginning 1906.
All the while, the collections kept growing.Emil Torday collected in Central Africa,Aurel Stein in Central Asia,D. G. Hogarth,Leonard Woolley andT. E. Lawrence excavated atCarchemish. Around this time, the American collector and philanthropistJ. Pierpont Morgan donated a substantial number of objects to the museum,[40] includingWilliam Greenwell's collection of prehistoric artefacts from across Europe which he had purchased for £10,000 in 1908. Morgan had also acquired a major part of SirJohn Evans's coin collection, which was later sold to the museum by his sonJ. P. Morgan Jr. in 1915. In 1918, because of the threat of wartime bombing, some objects were evacuated via theLondon Post Office Railway to Holborn, theNational Library of Wales (Aberystwyth) and a country house nearMalvern. On the return of antiquities from wartime storage in 1919 some objects were found to have deteriorated. A conservation laboratory was set up in May 1920 and became a permanent department in 1931. It is today the oldest in continuous existence.[41] In 1923, the British Museum welcomed over one million visitors.
Newmezzanine floors were constructed and book stacks rebuilt in an attempt to cope with the flood of books. In 1931, the art dealer SirJoseph Duveen offered funds to build a gallery for theParthenon sculptures. Designed by the American architectJohn Russell Pope, it was completed in 1938. The appearance of the exhibition galleries began to change as dark Victorian reds gave way to modern pastel shades.[f]
Following the retirement of George Francis Hill as Director and Principal Librarian in 1936, he was succeeded byJohn Forsdyke.
As tensions withNazi Germany developed and it appeared that war may be imminent Forsdyke came to the view that with the likelihood of far worse air-raids thanthat experienced in World War I that the museum had to make preparations to remove its most valuable items to secure locations. Following theMunich crisis Forsdyke ordered 3,300 No-Nail Boxes and stored them in the basement of the Duveen Gallery. At the same time he began identifying and securing suitable locations. As a result, the museum was able to quickly commence relocating selected items on 24 August 1939, (a mere day after theHome Secretary advised them to do so), to secure basements,country houses,Aldwych tube station and theNational Library of Wales.[43] Many items were relocated in early 1942 from their initial dispersal locations to a newly developed facility atWestwood Quarry inWiltshire.[43]The evacuation was timely, for in 1940 the Duveen Gallery was severely damaged by bombing.[44] Meanwhile, prior to the war, the Nazis had sent a researcher to the British Museum for several years with the aim of "compiling an anti-Semitic history of Anglo-Jewry".[45]
After the war, the museum continued to collect from all countries and all centuries: among the most spectacular additions were the 2600 BCMesopotamian treasure fromUr, discovered duringLeonard Woolley's 1922–34 excavations. Gold, silver andgarnet grave goods from theAnglo-Saxon ship burial atSutton Hoo (1939) and late Roman silver tableware fromMildenhall, Suffolk (1946). The immediatepost-war years were taken up with the return of the collections from protection and the restoration of the museum afterthe Blitz. Work also began on restoring the damaged Duveen Gallery.
In 1953, the museum celebrated itsbicentenary. Many changes followed: the first full-time in-house designer and publications officer were appointed in 1964, theFriends organisation was set up in 1968, an Education Service established in 1970 and publishing house in 1973. In 1963, a new Act of Parliament introduced administrative reforms. It became easier to lend objects, the constitution of theboard of trustees changed and theNatural History Museum became fully independent. By 1959 theCoins and Medals office suite, completely destroyed during the war, was rebuilt and re-opened, attention turned towards the gallery work with new tastes in design leading to the remodelling ofRobert Smirke's Classical and Near Eastern galleries.[46] In 1962 the Duveen Gallery was finally restored and the Parthenon Sculptures were moved back into it, once again at the heart of the museum.[g]
By the 1970s, the museum was again expanding. More services for the public were introduced; visitor numbers soared, with the temporary exhibition "Treasures ofTutankhamun" in 1972, attracting 1,694,117 visitors, the most successful in British history. In the same year the Act of Parliament establishing the British Library was passed, separating the collection of manuscripts and printed books from the British Museum. This left the museum with antiquities; coins, medals and paper money; prints and drawings; andethnography. A pressing problem was finding space for additions to the library which now required an extra1+1⁄4 miles (2.0 km) of shelving each year. The Government suggested a site atSt Pancras for the new British Library but the books did not leave the museum until 1997.
The departure of the British Library to a new site at St Pancras, finally achieved in 1998, provided the space needed for the books. It also created the opportunity to redevelop the vacant space inRobert Smirke's 19th-century central quadrangle into theQueen Elizabeth II Great Court – the largest covered square in Europe – which opened in 2000. The ethnography collections, which had been housed in the short-livedMuseum of Mankind at6 Burlington Gardens from 1970, were returned to new purpose-built galleries in the museum in 2000.
The museum again readjusted its collecting policies as interest in "modern" objects: prints, drawings, medals and the decorative arts reawakened. Ethnographical fieldwork was carried out in places as diverse asNew Guinea,Madagascar,Romania,Guatemala andIndonesia and there were excavations in theNear East, Egypt, Sudan and the UK. TheWeston Gallery ofRoman Britain, opened in 1997, displayed a number of recently discoveredhoards which demonstrated the richness of what had been considered an unimportant part of theRoman Empire. The museum turned increasingly towards private funds for buildings, acquisitions and other purposes.[48] In 2000, the British Museum was awarded National HeritageMuseum of the Year.[49]
Today the museum no longer houses collections ofnatural history, and the books and manuscripts it once held now form part of the independentBritish Library. The museum nevertheless preserves its universality in its collections of artefacts representing the cultures of the world, ancient and modern. The original 1753 collection has grown to over 13 million objects at the British Museum, 70 million at theNatural History Museum and 150 million at the British Library.
TheRound Reading Room, which was designed by the architectSydney Smirke, opened in 1857. For almost 150 years researchers came here to consult the museum's vast library. The Reading Room closed in 1997 when the national library (the British Library) moved to a new building atSt Pancras. Today it has been transformed into the Walter and LeonoreAnnenberg Centre.
