The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court

The Great Court provides a focal point for any visit to the British Museum and remains open on selected evenings after the Museum galleries have closed. Here you can rest over a cup of coffee, buy a book or souvenir from the Museum shops, or have a meal in the Court Restaurant overlooking the historic Reading Room. Electronic noticeboards and What's on leaflets available from the Information Desk let you know what is happening in the Museum's galleries and Clore Education Centre (accessed from the south side of the Great Court).

The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery, purpose-built centre for exhibitions, is located on the mezzanine floor.

Reading Room

Here, for almost 150 years, scholars and revolutionaries, writers, poets and musicians came to read and study. All visitors are now welcome to view the room's magnificent architecture and to spend time finding out more about the Museum's collections.

The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Centre houses the Paul Hamlyn library, a reference library dealing with all aspects of the Museum's collections.

From terminals in the Reading Room visitors can also access images and information on around 5,000 of the Museum's objects using COMPASS, the Museum's interactive multimedia system.

Enlightenment Gallery

'Enlightenment: Discovering the World in the 18th Century' is a new permanent exhibition. This grand gallery is now the home of thousands of objects arranged to show how people understood their world in the Age of Enlightenment. It provides an introduction to the Museum and its collections.

Wellcome Trust Gallery

This major new exhibition, 'Living and dying', explores the ways in which people around the world seek well-being in the face of illness and suffering. The exhibits include rarely-seen and remarkable material from the Americas, Asia and the Pacific and a specially-commissioned art installation by Pharmacopoeia.

Clore Education Centre

Two large auditoria and five seminar rooms offer a programme of lectures, films and videos, as well as providing a venue for academic conferences, concerts, study days, courses, workshops and cultural performances. The Ford Centre for Young Visitors provides special lunchrooms, cloakrooms and other facilities for school groups, and these facilities can be used by families at weekends and during school holidays.

The Collections

There are daily tours to most of the following areas, and daily handling sessions are available in selected Museum galleries.

Africa, Oceania and the Americas

These galleries represent the cultures of peoples in three major regions, past and present. Currently on display are Africa (including Benin) (25), North America (26) g and Mexico (including the Aztecs) (27). Living and Dying (24) looks at the globally diverse strategies people use to deal with the challenges of life.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26