The British Museum (1, 500)

The British Museum, situated in an immense, light-grey building, like a Greek temple, is one of the world’s greatest treasure-stores. Its supreme collection was based on the will of Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, which persuaded Parliament to acquire his art, antiquities and natural history collections. At the same time the Harleian Collection of manuscripts was purchased for the nation. Today the museum has two departments – the Museum of Mankind and the National History Museum.

The Museum of Mankind contains a vast collection of antiquities, including marbles from the Parthenon, ancient works of art in stone, bronze and gold and collections illustrating Western Asiatic civilizations. The Museum keeps also the Rosetta Stone that helped archaeologists to find the key to the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The natural History Museum contains principal collections on the history of plants, minerals and the animal kingdom.

The British Museum has one of the largest libraries in the world. It has a copy of every book that is printed in the English language, so that there are more than six million books there. They receive nearly two thousand books and papers daily. The British Museum Library has a very big collection of printed books and manuscripts, both old and new. One can see the best collection of Greek papyri from Egypt, and vast collections of original historical manuscripts of incalculable value, which they keep in glass cases. One can also find there some of the first English books printed by Caxton, the first English printer. He lived in the 15th century and made the first printing-press in England.

The British Museum has a wonderful art gallery too. It has unique collections of sculpture, ceramics, drawings and paintings of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greek, Romans, Africans, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and many other peoples.

Notes

1) papyri [pq'paIqraI] – мн. ч. от papyrus [pq'paIqrqs] – папирусы;

2) hieroglyphics ["haIrq'glIfIks] – иероглифы.

Learn the key words and expressions.

acquire – приобрести

ancient – древний

daily – ежедневно

find – обнаружить, найти

immense - огромный

incalculable – неисчислимый

key – ключ

peoples – народы

purchase – купить

value – ценность

vast – обширный

will – завещание

Check your comprehension.

1. What is the British Museum? 2. Who contributed to the appearance of the Museum? 3. What collections does the Museum contain? 4. What is the Rosetta Stone?

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