London museum artifacts

Explore the fascinating history of Egypt. Collection stories. Explore: the Rosetta Stone Take a virtual tour, see it in 3D or read our blog on the object that changed our understanding of the ancient world. The mystery of Egyptian mummy cases Ancient Egyptian coffins and mummy cases have been found covered in a mysterious 'black goo'. What does it reveal? Collecting modern Egypt The modern Egypt project was launched to bring the Egyptian collection into the 21st century.

Collection highlights. Explore more themes. Death and memory Discover the many tales of death and memory from the Museum. Web Cast Videos. Visitor Info. Museum Displays Public Excavations. History of the Museum Director's Bio. The London Artifact. Remaining Questions: Further analysis is planned to answer questions that include the following: Is the chlorine content in the iron alloy found throughout the hammerhead or only at the surface?

Is the concentration of iron oxides higher in the rock immediately next to the hammerhead? Are there carbon-bearing residues in the cavity? There are reports that the file mark may contain FeO.

This iron oxide does not readily form under present environmental conditions. We also know that evidence points to a decaying geomagnetic field, with a half-life of approximately years. If the hammer is truly ancient, could the stronger magnetic field have had the effect of helping the formation of FeO? If the artifact is truly from the Cretaceous time frame, where does this leave evolutionary theory, since man was not supposed to have evolved for another million years or so?

It's now almost impossible to see the damage with the naked eye. The history of the vase is cloudy and it has passed through many hands. No one knows exactly when and where it was found. It was recorded in the collection of a cardinal in and then belonged to an Italian noble family for years. It was her son, the 3rd Duke of Portland, who loaned it to Josiah Wedgwood to make his famous copies in It was loaned to the British Museum in and finally purchased by the museum in The British Museum has a very fine collection of mummies, many of which are displayed so that visitors can appreciate their elaborate wrappings and, in some cases, see the clothes and shoes they were buried in.

But the cat mummies are an interesting devotional sidelight of the later Egyptian period, perhaps the 1st century. Cats were associated with the goddess Bastet and it's possible that young cats were periodically culled from her temples and mummified in elaborate wrappings so that the faithful could purchase them and bury them in special cat cemeteries. Cat mummies were so common that many cat cemeteries were destroyed before archaeologists could study them.

In the 19th century, a shipment of , of them was sent to Britain to be processed into fertilizer! The British Museum has several examples.

The one pictured here was a gift from the Egypt Exploration Fund. Where to see it: Look for the Cat Mummy as well as a falcon mummy and a big collection of human mummies in the Egyptian Room, Gallery on the Upper Floor. That included thinning the lips. The head is wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The head was discovered sometime before and purchased by the museum in from British archaeologist Henry Salt who found it in a warehouse in Cairo.

Where to see it: See it in Room 4 on the Ground Floor. The most iconic object from the Sutton Hoo site, an incredibly rich and undisturbed ship burial of a wealthy Anglo Saxon individual - probably a king - dating from early 7th century East Anglia. Objects from the burial include a hoard of coins and intricately worked objects of gold, jewels, and leather. The Sutton Hoo Burial was discovered by archaeologist Basil Brown in when excavating the largest of 18 mounds on a Suffolk estate.

When found, the helmet had been crushed by the collapse of the mound and was in pieces. First restored in , it was taken apart and reassembled in based on later available research. That was when the remarkable face mask first began to reveal itself. Where to see it: The assembled mask and a reconstruction of what it would have looked like when new, along with many other treasures from the burial are located in the World of Sutton Hoo exhibit in Room 2 on the Ground Floor.

A large group of chess pieces, carved in walrus ivory and whalebone sometime during the 12th century. A post shared by Hedley Roberts hedleyroberts. As with all national museums in the United Kingdom is has no admission fee. Some of the special exhibits and tours do have admission fees, however.

The museum also has a very large website and the largest online database of objects of any museum in the world. A post shared by greybear A post shared by Fiona shelliemay. One of the things that the British Museum is famous for, is the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities other than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

If in Egypt, many of the greatest ancient Egyptian attractions are in the Valley of the Kings. But it's not just the sheer size of the collection, it's also the quality of the collection.