The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution

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By 1866 the collection consisted of some 10,000 objects. Antiquities from excavations started to come to the museum in the latter part of the 19th century as a result of the work of the Egypt Exploration Fund under the efforts of E.A. Wallis Budge. Over the years more than 11,000 objects came from this source, including pieces from Amarna, Bubastis and Deir el-Bahari. Other organisations and individuals also excavated and donated objects to the British Museum, including Flinders Petrie's Egypt Research Account and the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, as well as the University of Oxford Expedition to Kawa and Faras in Sudan. One of the pottery storage jars containing the Dead Sea Scrolls found in a cave near Qumran, Jordan, (4 BC – 68 AD) It’s certainly been damaging to the British Museum’s reputation. I think that’s sort of stating the obvious and that’s why I’m apologising on behalf of the museum,” he said. “We believe we’ve been the victim of thefts over a long period of time and, frankly, more could have been done to prevent them.” This department was founded in 1920. Conservation has six specialist areas: ceramics & glass; metals; organic material (including textiles); stone, wall paintings and mosaics; Eastern pictorial art and Western pictorial art. The science department [102] has and continues to develop techniques to date artefacts, analyse and identify the materials used in their manufacture, to identify the place an artefact originated and the techniques used in their creation. The department also publishes its findings and discoveries. Legion will share the stories of real soldiers and will challenge some of the modern perceptions about what it meant to be a Roman soldier by showing the army was as much an engine of social change as a formidable war machine. Recruits came from almost all walks of life and joined to advance themselves, a regular job with a pension for some and for others the transformational chance to acquire Roman citizenship. Many supported families despite a general ban on marriage for ordinary soldiers at the time.

Head of Mercury from Roman-Celtic Temple at Uley, Gloucestershire and limestone head from Towcester, Northamptonshire (2nd–4th centuries) The work of the three German artists – Rudi Tröger (b. 1929), Karl Bohrmann (1928–98) and Carl-Heinz Wegert (1926–2007) – is characterised by a quiet introspection and they largely shunned the limelight of the art world. The Austrian Hermann Nitsch (1938–2022), by contrast, attracted public controversy through his highly provocative performances, or 'Actions', involving nudity, blood and Christian symbolism. Large milestone marker with inscription from the reign of the emperor Hadrian from Llanfairfechan, Gwynedd in North Wales, (120–121 AD) Gold lunula from Blessington, Ireland, one of twelve from Ireland, Wales and Cornwall, (2400–2000 BC) Fragment of a carved basalt architrave depicting a lion's head from the Temple of Garni, Armenia, (1st century AD)

The Round Reading Room at the British Museum

There is also controversy over artefacts taken during the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing by an Anglo-French expeditionary force during the Second Opium War in 1860, an event which drew a protest from Victor Hugo. [110] [111] The British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others, have been asked since 2009 to open their archives for investigation by a team of Chinese investigators as a part of an international mission to document Chinese national treasures in foreign collections. [112] In 2010 Neil MacGregor, the former Director of the British Museum, said he hoped that both British and Chinese investigators would work together on the controversial collection. [113] In 2020 the museum appointed a curator to research the history of its collections, including disputed items. [114] George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor who chairs the museum’s board of trustees, said “groupthink” may have prevented leadership from believing that treasures had been taken. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it was a mess that would be cleared up. Harvey Dimond explores the historical resonances of this slavery-referencing artwork made during a suffocating pandemic

Made up of over 200 objects including loans from 28 lenders, the large scale of the exhibition enables contributions from a wide collection of national and international institutions, as well as supporting material from the collection. It features iconic Roman military objects alongside evidence of the real lives of men, women, and children – citizens and non-citizens, free or enslaved – in forts and frontiers across the empire. Seated Hārītī and Buddha statues and other Gandhara sculptures from Kafir Kot, Jamal Garhi, Takht-i-Bahi and Yusufzai, Pakistan, (1st–3rd centuries AD) Repatriation and reburial of human remains is a controversial issue, and the British Museum has i Important finds from the River Thames including the Battersea, Chertsey and Wandsworth shields and Waterloo Helmet, as well as the Witham Shield from Lincolnshire, eastern England, (350–50 BC) There are over 900 objects from the historic Kingdom of Benin in the British Museum's collection. Over 100 can be seen in a permanent changing display within the Museum's galleries. Objects from Benin are also lent regularly around the world. The British Museum's collections additionally include a range of archival documentation and photographic collections relating to the objects from the Kingdom of Benin and their collection histories. Where are they from?

Morel collection of La Tène material from eastern France, including the Somme-Bionne chariot burial and the Prunay Vase, (450-300BC) In Nigeria objects from the Kingdom of Benin are housed in the collections of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), and displayed in museums in Benin City and in Lagos. However, the most significant collections are held outside Nigeria.

The famous Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, an early example of Ancient Egyptian mathematics, Thebes (1550 BC) Early Renaissance Lyte Jewel, presented to Thomas Lyte of Lytes Cary, Somerset by King James I of England, (1610) Gold bowl with intricate repoussé decoration from Leer, Lower Saxony, northern Germany, (1100–800 BC) Gandharan architectural wood carvings, furniture and dress accessories from Loulan, Xinjiang, (4th century AD)Illustrations for the Great Picture Book of Everything, rare album of drawings by the celebrated Japanese artist Hokusai, (1820–1840 AD)

Hoard of Buddhist terracotta sealings from the Pala period found at the Nālandā Monastery, Bihar, eastern India, (10th century AD) The British Museum works with partner museums and galleries in every part of the UK. The Museum is committed to sharing the collection and our knowledge as widely as possible to create a positive educational, social and economic impact across the UK. Through our programme of touring exhibitions and loans, between April 2022 and March 2023, the British Museum lent more than 1,600 objects to 102 venues around the UK, reaching more than six million visitors outside of London. Please note that the cloakroom has limited capacity, and when this capacity is reached, it cannot accept items until space becomes available again. The museum again readjusted its collecting policies as interest in "modern" objects: prints, drawings, medals and the decorative arts reawakened. Ethnographical fieldwork was carried out in places as diverse as New Guinea, Madagascar, Romania, Guatemala and Indonesia and there were excavations in the Near East, Egypt, Sudan and the UK. The Weston Gallery of Roman Britain, opened in 1997, displayed a number of recently discovered hoards which demonstrated the richness of what had been considered an unimportant part of the Roman Empire. The museum turned increasingly towards private funds for buildings, acquisitions and other purposes. [46] In 2000, the British Museum was awarded National Heritage Museum of the Year. [47] The British Museum today [ edit ] Wide view of the Great Court

Bronze heads of the Roman emperors Hadrian and Claudius, found in London and Suffolk, (1st–2nd centuries) Rachel Pronger discovers in earlier experimental films a familiar tension between the social being and the individual body Some of the most compelling up-and-coming names in the field of contemporary drawing will be displayed alongside highlight of the British Museum collection in this touring exhibition.