British Museum in London (the British Museum) was founded by order of the Parliament of the Kingdom at the end of the 18th century. Today it is one of the largest museums in the world. For many hundreds of years, British Museum are works of art of Ancient Greece, Rome, Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, medieval Asia and Europe, here are unique collections of coins and orders, drawings, frescoes, engravings. In addition to the ancient exhibits of the gallery of the British Museum, visitors are also presented with works of modern painting, graphics and sculpture. The British Museum contains over 90 rooms, the length of which exceeds 4 kilometers.
History of the British Museum.
The history of the British Museum begins in the winter of 1753 with the adoption of an Act of Parliament establishing the National Museum of Britain. It began with a collection that the British naturalist Sir Hans Sloane presented to King George II. This gift included more than 70 thousand antique exhibits, among which there were about 250 monuments, which later served as a pretext for the foundation of the Egyptian department. A few years later, the museum's fund was supplemented by a collection of books donated to the country by collector and librarian James Cotton (Robert Bruce Cotton).
Secrets of the British Museum in London.
The secrets of the British Museum are connected with the history of replenishment of the collection in the late 18th - early 19th century. Most of the exhibits ended up in the museum under very strange circumstances, they were illegally exported and taken to London. During the existence of the British colonial empire, exhibits from all territories subject to it came here, and they remain here to this day. One such item is, for example, the Rosetta Stone.
Egypt and Greece still require the UK to return the exported cultural property to their homeland.
The museum collections have expanded so much that the managers had to divide them into thematic departments, among which Egyptian and numismatic stand out. It was also decided to exhibit literary values separately, in connection with this, the British Museum Library was formed. Although the Egyptian section of this museum belongs to the UK, it is one of the largest in the world in terms of the number of exhibits and contains unique items from ancient Egypt, such as several pages of the legendary Book of the Dead.
Where is the British Museum located?
The building that houses the British Museum was built by Robert Smurk in the neoclassical style. This giant mansion is located on one of the central streets of London - Great Russell Street and covers an area of more than 6 hectares.
Back in 1759 British museum received the first visitors, who were high-ranking persons and friends of the royal family. Only in 1847 the doors of the museum were opened for the first time to ordinary people. Modern tourists and residents of London have the opportunity to visit the halls of the museum for free, to observe the unique exhibits of each of the hundreds of halls. The collection of the British National Museum contains several departments: the department of prehistoric objects, the department of monuments of Roman Britain, the Ancient Egyptian department, the department of Roman and Greek art, the department of Asian antiquities.
Since the opening of the British Museum in London, the number of exhibits presented in the museum has grown many times over. To this day, the British government is buying up unique objects of not only ancient, but also modern art, daily supplementing the collection of the British Museum. Among the many museums in England British National Museum (the british museum) occupies a place of honor and for many years remains the pride of London.
