BRITISH MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Museum Floor Plan
1. Middle East
Some 6,000 years of history start with the spectacular carved reliefs depicting a variety of scenes from the Assyrian palace of Nineveh.
2. Ancient Egypt and Sudan
An extraordinary array of mummies and sarcophagi are among thousands of objects in one of the world’s greatest collections.
3. Africa
The museum holds 350,000 objects from indigenous peoples around the world. The Africa gallery has an interesting collection of sculpture, textiles, and graphic art.
4. Asia
Buddhist limestone reliefs, Chinese antiquities, Islamic pottery, and a jaw-droppingly large cache of Japanese relics are displayed here.
5. Greece and Rome
There are several rooms covering the marvels of the Classical world (c. 3000 BCE to c. CE 400). The sculptures that once decorated the outside of the Parthenon are a particular highlight.
Ancient Greek vase
6. Prehistory and Europe
Covering a long period from prehistoric cave dwellers to the modern day, this collection includes Lindow Man—the body found preserved in a peat bog of a man who died some time between 2 BCE and 119 CE—and fine decorative arts, including medieval jewelry and Renaissance clocks.
7. Money
The exhibit traces the history of money over 4,000 years—from shell currency to digital payment methods.
8. Islamic World
This stunning display of objects ranges from West Africa to Southeast Asia and covers the period from the 7th century to the present.
9. Enlightenment
This exhibition features the museum’s 18th-century collections from around the world.
10. The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery
This small gallery is used for temporary exhibitions.
THE GREAT COURT
A magnificent glass-roofed addition encloses the heart of the British Museum. Opened in December 2000, the Great Court was designed by architect Sir Norman Foster. In the center of the Court is the domed Reading Room, built in 1857. It once held one of the world’s most important collections of books and manuscripts and was the workplace of some of London’s greatest writers. It was used to host exhibitions from 2007 to 2013, after the Reading Room’s collection was moved to a purpose-built building in St. Pancras. The Great Court is the capital’s largest covered square, containing shops, cafés, and the British Museum’s main ticket and information desk.
The Reading Room was restored to its original design.
The Great Court at the center of the museum has a tesselated roof constructed of 3,312 unique panes of glass. It surrounds the Reading Room.
TOP 10 LIBRARY READERS
1. Karl Marx
(1818–83), German revolutionary
2. Mahatma Gandhi
(1869–1948), Indian leader
3. Oscar Wilde
(1854–1900), playwright and wit
4. Virginia Woolf
(1882–1941), Bloomsbury novelist
5. W B Yeats
(1865–1939), Irish poet and playwright
6. Thomas Hardy
(1840–1928), English novelist
7. George Bernard Shaw
(1856–1950), Irish playwright
8. E M Forster
(1879–1970), English novelist
9. Rudyard Kipling
(1865–1936), Poet, novelist, and chronicler of the British Empire
10. Leon Trotsky
(1879–1940), Russian revolutionary
