Today I decided to visit the British Museum which is on the bus route for me into the town centre. I always pass it but I’ve never just stopped off and popped in. There are so many fun museums to go to in London, and the British Museum would need a whole three or four days at least to see all of!
I’ve always liked museums, ever since I was small. When I was young, my grandma would sometimes take me, but we would only go to the little ones that weren’t very busy. My mum’s english wasn’t that good then, so my family didn’t go that often. My stepdad liked the ones about army things though, and we did visit the air museum a lot.
Coming to London, I’m now living so close to some of the best museums in the world. I don’t know why I’ve never though about visiting them before. I guess in my head, I’ve been meaning to, but I’ve always got other things to do, uni work, working on the website or just seeing family on my days off.
The British Museum is amazing though. It’s got stuff from every corner of the globe, and it has lots of exhibitions on all the time. It’s great if you’re into history, and there seems to be a never ended number of things you can learn when you go in.
I’m sure you all know, but there’s an amazing part dedicated to the Egyptians with the mummies still all wrapped up and mummified. I grew up watching lots of documentaries, and the Egyptian ones were some of my favourite. It was really amazing getting to see these in real life and up close.
You stand there and you think, wow, there’s an actual person inside there. It looks like lots of cloth wrapped up in a person shape, but there’s a skeleton and skin and even teeth all inside there. A person that live thousands of years ago, and died, and now people from around the world come to see them, lying in a glass showcase.
There’s also the Gebelein Man. This was about a grave that was dug up, and six bodies were found to be naturally mummified. The Gebelein Man lies curled up, and you can see his bones under his skin, which has gone a sort of tan colour. There is still parts of his hair, and you can also see his eyelids. This man died 5000 years ago, and yet his body is almost perfectly preserved.
There is an amazing section on the greeks too. So many marbled statues, that look as if they are real people turned to stone. There’s also a temple, which was bought to England brick by brick and rebuilt to showcase it. Well, it’s actually just the front part of the temple but it’s really amazing.
There’s also lots of books to be found in the shops around the museum, so if there’s something you really found interesting, you can later go buy the book and learn more about it, and the period it was around. I found a book on mythical creatures, something I’ve always been interested in, but this book is much more detailed and has mythical creatures from all around the world. I found the book after look at some greek pots that showed a mythical battle with the hydra.
I will spend much more time at the British Museum in the future, it’s so great because it’s free as well. I think next time, I’ll bring a sketch book and draw some of the statues. It’s also a place I’d like to take my little sister, and if any friends from abroad visit me in London I’ll take them as well.