With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum empty, the demolition forLord Foster's glass-roofedGreat Court could begin. The Great Court, opened in 2000, while undoubtedly improving circulation around the museum, was criticised for having a lack of exhibition space at a time when the museum was in serious financial difficulties and many galleries were closed to the public. At the same time the African collections that had been temporarily housed in 6 Burlington Gardens were given a new gallery in the North Wing funded by theSainsbury family – with the donation valued at £25 million.[50]
The museum'sonline database had nearly 4,500,000 individual object entries in 2,000,000 records at the start of 2023.[51] In 2022–23 there were 27 million visits to the website.[52] This compares with 19.5 millions website visits in 2013.[53]
There were 5,820,860 visits to the museum in 2023, a 42% increase on 2022. The museum was the most visited tourist attraction in Britain in 2023. The number of visits, however, has not recovered to the level reached before the Covid pandemic.[54]
The British Museum is anon-departmental public body sponsored by theDepartment for Culture, Media and Sport through a three-year funding agreement. Its head is theDirector of the British Museum. The British Museum was run from its inception by a 'principal librarian' (when the book collections were still part of the museum), a role that was renamed 'director and principal librarian' in 1898, and 'director' in 1973 (on the separation of the British Library).[56]
A board of25 trustees (with the director as theiraccounting officer for the purposes of reporting to Government) is responsible for the general management and control of the museum, in accordance with theBritish Museum Act 1963 and theMuseums and Galleries Act 1992.[57] Prior to the 1963 Act, it was chaired by theArchbishop of Canterbury, theLord Chancellor and theSpeaker of the House of Commons. Of the 25 trustees, 15 are appointed by the Prime Minister, one by the Crown, four by relevant industry bodies, with the remaining five appointed by other trustees.[58] The board was formed on the museum's inception tohold its collections in trust for the nation without actually owning them themselves, and now fulfil a mainly advisory role.Trustee appointments are governed by the regulatory framework set out in the code of practice on public appointments issued by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.[59]
The construction commenced around the courtyard with the East Wing (King's Library) in 1823–1828, followed by the North Wing in 1833–1838, which originally housed among other galleries a reading room, now the Wellcome Gallery. Work was also progressing on the northern half of the West Wing (The Egyptian Sculpture Gallery) 1826–1831, withMontagu House demolished in 1842 to make room for the final part of the West Wing, completed in 1846, and the South Wing with its great colonnade, initiated in 1843 and completed in 1847, when the Front Hall and Great Staircase were opened to the public.[62] The museum is faced withPortland stone, but the perimeter walls and other parts of the building were built usingHaytor granite from Dartmoor in South Devon, transported via the uniqueHaytor Granite Tramway.[63]
The Enlightenment Gallery at museum, which formerly held theKing's Library, 2007Proposed British Museum Extension, 1906External view of the World Conservation and Exhibition Centre at the museum, 2015
In 1846 Robert Smirke was replaced as the museum's architect by his brotherSydney Smirke, whose major addition was theRound Reading Room 1854–1857; at 140 feet (43 m) in diameter it was then the second widestdome in the world, thePantheon in Rome being slightly wider.
The next major addition was the White Wing 1882–1884 added behind the eastern end of the South Front, the architect being SirJohn Taylor.
In 1895, Parliament gave the museum trustees a loan of £200,000 to purchase from theDuke of Bedford all 69 houses which backed onto the museum building in the five surrounding streets –Great Russell Street, Montague Street, Montague Place,Bedford Square andBloomsbury Street.[64] The trustees planned to demolish these houses and to build around the west, north and east sides of the museum new galleries that would completely fill the block on which the museum stands. The architect SirJohn James Burnet was petitioned to put forward ambitious long-term plans to extend the building on all three sides. Most of the houses in Montague Place were knocked down a few years after the sale. Of this grand plan only the Edward VII galleries in the centre of the North Front were ever constructed, these were built 1906–14 to the design by J.J. Burnet, and opened by KingGeorge V and QueenMary in 1914. They now house the museum's collections of Prints and Drawings and Oriental Antiquities. There was not enough money to put up more new buildings, and so the houses in the other streets are nearly all still standing.
TheDuveen Gallery, sited to the west of the Egyptian, Greek & Assyrian sculpture galleries, was designed to house the Elgin Marbles by the AmericanBeaux-Arts architectJohn Russell Pope. Although completed in 1938, it was hit by a bomb in 1940 and remained semi-derelict for 22 years, before reopening in 1962. Other areas damaged duringWorld War II bombing included: in September 1940 two unexploded bombs hit the Edward VII galleries, the King's Library received a direct hit from a high explosive bomb, incendiaries fell on the dome of the Round Reading Room but did little damage; on the night of 10 to 11 May 1941 several incendiaries fell on the south-west corner of the museum, destroying the book stack and 150,000 books in the courtyard and the galleries around the top of the Great Staircase – this damage was not fully repaired until the early 1960s.[65]
The QueenElizabeth II Great Court is a covered square at the centre of the British Museum designed by the engineersBuro Happold and the architectsFoster and Partners.[66] The Great Court opened in December 2000 and is the largest covered square in Europe. The roof is a glass and steel construction, built by an Austrian steelwork company,[67] with 1,656 uniquely shaped panes of glass. At the centre of the Great Court is the Reading Room vacated by the British Library, its functions now moved to St Pancras.
Today, the British Museum has grown to become one of the largest museums in the world, covering an area of over 92,000 m2 (990,000 sq. ft).[68][failed verification][69] In addition to 21,600 m2 (232,000 sq. ft)[70] of on-site storage space, and 9,400 m2 (101,000 sq. ft)[70] of external storage space. Altogether, the British Museum showcases on public display less than 1%[70] of its entire collection, approximately 50,000 items.[71]
There are nearly one hundred galleries open to the public, representing 2 miles (3.2 km) of exhibition space, although the less popular ones have restricted opening times. However, the lack of a large temporary exhibition space led to the £135 million World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre to provide one and to concentrate all the museum's conservation facilities into one centre. This project was announced in July 2007, with the architectsRogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. It was granted planning permission in December 2009 and was completed in time for the Viking exhibition in March 2014.[72][73] In 2017, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre was shortlisted for theStirling Prize for excellence in architecture.[74]
Blythe House in West Kensington was used by the museum for off-site storage of small and medium-sized artefacts until the British Museum Archeological Collection, a purpose-built storage facility nearReading, was opened in 2024.[75] Another site Franks House in East London is used for storage and work on the "Early Prehistory" –Palaeolithic andMesolithic – and some other collections.[76]
Room 61 – The famous false fresco 'Pond in a Garden' from theTomb of Nebamun,c. 1350 BCRoom 4 – TheRosetta Stone, key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, 196 BC
The British Museum houses a collection of over 100,000Egyptian antiquities from all periods and many sites of importance inEgypt and theSudan.[77] Together, they illustrate every aspect of the cultures of theNile Valley (includingNubia), from thePredynasticNeolithic period (c. 10,000BC) throughCoptic (Christian) times (12th centuryAD), and up to the present day, a time-span over 11,000 years.[78]
Egyptian antiquities have formed part of the British Museum collection ever since its foundation in 1753 after receiving 160 Egyptian objects[79] from SirHans Sloane. After the defeat of theFrench forces underNapoleon at theBattle of the Nile in 1801, the Egyptian antiquities collected were confiscated by theBritish army and presented to the British Museum in 1803. These works, which included the famedRosetta Stone, were the first important group of large sculptures to be acquired by the museum. Thereafter, the UK appointedHenry Salt asconsul in Egypt who amassed a huge collection of antiquities, some of which were assembled and transported with great ingenuity by the famous Italian explorerGiovanni Belzoni. Most of the antiquities Salt collected were purchased by the British Museum and theMusée du Louvre.
By 1866, the collection consisted of some 10,000 objects. Antiquities from excavations started to come to the museum in the latter part of the 19th century as a result of the work of theEgypt Exploration Fund under the efforts ofE. A. Wallis Budge. Over the years more than 11,000 objects came from this source, including pieces fromAmarna,Bubastis andDeir el-Bahari. Other organisations and individuals also excavated and donated objects to the British Museum, includingFlinders Petrie's Egypt Research Account and the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, as well as theUniversity of Oxford Expedition toKawa andFaras in Sudan.
