Historic and Modern?! (British Museum)

Member Name: Waikie

Product:	British Museum
Date:	04/05/01 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free!, Amazing depth of display

Disadvantages: Can get crowded with school trips

The British Museum, tucked away just off Russell Square, behind the main shopping avenues and not as publicised as the Kensington Museums is a great place to lose yourself for a day. Somehow plenty of tourists seem to go there, so someone must be advertising it!

The new circular roof linking the reading room to the surrounding galleries is stunning - designed by Sir Norman Foster - and the helical staircase up to a restaurant and viewing terrace around the reading room give panoramic sweeps of the courtyard, where Roman military demonstrations were taking place when I went.

The galleries are packed with a huge historical wealth - stretching from the earliest civilisations in Babylonia, through through to the late Iron Age and Roman life in Britain.

My particular favourites were the galleries devoted to the Middle Eastern cultures of yore, from the Horse Archers of Hittite culture, to the Mesopotamian engineers and the Assyrian military - the huge bull statues flanking a corridor are very impressive.

There are also sections (or were when I went) on Money and Fraud in Britain, and a special changing exhibit theatre (the only section to charge entry).

Overall this is a brilliant museum, modern facilities for food, drink, rest and school groups combined with a huge array of historical artifacts in the galleries, thoughtfully laid out and explained lend a highly educational air to the place - and I intend on going back soon to see if the incomplete sections have been filled yet.

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