British

Museum
URSU DUMITRU
The British Museum is a public institution
dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its
permanent collection of some eight million
works is among the largest and most
comprehensive in existence, having been
widely sourced during the era of the British
Empire. It documents the story of human
culture from its beginnings to the present. It
was the first public national museum in the
world.
History
Established by act of Parliament in
1753, the museum was originally based
on three collections: those of Sir Hans
Sloane; Robert Harley, 1st earl of
Oxford and Sir Robert Cotton. The
collections (which also included a
significant number of manuscripts and
other library materials) were housed in
Montagu House, Great Russell Street,
and were opened to the public in 1759.
The Cotton and Harley collections
were composed mainly of
manuscripts; since 1998 these have
been housed in a separate building,
the British Library. 
The Sloane collection, included his
specimens of natural history from Jamaica
and classical, ethnographic, numismatic, and
art material, as well as the cabinet of
William Courten, comprising some 100,000
items in all.
Building
The museum’s present building,
designed in the Greek Revival style
by Sir Robert Smirke, was built on
the site of Montagu House in the
period 1823–52 and has been the
subject of several subsequent
additions and alterations.
DEPARTMENTS
Department of Egypt and Sudan

The British Museum houses the world's largest and most

comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities (with over
100,000 pieces) outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. A collection
of immense importance for its range and quality, it includes objects
of all periods from virtually every site of importance in Egypt and
the Sudan. Together, they illustrate every aspect of the cultures of
the Nile Valley (including Nubia), from
the Predynastic Neolithic period (c. 10,000 BC) through Coptic
(Christian) times (12th century AD), and up to the present day, a
time-span over 11,000 years.
Department of Greece and Rome

The British Museum has one of the world's largest and most comprehensive collections of antiquities from the Classical
world, with over 100,000 objects. These mostly range in date from the beginning of the Greek Bronze Age (about 3200
BC) to the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, with the Edict of Milan under the
reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine 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
were Charles Newton, John Turtle Wood, Robert Murdoch Smith and Charles 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 of Magna
Graecia that include Sicily and southern Italy.
Department of the Middle East

With a collection numbering some 330,000 works, the British Museum possesses the world's largest and most important
collection of Mesopotamian antiquities outside Iraq. A collection of immense importance, the holdings of Assyrian
sculpture, Babylonian and Sumerian antiquities are among the most comprehensive in the world with entire suites of
rooms panelled in alabaster Assyrian palace reliefs from Nimrud, Nineveh and Khorsabad.

The collections represent the civilisations of the ancient Near East and its adjacent areas. These
cover Mesopotamia, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia, the Caucasus, parts of Central Asia, Syria, the Holy
Land and Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean from the prehistoric period and include objects from the
beginning of Islam in the 7th century.
Department of Prints
and Drawings

The Department of Prints and Drawings holds the

national collection of Western prints and drawings. It
ranks as one of the largest and best print
roo collections in existence alongside the Albertina in
Vienna, the Paris collections and the Hermitage. The
holdings are easily accessible to the general public in
the Study Room, unlike many such collections. The
department also has its own exhibition gallery in
Room 90, where the displays and exhibitions change
several times a year.
 The Department of Britain, Europe and
Department of Prehistory is responsible for collections that
cover a vast expanse of time and geography. It
Britain, includes some of the earliest objects made by
Europe and humans in east Africa over 2 million years ago,
Prehistory as well as Prehistoric and neolithic objects
from other parts of the world; and the art and
archaeology of Europe from the earliest times
to the present day. 
Department of Asia
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 (from East, South, Central and South-
East Asia) 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 the British Empire,
especially the Indian subcontinent.
 The British Museum houses one of the world's
Department of most comprehensive collections
of Ethnographic material from Africa, Oceania
Africa, and the Americas, representing the cultures
Oceania and of indigenous peoples throughout the world.
the Americas Over 350,000 objects spanning thousands of
years tells the history of mankind from three
major continents and many rich and diverse
cultures
Department of Coins and Medals
The British Museum is home to one of the world's
finest numismatic 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 the East and West. The Department of Coins and Medals
was created in 1861 and celebrated its 150th anniversary in
2011.
Libraries and archives
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. The Anthropology Library is especially large, with 120,000 volumes. However, the Paul
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. The website and
online database of the collection also provide increasing amounts of information.