Active support by the museum for excavations in Egypt continued to result in important acquisitions throughout the 20th century until changes in antiquities laws in Egypt led to the suspension of policies allowing finds to be exported, although divisions still continue in Sudan. The British Museum conducted its own excavations in Egypt where it received divisions of finds, includingAsyut (1907),Mostagedda and Matmar (1920s),Ashmunein (1980s) and sites in Sudan such asSoba, Kawa and the NorthernDongola Reach (1990s). The size of the Egyptian collections now stand at over 110,000 objects.[80]
In autumn 2001, the eight million objects forming the museum's permanent collection were further expanded by the addition of six million objects from the Wendorf Collection ofEgyptian andSudanesePrehistory.[81] These were donated by ProfessorFred Wendorf ofSouthern Methodist University inTexas, and comprise the entire collection of artefacts and environmental remains from his excavations at Prehistoric sites in theSahara Desert between 1963 and 1997. Other fieldwork collections have recently come from Dietrich and Rosemarie Klemm (University of Munich) and William Adams (University of Kentucky).
The seven permanent Egyptian galleries at the British Museum, which include its largest exhibition space (Room 4, for monumental sculpture), can display only 4% of its Egyptian holdings. The second-floor galleries have a selection of the museum's collection of 140mummies and coffins, the largest outsideCairo. A high proportion of the collection comes from tombs or contexts associated with the cult of the dead, and it is these pieces, in particular the mummies, that remain among the most eagerly sought-after exhibits by visitors to the museum.
The British Museum has one of the world's largest and most comprehensive collections of antiquities from theClassical world, with over 100,000 objects.[82] These mostly range in date from the beginning of theGreek Bronze Age (about 3200 BC) to the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, with theEdict of Milan under the reign of theRoman emperorConstantine I in 313 AD. Archaeology was in its infancy during the nineteenth century and many pioneering individuals began excavating sites across the Classical world, chief among them for the museum wereCharles Newton,John Turtle Wood,Robert Murdoch Smith andCharles Fellows.
The Greek objects originate from across the Ancient Greek world, from the mainland of Greece and the Aegean Islands, to neighbouring lands in Asia Minor and Egypt in the eastern Mediterranean and as far as the western lands ofMagna Graecia that include Sicily and southern Italy. TheCycladic,Minoan andMycenaean cultures are represented, and the Greek collection includes important sculpture from theParthenon in Athens, as well as elements of two of theSeven Wonders of the Ancient World, theMausoleum at Halicarnassus and theTemple of Artemis atEphesus.[82]
Beginning from the earlyBronze Age, the department also houses one of the widest-ranging collections ofItalic andEtruscan antiquities outside Italy, as well as extensive groups of material fromCyprus and non-Greek colonies inLycia andCaria on Asia Minor. There is some material from theRoman Republic, but the collection's strength is in its comprehensive array of objects from across theRoman Empire, with the exception of Britain (which is the mainstay of the Department of Prehistory and Europe).
The collections of ancient jewellery and bronzes,Greek vases (many from graves in southern Italy that were once part of SirWilliam Hamilton's andChevalier Durand's collections),Roman glass including the famousCameo glassPortland Vase, Romangold glass (the second largest collection after theVatican Museums),Roman mosaics fromCarthage andUtica in North Africa that were excavated byNathan Davis, and silver hoards fromRoman Gaul (some of which were bequeathed by the philanthropist and museum trusteeRichard Payne Knight), are particularly important. Cypriot antiquities are strong too and have benefited from the purchase of SirRobert Hamilton Lang's collection as well as the bequest of Emma Turner in 1892, which funded many excavations on the island. Roman sculptures (many of which are copies of Greek originals) are particularly well represented by theTownley collection as well as residual sculptures from the famousFarnese collection.
Objects from the Department of Greece and Rome are located throughout the museum, although many of thearchitectural monuments are to be found on the ground floor, with connecting galleries from Gallery 5 to Gallery 23. On the upper floor, there are galleries devoted to smaller material from ancient Italy, Greece, Cyprus and the Roman Empire.
Athlete statue, "Vaison Diadumenos", from an ancient Roman city in southern France (118–138 AD)
A hoard of silver votive plaques dedicated to the Roman GodJupiter Dolichenus, discovered inHeddernheim, near Frankfurt, Germany (1st–2nd centuries AD)
With a collection numbering some 330,000 works,[87] the British Museum possesses the world's largest and most important collection ofMesopotamian antiquities outside Iraq. A collection of immense importance, the holdings ofAssyrian sculpture,Babylonian andSumerian antiquities are among the most comprehensive in the world with entire suites of rooms panelled in alabasterAssyrian palace reliefs fromNimrud,Nineveh andKhorsabad.
The first significant addition of Mesopotamian objects was from the collection ofClaudius James Rich in 1825. The collection was later dramatically enlarged by the excavations ofA. H. Layard at theAssyrian sites of Nimrud and Nineveh between 1845 and 1851. At Nimrud, Layard discovered the North-West Palace ofAshurnasirpal II, as well as three other palaces and various temples. He later uncovered the Palace ofSennacherib at Nineveh with 'no less than seventy-one halls'. As a result, a large numbers ofLamassus, palace reliefs,stelae, including theBlack Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, were brought to the British Museum.
Layard's work was continued by his assistant,Hormuzd Rassam and in 1852–1854 he went on to discover the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh with many magnificent reliefs, including the famousLion Hunt of Ashurbanipal andLachish reliefs. He also discovered the RoyalLibrary of Ashurbanipal, a large collection ofcuneiformtablets of enormous importance that today number around 130,000 pieces.W. K. Loftus excavated in Nimrud between 1850 and 1855 and found a remarkable hoard ofivories in the Burnt Palace. Between 1878 and 1882 Rassam greatly improved the museum's holdings with exquisite objects including theCyrus Cylinder fromBabylon, the bronze gates fromBalawat, important objects fromSippar, and a fine collection ofUrartian bronzes fromToprakkale including a copper figurine of a winged, human-headed bull.
In the early 20th century excavations were carried out atCarchemish, Turkey byD. G. Hogarth andLeonard Woolley, the latter assisted byT. E. Lawrence. The Mesopotamian collections were greatly augmented by excavations in southern Iraq afterWorld War I. FromTell al-Ubaid came the bronze furnishings of aSumerian temple, including life-sized lions and a panel featuring the lion-headed eagle Indugud found byH. R. Hall in 1919–24. Woolley went on to excavateUr between 1922 and 1934, discovering the Royal Cemeteries of the 3rd millennium BC. Some of the masterpieces include theStandard of Ur, theRam in a Thicket, theRoyal Game of Ur, and two bull-headedlyres. The department also has threediorite statues of the rulerGudea from the ancient state ofLagash and a series of limestonekudurru or boundary stones from different locations across ancient Mesopotamia.
