Overview
It opened in 1759 as the first national public museum anywhere, on the principle that the collection belonged to the public rather than the crown, and it has been free ever since. The famous rooms are the Egyptian sculpture gallery with the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, the Assyrian reliefs from Nineveh and the Sutton Hoo ship burial. How several of these came to London is contested, in some cases formally by the governments that want them back, and the museum’s labels now say more about that than they used to.
Highlights
Enter by the Montague Place door at the back: the main entrance queue is long and this one rarely is. The Great Court is a covered square, not a gallery, so do not spend your time there. Two hours on two collections beats six hours on everything.