Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BRITISH MUSEUM
Great Russell St Tottenham Court Road 020 7323 8299,
www.britishmuseum.org
.
Daily 10am-5.30pm,
Fri until 8.30pm.Free.
MAP
One of the great museums of the world, the BM contains an incredible collection of an-
tiquities, prints, drawings and books. Begun in 1823, the building itself is the grandest of
London's Greek Revival edifices, with its central
Great Court
(daily 9am-6pm, Fri until
8.30pm) featuring a remarkable curving glass-and-steel roof designed by Norman Foster. At
the Court's centre stands the copper-domed former
Round Reading Room
of the British
Library, where Karl Marx penned
Das Kapital
.
GREAT COURT, BRITISH MUSEUM
The BM's collection of
Roman and Greek antiquities
is unparalleled, and is most famous
for the Parthenon sculptures, better known as the
Elgin Marbles
after the British aristocrat
who walked off with the reliefs in 1801. Elsewhere, the
Egyptian collection
is easily the
most significant outside Egypt, ranging from monumental sculptures to the ever-popular
mummies and their ornate outer caskets. Also on display is the
Rosetta Stone
, which en-
abled French professor Champollion to finally unlock the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