Although the collections centre on Mesopotamia, most of the surrounding areas are well represented. TheAchaemenid collection was enhanced with the addition of theOxus Treasure in 1897 and objects excavated by the German scholarErnst Herzfeld and the Hungarian-British explorer SirAurel Stein. Reliefs and sculptures from the site ofPersepolis were donated by SirGore Ouseley in 1825 and the5th Earl of Aberdeen in 1861 and the museum received part of a pot-hoard of jewellery fromPasargadae as the division of finds in 1963 and part of theZiwiye hoard in 1971. A large column base from theOne Hundred Column Hall at Persepolis was acquired in exchange from theOriental Institute, Chicago. Moreover, the museum has been able to acquire one of the greatest assemblages of Achaemenidsilverware in the world. The laterSasanian Empire is also well represented by ornate silver plates and cups, many representing ruling monarchs hunting lions and deer. Phoenician antiquities come from across the region, but theTharros collection fromSardinia, the hoard of about 150metal bowls and hundreds ofivories from Nimrud, Phœnician inscriptions from Carthage including theSon of Baalshillek marble base, theCarthage Tariff and theCarthage tower model and the many punic stelae fromCarthage andMaghrawa in Tunisia (such as theGhorafa stelae [fr]) are outstanding. The number ofPhoenician inscriptions from sites acrossCyprus is also considerable, and include artefacts found at theKition necropolis (with the twoKition Tariffs having the longest Phoenician inscription discovered on the island), theIdalion temple site andtwo bilingual pedestals found atTamassos. Another often overlooked highlight isYemeni antiquities, the finest collection outside that country. Furthermore, the museum has a representative collection ofDilmun andParthian material excavated from various burial mounds at the ancient sites ofA'ali andShakhura (that included a Roman ribbed glass bowl) in Bahrain.
From the modern state ofSyria come almost forty funerary busts fromPalmyra and a group of stonereliefs from the excavations ofMax von Oppenheim atTell Halaf that was purchased in 1920. More material followed from the excavations ofMax Mallowan atChagar Bazar andTell Brak in 1935–1938 and from Woolley atAlalakh in the years just before and afterWorld War II. Mallowan returned with his wifeAgatha Christie to carry out further digs at Nimrud in the postwar period which secured many important artefacts, such as the Nimrud Ivories, for the museum. The collection ofPalestinian material was strengthened by the work ofKathleen Kenyon atTell es-Sultan (Jericho) in the 1950s and the acquisition in 1980 of around 17,000 objects found atLachish by the Wellcome-Marston expedition of 1932–1938. Archaeological digs are still taking place where permitted in the Middle East, and, depending on the country, the museum continues to receive a share of the finds from sites such asTell es Sa'idiyeh [de] in Jordan.
The museum's collection ofIslamic art, including archaeological material, numbers about 40,000 objects,[88] one of the largest of its kind in the world. As such, it contains a broad range of pottery, paintings, tiles, metalwork, glass, seals, and inscriptions from across the Islamic world, from Spain in the west to India in the east. It is particularly famous for its collection ofIznik ceramics (the largest in the world), its large number ofmosque lamps including one from theDome of the Rock, mediaeval metalwork such as the Vaso Vescovali with its depictions of theZodiac, a fine selection ofastrolabes, andMughal paintings and precious artwork including a largejade terrapin made for the emperorJahangir. Thousands of objects were excavated after the war by professional archaeologists at Iranian sites such asSiraf byDavid Whitehouse andAlamut Castle by Peter Willey. The collection was augmented in 1983 by theGodman bequest of Iznik,Hispano-Moresque and early Iranian pottery. Artefacts from the Islamic world are on display in Gallery 34 of the museum.
A representative selection from the Department of Middle East, including the most important pieces, are on display in 13 galleries throughout the museum and total some 4,500 objects. A whole suite of rooms on the ground floor display the sculptured reliefs from the Assyrian palaces at Nineveh, Nimrud and Khorsabad, while 8 galleries on the upper floor hold smaller material from ancient sites across the Middle East. The remainder form the study collection which ranges in size from beads to large sculptures. They include approximately 130,000 cuneiformtablets from Mesopotamia.[89]
Room 55 – Panel with striding lion made from glazed bricks, Neo-Babylonian,Nebuchadnezzar II, Southern Iraq, 604–562 BC
Room 52 – A chariot from theOxus Treasure, the most important surviving collection ofAchaemenid Persian metalwork, c. 5th to 4th centuries BC
Great Court – Decorated column base from Hundred Column Hall,Persepolis, 470–450 BC
Room 53 – Stela said to come from Tamma' cemetery,Yemen, 1st century AD
Room 53 –Alabaster statue of a standing female figure, Yemen, 1st–2nd centuries AD
Room 34 – Cylindrical lidded box with an Arabic inscription recording its manufacture for the ruler of Mosul,Badr al-Din Lu'lu', Iraq,c. 1233 – 1259 AD
The Department ofPrints and Drawings holds the national collection ofWestern prints and drawings. It ranks as one of the largest and bestprint room collections in existence alongside theAlbertina in Vienna, the Paris collections[vague] and theHermitage. The holdings are easily accessible to the general public in the Study Room, unlike many such collections.[90] The department also has its own exhibition gallery in Room 90, where the displays and exhibitions change several times a year.[91]
Since its foundation in 1808, the prints and drawings collection has grown to international renown as one of the richest and most representative collections in the world. There are approximately 50,000 drawings and over two million prints.[91] The collection of drawings covers the period from the 14th century to the present, and includes many works of the highest quality by the leading artists of theEuropean schools. The collection of prints covers the tradition of fineprintmaking from its beginnings in the 15th century up to the present, with near complete holdings of most of the great names before the 19th century. Key benefactors to the department have beenClayton Mordaunt Cracherode,Richard Payne Knight, John Malcolm,Campbell Dodgson,César Mange de Hauke andTomás Harris. Writer and authorLouis Alexander Fagan, who worked in the department 1869–1894 made significant contributions to the department in form of hisHandbook to the Department, as well as various other books about the museum in general.[92]
Gallery 50 – View down the Roman Britain galleryGallery 2a – Display case of Renaissance metalware from theWaddesdon Bequest
The Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory is responsible for collections that cover a vast expanse of time and geography. It includes some of the earliest objects made by humans in east Africa over 2 million years ago, as well asPrehistoric and neolithic objects from other parts of the world; and the art and archaeology of Europe from the earliest times to the present day. Archeological excavation of prehistoric material took off and expanded considerably in the twentieth century and the department now has literally millions of objects from thePaleolithic andMesolithic periods throughout the world, as well as from theNeolithic,Bronze Age andIron Age in Europe. Stone Age material from Africa has been donated by famous archaeologists such asLouis andMary Leakey, andGertrude Caton–Thompson. Paleolithic objects from theSturge,Christy andLartet collections include some of the earliest works of art from Europe. Many Bronze Age objects from across Europe were added during the nineteenth century, often from large collections built up by excavators and scholars such asGreenwell in Britain,Tobin and Cooke in Ireland,Lukis and de la Grancière in Brittany,Worsaae in Denmark,Siret atEl Argar in Spain, andKlemm and Edelmann in Germany. A representative selection of Iron Age artefacts fromHallstatt were acquired as a result of theEvans/Lubbock excavations and fromGiubiasco inTicino through theSwiss National Museum.
