What is the most visited item in the British Museum?

The Rosetta Stone at the British Museum The Rosetta Stone is a famous stone tablet. Thanks to it, modern humans were able to unlock ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Pretty important, then. So, it's no surprise that it's the most visited exhibit in the museum.

What is the most famous item in the British Museum?

The Rosetta Stone (Room 4)

With the decipherment of hieroglyphs in 1822, the culture, history and beliefs of ancient Egypt were revealed. The Rosetta Stone is the Museum's most popular exhibit, so don't leave without seeing it for yourself.

What are the most famous things to see in the British Museum?

What is the most prized possession of the British Museum?

The Rosetta Stone

One of the most famous objects in the British Museum is, in fact, part of a bigger stone slab. It was erected at an Egyptian temple in 196 BC, during the reign of Ptolemy V, but has been in the hands of the British Museum since 1802.

What is the oldest item in the British Museum?

The oldest item is the Olduvai stone chopping tool, which is some 1.8 million years old, found in an early campsite in Tanzania. The British Museum has long recognised that some of the items it houses are contested – a reminder of Britain's colonial exploits. Below are some of the museum's most famous items.

The Top Ten Treasures in the British Museum - An In-Depth Museum Tour

What has been stolen from the British Museum?

On 16 August 2023, the Museum announced that a number of items of jewellery from the collection had been found to be stolen, missing or damaged (Opens in new window), and that this was the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service.

What is the oldest thing on Earth that is still alive?

Methuselah, a Bristlecone Pine is Thought to be the Oldest Living Organism on Earth. The Inyo National Forest is home to many bristlecone pines, thought to be the oldest living organisms on Earth.

What is the most valuable item in a museum?

Why won't the British Museum return stolen artifacts?

Several British laws also prevent the museums from outright returning these artifacts to Ghana: the British Museum Act of 1963 bans the museum from removing an artifact from its collection unless it is a duplicate, is damaged or is deemed “unfit” for the collection.

What is the British Museum $1 billion gift?

The Sir Percival David Foundation will permanently donate its £1 billion ($1.27 billion) Chinese ceramics collection to the British Museum, following regulatory approval to amend its governing document under the U.K. Charities Act.

What is the treasure of the British Museum?

The wealth and range of its collections is unequalled by any other national museum. The Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, Egyptian mummies, drawings by Botticelli and Michelangelo, Assyrian reliefs, the Lewis Chessmen and the Sutton Hoo treasure are all to be found here.

What are the most famous pieces at the British Museum reddit?

The big ones are the Elgin marbles, Rosetta stone, Benin bronzes, colossal Egyptian heads, Nereid monument, Cyrus cylinder.

What not to miss in the British Museum?

What is the largest museum in the world?

By size, The Louvre, in Paris, France is the largest museum on Earth, with nearly 73,000 square metres of exhibition space. By reputation, it's also one of the best and holds works from antiquity to the 19th Century, including the world-famous Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.

Is Kohinoor in the British Museum?

Today, the diamond is on public display in the Jewel House at the Tower of London.

What bird can live for 200 years?

Wisdom (officially designated #Z333) is a wild female Laysan albatross, the oldest confirmed wild bird in the world and the oldest banded bird in the world.

Which animal can live up to 1000 years?

Currently, no scientifically verified animal has been recorded living 1000 years. However, the immortal jellyfish could theoretically do so by regenerating continuously—if it evades all natural threats. Additionally, black coral can live for over 4,000 years, making it one of the oldest marine organisms.

What is the most controversial item in the British Museum?

The Elgin Marbles (Parthenon Sculptures)

The Elgin Marbles, or Parthenon Sculptures, come from the temple of Athena on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece – and continue to represent one of the longest-running controversies concerning the British Museum's collection.

Where is the lonely sister in the British Museum?

Today, the sister stands alone in the British Museum, suffering in the windowless gallery while global historians and government officials protest to bring her to her homeland in Greece. While the museum claims they have the right to legally own her, growing decolonization in museum movements beg to differ.

What museum got robbed?

This program was part of our series Notorious: Maine Crime in the Public Eye, 1690–1940, and offered in conjunction with the exhibit of the same name. Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and committed the largest art heist in history.

What is the most valuable thing in the British Museum?

What is the most famous exhibit in the British Museum?

The Rosetta Stone (replica within Room 1)

The key that unlocked the hieroglyphic language of ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone is the Museum's most popular exhibit and one of the cornerstones of modern Egyptology.