It is not possible to visit the British Museum in one go. The permanent collection is one of the largest in the world, with eight million works of art. The purpose of this particular visit was to have a look at the Elgin Marbles. The Elgin Marbles, named after the Earl who brought them back from Greece, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, are Greek sculptures from the Parthenon. These sculptures date from the 5th century BCA and were created under the direction of the sculptor and architect Phidias. The room in which they are exhibited is built on the dimensions of the Parthenon and allows them to be displayed in the order in which they should be, still hanging on the temple in Athens. I won’t get into a discussion about the legality of these paintings being in London or still being in London. We also had a look at the Rosetta Stone and some Egyptian antiquities. Same question here… Anyway, an impressive museum.
“But one needed answers, not questions; and an answer was only to be had by consulting the learned and the unprejudiced, who have removed themselves above the strife of tongue and the confusion of body and issued the result of their reasoning and research in books which are to be found in the British Museum. If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where, I asked myself, picking up a notebook and a pencil, is truth?” (A Room of One’s Own. Virginia Woolf. 1929)