In addition, the British Museum's collections covering the period AD 300 to 1100 are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world, extending from Spain to theBlack Sea and from North Africa toScandinavia; a representative selection of these has recently been redisplayed in a newly refurbished gallery. Important collections include Latvian, Norwegian,Gotlandic andMerovingian material fromJohann Karl Bähr, Alfred Heneage Cocks, Sir James Curle and Philippe Delamain respectively. However, the undoubted highlight from the early mediaeval period is the magnificent items from theSutton Hoo royal grave, generously donated to the nation by the landownerEdith Pretty. The late mediaeval collection includes a large number ofseal-dies from across Europe, the most famous of which include those from the Town ofBoppard in Germany,Isabella of Hainault from her tomb inNotre Dame Cathedral, Paris,Inchaffray Abbey in Scotland andRobert Fitzwalter, one of the Barons who ledthe revolt against KingJohn in England. There is also a large collection of medieval signet rings, prominent among them is the goldsignet ring belonging toJean III de Grailly who fought in theHundred Years' War, as well as those ofMary, Queen of Scots andRichard I of England. Other groups of artefacts represented in the department include the national collection of (c.100)icon paintings, most of which originate from theByzantine Empire and Russia, and over 40 mediaevalastrolabes from across Europe and the Middle East. The department also includes the national collection ofhorology with one of the most wide-ranging assemblage of clocks, watches and other timepieces in Europe, with masterpieces from every period in the development of time-keeping. Choice horological pieces came from theMorgan andIlbert collections. The department is also responsible for the curation ofRomano-British objects – the museum has by far the most extensive such collection in Britain and one of the most representative regional collections in Europe outside Italy. It is particularly famous for the large number of late Roman silver treasures, many of which were found inEast Anglia, the most important of which is theMildenhall Treasure. The museum purchased many Roman-British objects from the antiquarianCharles Roach Smith in 1856. These quickly formed the nucleus of the collection. The department also includesethnographic material from across Europe including a collection of Bulgarian costumes andshadow puppets from Greece and Turkey. A particular highlight are the threeSámi drums from northern Sweden of which only about 70 are extant.
Objects from the Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory are mostly found on the upper floor of the museum, with a suite of galleries numbered from 38 to 51. Most of the collection is stored in its archive facilities, where it is available for research and study.
Callaïs bead jewellery from Lannec-er-Ro'h, intact schist bracelet from Le Lizo,Carnac and triangular pendant fromMané-er-Hroëk [de;fr], Morbihan, Brittany, western France, (5000–4300 BC)
Shropshire bulla, gold pendant decorated with intricately carved geometric designs, (1000–750 BC)
Part of a copper alloylur fromÅrslev on the island ofFunen, Denmark, one of only about 40 extant and theDunmanway Horn from County Cork, Ireland (900–750 BC)
Gold bowl with embossed ornament and fluted wirehandle fromAngyalföld, Budapest, Hungary, (800–600 BC)
Cordoba andArcillera Treasures, two silver Celtic hoards from Spain, (100–20 BC)
Grave find of ornately decorated bronzebucket with human shaped handles, a pan, jug, three brooches and at least four pottery vessels fromAylesford, Kent, (75 BC – 25 BC)
Lindow Man found by accident in a peat bog in Cheshire, England, (1st century AD)
Stanwick Hoard of horse and chariot fittings and theMeyrick Helmet, northern England, (1st century AD)
One of fiveLargitio silver dishes of the emperorLicinius found atNiš, Serbia and a hexagonal gold coin-set pendant ofConstantine the Great, (Early 4th century AD)
Lycurgus Cup, a unique figurative glass cage cup, and the ByzantineArchangel ivory panel, (4th–6th centuries)
Three largeOgham stones from the Roofs MoreRath, County Cork, Ireland, (5th–7th centuries)
TheSutton Hoo treasure,Taplow burial andCrundale grave objects with some of the greatest finds from the early Middle Ages in Europe, England, (6th–7th centuries)
One of theBurghead Bulls,Pictish stone relief from northeast Scotland, (7th–8th centuries)
The scope of the Department of Asia is extremely broad; its collections of over 75,000 objects cover the material culture of the whole Asian continent and from the Neolithic up to the present day. Until recently, this department concentrated on collecting Oriental antiquities from urban or semi-urban societies across the Asian continent. Many of those objects were collected by colonial officers and explorers in former parts of theBritish Empire, especially the Indian subcontinent.[100][101][102] Examples include the collections made by individuals such asJames Wilkinson Breeks, SirAlexander Cunningham, SirHarold Deane, SirWalter Elliot,James Prinsep,Charles Masson, SirJohn Marshall andCharles Stuart.
A large number of Chinese antiquities were purchased from the Anglo-Greek bankerGeorge Eumorfopoulos in the 1930s. The large collection of some 1,800 Japanese prints and paintings owned byArthur Morrison was acquired in the early twentieth century. In the second half of the twentieth century, the museum greatly benefited from the bequest of the philanthropist PT Brooke Sewell, which allowed the department to purchase many objects and fill in gaps in the collection.[100][101][102]
In 2004, the ethnographic collections from Asia were transferred to the department. These reflect the diverse environment of the largest continent in the world and range from India to China, the Middle East to Japan. Much of the ethnographic material comes from objects originally owned by tribal cultures andhunter-gatherers, many of whose way of life has disappeared in the last century.
Particularly valuable collections are from theAndaman and Nicobar Islands (much assembled by the British naval officerMaurice Portman), Sri Lanka (especially through the colonial administratorHugh Nevill), Northern Thailand, south-west China, theAinu ofHokkaido in Japan (chief among them the collection of the Scottish zoologistJohn Anderson), Siberia (with artefacts collected by the explorerKate Marsden and Bassett Digby and is notable for itsSakha pieces, especially the ivory model of a summer festival atYakutsk) and the islands of South-East Asia, especially Borneo. The latter benefited from the purchase in 1905 of theSarawak collection put together by DrCharles Hose, as well as from other colonial officers such as Edward A Jeffreys. A unique and valuable group of objects from Java, including shadow puppets and agamelan musical set, was assembled by SirStamford Raffles.
The principal gallery devoted to Asian art in the museum is Gallery 33 with its comprehensive display of Chinese, Indian subcontinent and South-east Asian objects. An adjacent gallery showcases the Amaravati sculptures and monuments. Other galleries on the upper floors are devoted to its Japanese, Korean, painting andcalligraphy, and Chinese ceramics collections.
A small but comprehensive collection of sculpture from the Indian subcontinent, including some of theAmaravati Marbles,Buddhist limestone reliefs excavated by SirWalter Elliot.[104]
A collection of Chinese antiquities, paintings, and porcelain, lacquer, bronze, jade, and other applied arts.
TheFrau Olga-Julia Wegener [de] collection of 147 Chinese paintings from the Tang to the Qing dynasties.
