British Museum

Ever since watching the Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb I have wanted to go to the British Museum.

The British Museum is a museum of the wonders of the world. Our tour took us to the current room where the Archives are held. This room used to be the reading room. It was also a public library from 2000 to 2004. It is now closed to the public as the archives room. It was said that this room had rats. THANK GOODNESS we did not see any!! The archives were moved into this room because the previous room had mold. Each section of the reading room has individually made shelves. Nothing in either the British Museum or the archives are cataloged. Which Sounds Scary. The tour guides explained that they were starting the process of cataloging.

The first meeting to discuss the museum as in where to put it was in a pub. Brits love their drinks!

A whole section of shelves was dedicated to minutes that discussed who was going on vacation and who was getting fired.
The tour guide said they were a museum first and archives second. That's why things are not stored properly. But I feel that you can not really have a good museum without the archives.
At the time of the London fire, they did not have provisions in place against fire.
When the museum was still in its early days, people had to get separate tickets for the gardens and the museum. The museum was seriously damaged in WW2. We saw multiple pictures of damages to the museum during the war. We were also shown a list of items stolen from the museum.

A WOW, Moment!!!  As late as 1989 the Rosetta Stone was left out without being encased. Also in the archives laid the Magna Carta.

Another WOW, MOMENT!!! Lenin, Marx, Conan Doyle, and Oscar Wilde used this room when it was a reading room. Wilde was barred from using the reading room after being prosecuted for his homosexuality.

The British Library and the museum were together until the 1990s. The reading room has secret doors that look like bookshelves.

A LOL, MOMENT!!! Glasses were found in a roman casket in 1890. Someone had opened the casket dropped their glasses and closed it back up.

Ending thoughts of the British Museum Tour. I can not wait to go back and see the rest of the museum too much to see in just a day.

After the guided tour, I went and did a small tour myself. I knew that there were tons of Egyptian Sarcophagi so I decided to go to the Egyptian section. Apart from having lots of sarcophagi the section had jewels, different types of writings, and lots of pottery. There were also broken pieces of Christ statues. As well as different articles of clothing from different countries and different times. The most amazing item that I saw in the Egyptian section of the museum was the Gebelein man. He is known as the "most well-preserved man". 

Link to more British Museum Pics: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WxNTPAwXzxRvpe5m8

https://www.britishmuseum.org/