Open daily 10:00 - 17:30. Open late on Fridays until 20:30.

Visitors enjoy a unique comparison of the treasures of world cultures under one roof, centred around the magnificent Great Court. World-famous objects such as the Rosetta Stone, Parthenon sculptures, and Egyptian mummies are visited by up to 5.8 million visitors per year. There is also a programme of special exhibitions and daily gallery tours, talks and guided tours.

The easiest way to travel from Europe to Africa to Asia to the Americas and back again in just one afternoon is to go to the British Museum in London. Still standing on its original site in Bloomsbury, London, since 1759, the British Museum is one of the most important museums in the world, with collections of historic and cultural significance from all continents. It is here that you'll find Cleopatra's mummy, the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, the Rosetta Stone, textiles and weapons from Aztec and Inca tribes, the entire history of coinage from 7BC to today as well as thousands of sculptures, drawings, paintings, prints, and ceramics.
The British Museum, in London, is widely considered to be one of the world's greatest museums of human history and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering some eight million works, is amongst the finest, most comprehensive, and largest in existence and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane Today it no longer houses collections of natural history, and the books and manuscripts it once held now form part of the independent British Library. The Museum nevertheless preserves its universality in its collections of artefacts representing the cultures of the world, ancient and modern. The Greek Revival faade facing Great Russell Street is a characteristic building of Sir Robert Smirke, with 44 columns in the Ionic order 45 ft (14 m) high, closely based on those of the temple of Athena Polias at Priene in Asia Minor. The British Museum houses the world's largest 100,000
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and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities, over

pieces

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 outside Cairo. 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 reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine I in the 4th century AD. 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 room collections in existence alongside the Albertina inVienna, 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 of Prehistory and Europe is responsible for collections that cover a vast expanse of time and geography. It includes the some of the earliest objects made by humans 2 million years ago; the art and archaeology of Europe from the earliest times to the present day, including the history of Britain under Roman occupation. It also includes the national collection of horology. In particular, the British Museums collections covering the period AD 300 to 1100 are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world, extending from Spain to the Black Sea and from North Africa to Scandinavia.