Hoard ofTang dynasty silverware from Beihuangshan,Shaanxi, China, (9th–10th centuries AD)
Seventeen examples of extremely rareRu ware, the largest collection in the West, (1100 AD)
A fine assemblage of Buddhist scroll paintings fromDunhuang, western China, collected by the British-Hungarian explorerAurel Stein, (5th–11th centuries AD)
Pericival David collection of Chinese ceramics, (10th–18th centuries AD)
Ivory stand in the form of a seated lion, Chos-'khor-yan-rtse monastery inTibet, (13th century AD)
Handscroll silk painting called 'Fascination of Nature' by Xie Chufang depicting insects and plants, China, (1321 AD)
Ornate Sino-Tibetan figure of BuddhaSakyamuni made of gilded bronze, China, (1403–1424 AD)
LargeCloisonné jar with dragon made for theMing dynasty Imperial Court, paired with another in theRietberg Museum, Zürich, Beijing, China, (1426–35 AD)
TheKulu Vase found near a monastery inHimachal Pradesh, one of the earliest examples of figurative art from the sub-continent, northern India, (1st century BC)
Pottery vessels and sherds from the ancient site ofBan Chiang, Thailand, (10th–1st centuries BC)
Bronzebell fromKlang and iron socketed axe (tulang mawas) fromPerak, western Malaysia, (200 BC–200 AD)
Group of sixBuddhist clay votive plaques found in a cave in Patania,Penang, Malaysia, (6th–11th centuries AD)
The famousSambas Treasure of buddhist gold and silver figures from west Borneo, Indonesia, (8th–9th centuries AD)
Three stone Buddha heads from the temple atBorobodur in Java, Indonesia, (9th century AD)
GraniteKinnari figure in the shape of a bird from CandiPrambanan in Java, Indonesia, (9th century AD)
SandstoneChampa figure of a rampant lion, Vietnam, (11th century AD)
Gilded bronze figure ofŚiva holding a rosary, Cambodia, (11th century AD)
Stone figure representing the upper part of an eleven-headedAvalokiteśvara, Cambodia, (12th century AD)
Bronze figure of a seated Buddha fromBagan, Burma, (12th–13th centuries AD)
Hoard ofSouthern Song dynasty ceramic vessels excavated at Pinagbayanan,Taysan Municipality, Philippines, (12th–13th centuries AD)
Statue of the Goddess Mamaki fromCandi Jago, eastern Java, Indonesia, (13th–14th centuries AD)
Glazed terracotta tiles from the Shwegugyi Temple erected by kingDhammazedi inBago, Myanmar, (1476 AD)
Inscribed bronze figure of a Buddha fromFang District, part of a large SE Asian collection amassed by the Norwegian explorerCarl Bock, Thailand, (1540 AD)
Large impression of the Buddha's foot made of gilded stone (known as Shwesettaw Footprints) donated by CaptainFrederick Marryat, from Ponoodang nearYangon, Myanmar, (18th–19th centuries AD)
Room 33 – Cubic weights made ofchert fromMohenjo-daro, Pakistan, 2600–1900 BC
Room 33 – One of thehu from Huixian, China, 5th century BC
Room 33 – Ahamsa sacred goose vessel made ofcrystal from Stupa 32,Taxila, Pakistan, 1st century AD
Room 33 – Stone sculpture of the death of Buddha, Gandhara,Pakistan, 1st–3rd centuries AD
The British Museum houses one of the world's most comprehensive collections ofethnographic material from Africa, Oceania and the Americas, representing the cultures ofindigenous peoples throughout the world. Over 350,000 objects[105] spanning thousands of years tells the history of mankind from three major continents and many rich and diverse cultures; the collecting of modern artefacts is ongoing. Many individuals have added to the department's collection over the years but those assembled byHenry Christy,Harry Beasley andWilliam Oldman are outstanding.
Objects from this department are mostly on display in several galleries on the ground and lower floors. Gallery 24 displaysethnographic from every continent while adjacent galleries focus on North America and Mexico. A long suite of rooms (Gallery 25) on the lower floor display African art. There are plans in place to develop permanent galleries for displaying art from Oceania and South America.
The Sainsbury African Galleries display 600 objects from the greatest permanent collection of African arts and culture in the world. The three permanent galleries provide a substantial exhibition space for the museum's African collection comprising over 200,000 objects. A curatorial scope that encompasses both archaeological and contemporary material, including both unique masterpieces of artistry and objects of everyday life. A great addition was material amassed by SirHenry Wellcome, which was donated by theWellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1954.
Highlights of the African collection include objects found atmegalithic circles in The Gambia, a dozen exquisiteAfro-Portuguese ivories, a series of soapstone figures from theKissi people in Sierra Leone and Liberia, hoard of bronzeKru currency rings from theSinoe River inLiberia, Asante goldwork and regalia from Ghana including theBowdich collection, the rareAkan Drum from the same region in west Africa, pair of door panels and lintel from the palace atIkere-Ekiti inYorubaland, theBenin andIgbo-Ukwu bronze sculptures, the beautifulBronze Head of Queen Idia, a magnificentbrass head of a Yoruba ruler and quartz throne fromIfe, a similarterracotta head from Iwinrin Grove near Ife, theApapa Hoard from Lagos and other mediaeval bronze hoards from Allabia and theForçados River in southern Nigeria.
The British Museum's Oceanic collections originate from the vast area of the Pacific Ocean, stretching from Papua New Guinea to Easter Island, from New Zealand to Hawaii. The three main anthropological groups represented in the collection arePolynesia,Melanesia andMicronesia – Aboriginal art from Australia is considered separately in its own right. Metal working was not indigenous to Oceania before Europeans arrived, so many of the artefacts from the collection are made from stone, shell, bone and bamboo. Prehistoric objects from the region include a bird-shapedpestle and a group of stonemortars fromPapua New Guinea.
TheWilson cabinet of curiosities fromPalau is an example of pre-contact ware. Another outstanding exemplar is the mourner's dress fromTahiti given to Cook on hissecond voyage, one of only ten in existence. In the collection is a largewar canoe from the island ofVella Lavella in theSolomon Islands, one of the last ever to be built in the archipelago.[107]
TheMāori collection is the finest outside New Zealand with many intricately carved wooden andjade objects and theAboriginal art collection is distinguished by its wide range ofbark paintings, including two very early bark etchings collected byJohn Hunter Kerr. A particularly important group of objects was purchased from theLondon Missionary Society in 1911, that includes the uniquestatue of A'a from Rurutu Island, the rareidol from the isle of Mangareva and the Cook Islandsdeity figure. Other highlights include the huge Hawaiian statue ofKū-ka-ili-moku or god of war (one of three extant in the world) and the famous Easter Island statuesHoa Hakananai'a andMoai Hava.
The Americas collection mainly consists of 19th and 20th century items although theParacas,Moche,Inca,Maya,Aztec,Taino and other early cultures are well represented. TheKayung totem pole, which was made in the late nineteenth century onHaida Gwaii, dominates the Great Court and provides a fitting introduction to this very wide-ranging collection that stretches from the very north of the North American continent where theInuit population has lived for centuries, to the tip of South America where indigenous tribes have long thrived in Patagonia.
The British Museum is home to one of the world's finestnumismatic collections, comprising about a million objects, including coins, medals, tokens and paper money. The collection spans the entire history of coinage from its origins in the 7th century BC to the present day and is representative of both theEast and West. The Department of Coins and Medals was created in 1861 and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2011.[108]
Department of Conservation and Scientific Research
This department was founded in 1920.Conservation has six specialist areas: ceramics & glass; metals; organic material (including textiles); stone, wall paintings and mosaics; Eastern pictorial art and Western pictorial art. The science department[109] has and continues to develop techniques to date artefacts, analyse and identify the materials used in their manufacture, to identify the place an artefact originated and the techniques used in their creation. The department also publishes its findings and discoveries.
This department covers all levels of education, from casual visitors, schools, degree level and beyond. The museum's various libraries hold in excess of 350,000 books, journals and pamphlets covering all areas of the museum's collection. Also the general museum archives which date from its foundation in 1753 are overseen by this department; the individual departments have their own separate archives and libraries covering their various areas of responsibility, which can be consulted by the public on application. TheAnthropology Library is especially large, with 120,000 volumes.[110] However, thePaul Hamlyn Library, which had become the central reference library of the British Museum and the only library there freely open to the general public, closed permanently in August 2011.[111] The website and online database of the collection also provide increasing amounts of information.
The British Museum Press (BMP) is the publishing business and a division of the British Museum Company Ltd., a company and a charity (established in 1973) wholly owned by the trustees of the British Museum.[112]
The BMP publishes both popular and scholarly illustrated books to accompany the exhibition programme and explore aspects of the general collection. Profits from their sales goes to support the British Museum.[112]
Scholarly titles are published in the Research Publications series, all of which arepeer-reviewed. This series was started in 1978 and was originally called Occasional Papers. The series is designed to disseminate research on items in the collection. To date, over 200 books have been published in this series. Between six and eight titles are published each year in this series.[113] They can be found on theBritish Museum Research Repository.
It is a point of controversy whether museums should possess artefacts illegally taken from other countries,[7][114] and the British Museum is a notable target for criticism. TheElgin Marbles, theBenin Bronzes, EthiopianTabots and theRosetta Stone are among the most disputed objects in its collections, and organisations have been formed demanding the return of these artefacts to their native countries.
The Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Marbles claimed by Greece have been cited byUNESCO, among others, for restitution. From 1801 to 1812,Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin's agents removed about half of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon, as well as sculptures from thePropylaea andErechtheion. The former director of the museum has stated, "We are indebted to Elgin for having rescued the Parthenon sculptures and others from the Acropolis from the destruction they were suffering, as well as from the damage that the Acropolis monuments, including the sculptures that he did not remove, have suffered since."[115] The British Museum itself damaged some of the artefacts during restoration in the 1930s.[116] In late 2022, the British Museum had entered into preliminary negotiations with the Greek government about the future of the sculptures.[117]
There is also controversy over artefacts taken during the destruction of theOld Summer Palace in Beijing by an Anglo-French expeditionary force during theSecond Opium War in 1860, an event which drew protest fromVictor Hugo.[118][119] The British Museum and theVictoria and Albert Museum, among others, have been asked since 2009 to open their archives for investigation by a team of Chinese investigators as a part of an international mission to document Chinese national treasures in foreign collections.[120] In 2010Neil MacGregor, the former Director of the British Museum, said he hoped that both British and Chinese investigators would work together on the controversial collection.[121] In 2020 the museum appointed a curator to research the history of its collections, including disputed items.[122]
The British Museum has stated that the "restitutionist premise, that whatever was made in a country must return to an original geographical site, would empty both the British Museum and the other great museums of the world".[123] The museum has also argued that the British Museum Act of 1963 prevents any object from leaving its collection once it has entered it. "The Museum owns its collections, but its Trustees are not empowered to dispose of them".[123][124] Nevertheless, it has returned items such as Tasmanian Aboriginal burial remains when this was consistent with legislation regarding the disposal of items in the collections.[125]
Benin Bronzes – claimed by Nigeria; the Nigerian government has passed a resolution demanding the return of all 700 bronze pieces.[128] 30 pieces of the bronzes were sold by the British Museum privately from the 1950s until 1972, mostly back to the Nigerians.[129]
Oxus Treasure – in 2007 the President of Tajikistan ordered experts to look into making a claim for theseAchaemenid Empire gold and silver artefacts.[137]
In 2002 the heirs of Arthur Feldmann, an art collector murdered inthe Holocaust, requested that four old master drawings stolen by theGestapo in 1939 be returned to the family. AHigh Court of Justice judge ruled in 2005 that it would be illegal for the British Museum to return artworks looted by the Nazis to a Jewish family, despite its willingness and moral obligation to do so.[149][150] The law was changed in 2009,[151] and again in 2022[152] giving museums additional powers to return looted art or provide compensation. Feldmann's heirs accepted a compensation payment for a looted drawing and stated that they were happy the drawing would remain in the British Museum collection.[153]
According to the British Museum Spoliation report published by theCollections Trust in 2017, "Around 30% of some 21,350 continental and British drawings acquired since 1933 have an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the 1933–1945 period".[154] The museum lists these works on its website and investigates claims for restitution.[155]
Since 2016, there have been a number of protests by activist groups, trade unions and the public against the British Museum's relationship with the oil companyBP which the protesters believe implicates the museum in global warming.[156] In July 2019,Ahdaf Soueif resigned from the British Museum's board of trustees in protest against the sponsorship.[157] In February 2020, 1,500 demonstrators, including British Museum staff, took part in a day of protest over the issue.[158] In December 2023, it was announced that the British Museum had agreed to a new £50 million sponsorship deal with BP.[159]
The Chairman's Advisory Group is an informal group of business leaders who provide advice to the chairman on various issues including the museum's relationship with the British government and policy on the museum's collections. Its existence was made public after a freedom of information request by a group campaigning against the museum's links with the fossil fuel industry. The museum has declined to name the members of the advisory group as they are acting in their personal capacity.[160]
Thefts from the museum include: several historic coins and medals in the 1970s;[161] a 17th-century JapaneseKakiemon figure in 1990; twoMeiji figurines and a fragment of a gold ring in 1991; fifteen Roman coins and jewellery worth £250,000 in 1993; and a Japanese chest and two Persian books in 1996.[162]
In July 2002 a marble head, valued at £50,000, was stolen from theArchaic Greek gallery.[163] In 2004, 15 Chinese artefacts including jewels, ornate hairpins and fingernail guards were stolen. In 2017, it was revealed that aCartier diamond had been missing since 2011.[161]
In August 2023, a staff member was fired after it emerged that items including gold, jewellery and gems had been stolen over a "significant" period of time. The incident led to an investigation by theMetropolitan Police and an independent review by the museum.[164] Some of the missing artefacts were later found to have been sold oneBay for considerably less than their estimated value.[161] The museum had been warned of the thefts as early as 2021. The museum's director,Hartwig Fischer, resigned because of the museum's inadequate response to the warnings of theft.[165] The number of artefacts stolen was estimated to be about 2,000.[166] As a consequence of the thefts, the museum announced a five-year plan to digitise the complete collection and make it available to view online.[167] By May 2024, 626 of the missing items had been recovered.[168]
In August 2023, the British Museum reached a settlement with the translator Yilin Wang over her translations of poetry byQiu Jin. The museum had used her work without credit or permission in their exhibitionChina's Hidden Century which ran between May 2023 and October 2023.[169]
^Among the national museums in London, sculpture anddecorative andapplied art are in theVictoria and Albert Museum; the British Museum houses earlier art, non-Western art, prints and drawings. TheNational Gallery holds the national collection of Western European art to about 1900, while art of the 20th century on is atTate Modern.Tate Britain holds British Art from 1500 onwards. Books, manuscripts and many works on paper are in theBritish Library. There are significant overlaps between the coverage of the various collections.
^By the Act of Parliament it received a name – the British Museum. The origin of the name is not known; the word 'British' had some resonance nationally at this period, so soon after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745; it must be assumed that the museum was christened in this light.[16]
^The estimated footage of the various libraries as reported to the trustees has been summarised by Harris (1998), 3,6: Sloane 4,600, Harley 1,700, Cotton 384, Edwards 576, The Royal Library 1,890.
^This was perhaps rather unfortunate as the title to the house was complicated by the fact that part of the building had been erected on leasehold property (the Crown lease of which ran out in 1771); perhaps that is whyGeorge III paid such a modest price (nominally £28,000) for what was to become Buckingham Palace. SeeHoward Colvinet al. (1976), 134.
^Understanding of the foundation of theNational Gallery is complicated by the fact that there is no documented history of the institution. At first the National Gallery functioned effectively as part of the British Museum, to which thetrustees transferred most of their most important pictures (ex. portraits). Full control was handed over to the National Gallery in 1868, after theNational Gallery Act 1856 established the gallery as an independent body.
^Ashmole, the Keeper of the Greek and Roman Antiquities appreciated the original top-lighting of these galleries and removed the Victorian colour scheme, commenting:
The old Elgin Gallery was painted a deep terracotta red, which, though in some ways satisfactory, diminished its apparent size, and was apt to produce a depressing effect on the visitor. It was decided to experiment with lighter colours, and the walls of the large room were painted with what was, at its first application, a pure cold white, but which after a year's exposure had unfortunately yellowed. The small Elgin Room was painted with pure white tinted with prussian blue, and the Room of the metopes was painted with pure white tinted with cobalt blue and black; it was necessary, for practical reasons, to colour all the dadoes a darker colour[42]
It is, I suppose, not positively bad, but it could have been infinitely better. It is pretentious, in that it uses the ancient Marbles to decorate itself. This is a long outmoded idea, and the exact opposite of what a sculpture gallery should do. And, although it incorporates them, it is out of scale, and tends to dwarf them with its bogus Doric features, including those columns, supporting almost nothing which would have made an ancient Greek artist architect wince. The source of daylight is too high above the sculptures, a fault that is only concealed by the amount of reflection from the pinkish marble walls. These are too similar in colour to the marbles... These half-dozen elementary errors were pointed out by everyone in the Museum, and by many scholars outside, when the building was projected.[47]
It was not until the 1980s that the installation of a lighting scheme removed his greatest criticism of the building.
^"General history".British Museum. 14 June 2010.Archived from the original on 12 April 2012. Retrieved4 July 2010.
^de Beer, Gavin R. (1953).Sir Hans Sloane and the British Museum. London.
^The question of the use of the term 'British' at this period has recently received some attention, e.g. Colley (1992), 85ff. There never has been a serious attempt to change the museum's name.
^Letter to Charles Long (1823), BMCE115/3,10. Scrapbooks and illustrations of the Museum. Wilson, David M. (2002).The British Museum: A History. London: The British Museum Press, p. 346.
^Wilson, David, M. (2002).The British Museum: A History. London: The British Museum Press. p. 25.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Wilson, David, M. (2002).The British Museum: A History. London: The British Museum Press, p. 79
^Caygill, Marjorie (2003).The Story of the British Museum, p. 25.ISBN0-7141-2772-8)
^Reade, Julian (2004).Assyrian Sculpture. London: The British Museum Press, p. 16.
^Dickens Charles Jr. (1879)."Museum, British".Dickens's Dictionary of London.Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved22 August 2007.Beyond the new Lycian room is the READING ROOM: [...]; circular structure; original suggestion of Thomas Watts, improved by A. (Sir A.) Panizzi, carried out by Mr. Sidney Smirke; [...]
^South from Ephesus – An Escape From The Tyranny of Western Art, pp. 33–34,(Brian Sewell, 2002,ISBN1-903933-16-1)
^Zettler, Richard L.; Horne, Lee, eds. (1998).Treasures from the royal tombs of Ur. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. p. 31.
^Permanent establishment of the Research Laboratory (now the oldest such establishment in continuous existence)"History".British Museum.Archived from the original on 28 November 2011. Retrieved22 July 2016.
^abShenton, Caroline (2021).National Treasures: Saving the Nation's Art in World War II (Hardback). London: John Murray. pp. 60–64,233–238.ISBN978-1-529-38743-8.
^Cook, B. F. (2005).The Elgin Marbles. London: The British Museum Press, p. 92.
^Aronsfeld, C. C. (April 1984). "Judaica and Hebraica in German libraries: a review article".Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.16 (2):129–132.doi:10.1177/096100068401600204.S2CID60789240.The Nazis, in fact, went to great lengths in exploiting Jewish (as well as general) literature. For instance, they arranged for a German researcher to spend several years at the British Museum for the purpose of compiling an anti-Semitic history of Anglo-Jewry, which, at the time, with its 562 pages and a bibliography of some 600 items, was an effort more ambitious than hitherto attempted.
^Wilson, David M. (2002).The British Museum: A History. London: The British Museum Press, p. 270.
^Tony Kitto, "The celebrated connoisseur: Charles Townley, 1737–1805"Minerva Magazine May/June 2005, in connection with a British Museum exhibition celebrating the bicentennial of the Townley purchase.Townley marbles Burnley[dead link]
^See the "Facilities and Services" tab on the home page for each department for details on each library; not all are kept at Bloomsbury.Anthropology LibraryArchived 2 February 2012 at theWayback Machine
^Oddy, Andrew, "The Conservation of Marble Sculptures in the British Museum before 1975", inStudies in Conservation, vol. 47, no. 3, (2002), pp. 145–146, Quote: "However, for a short time in the late 1930s copper scrapers were used to remove areas of discolouration from the surface of the Elgin Marbles. New information is presented about this lamentable episode."
.jpg)
.jpg)
.2.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.2.JPG)
.JPG)
.jpg)
_%252B_North_Slip_Room%2c_-Full_Elevation_%2526_Viewing_North-.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
_%7e_Full_Elevation_%252B_Viewing_South.4.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
![Room 3 – Swimming Reindeer carving, France, c. 13,000 years BC[97]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSleeping_Reindeer_4512630872_d31dcb1207_o.jpg)
![Room 2 – Ain Sakhri lovers, from the cave of Ain Sakhri, near Bethlehem, c. 9000 BC[98]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aAin_Sakhri_Lovers_-_British_Museum_-_Joy_of_Museums.jpg)
![Room 49 – Bronze head of a Roman emperor, Claudius or Nero,[99] from Rendham in Suffolk, eastern England, 1st century AD](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aRoman_emperor_head.jpg)
.JPG)
.jpg)
_001.jpg)
%2c_Courtesans_of_the_Tamaya_House.jpg)
.jpg)
_Quimbaya_Culture%2c_Colombia_AD_600-1100_-_British_Museum.jpg)
.jpg)
%2c_View_South_%252B_Towards_Assyrian_Sculpture_Gallery_(Room_6).JPG)
%2c_View_North.3.JPG)
%2c_Centre_Island_%252B_North_Wall-_%7e_Assyrian_Empire_%252B_-Lamassu%2c_Stela%2527s%2c_Statue%2527s%2c_Obelisk%2527s%2c_Relief_Panel%2527s_%2526_Full_Projection.1.jpg)
_%7e_Central_Palace_of_Tiglath-pileser_III_(744-727_B.C)_%252B_Full_Elevation_%2526_Viewing_South.1.JPG)
_%7e_Full_Elevation_%2526_Viewing_South.JPG)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.1.JPG)
.3.JPG)
.JPG)
