> Also, The British Museum is one of the greatest places on earth.

I second that opinion, but suggest that the museum's deserved popularity - especially with tourists - can often limit enjoyment of the environment, mostly because of queues and crowds.

For those who truly enjoy the BM, as a living, evolving resource and venue to be visited regularly, I'd suggest considering membership. It's £69 a year, and grants free access to otherwise paid exhibitions/events. It also grants attendance to members-only events outside usual museum hours. There's something really special about wandering the galleries during advent, with no crowds, and listening to live music (quartets, groups of singers etc) while drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies. Attending lectures, too, in which archaelologists and others discuss their digs and finds, is tremendously engaging. There's also a members' room in which to rest up.

For those with children, Young Friends membership for eight- to 15-year-olds is worth considering; I've paid for quite a few kids, and renewed year after year because they got so much out of the activities/experiences. The museum hosts Young Friends sleep-overs - some in the Egyptian section with the mummies.

Membership info: https://www.britishmuseum.org/membership

Young Friends: https://www.britishmuseum.org/membership/young-friends

> the museum's deserved popularity - especially with tourists - can often limit enjoyment of the environment

I'm always on vacation when in London so I try to go early morning on a weekday.

> I'd suggest considering membership. It's £69 a year, and grants free access to otherwise paid exhibitions/events.

I get the membership every time, even though I only go every couple of years. Sometimes it gets me into something but it's good to support the place.

> good to support the place

British people's taxes support the place. Giving them extra money is a bit like throwing some extra cash to help support the police whenever they stop you...

I support the police via donations. I doubt it's all that unusual.

It is unusual. You’re giving donations to a fully state funded entity who get to keep what they seize and have one of the strongest unions in the US? Seems like an absolute waste of money.

I donate to the state police retirement fund occasionally, and I donate to the local shop with a sheriff, which I'm actually intending to go to the kids, but of course the sheriff is all about it and the one soliciting donations.

My business actually started the shop-with-a-sheriff in this county, although the new sheriff took it over after a couple of years.

I waste plenty of money, but I don't particularly feel like I'm wasting it here. You should meet the kids, and the deputies.

I know people who donate to the police retirement fund or whatever, in order to get the bumper sticker that proclaims that to any cop who pulls them over.

You know they already get probably 70% of your cities budget, right?

You can view this data online and it is normally the schools that take the majority of the budget, and they still don't have enough money either. I have no idea where they live but it is possible their police are in need of donations, unlike perhaps LAPD/NYPD.

Since you mentioned it, I looked it up.

The sheriff dept I donate to gets about 30% of the county budget.

The city police get just over 10% of the city budget.

I'm not British. Also, why do you care where I put my money?

It is worth noting that Egypt has asked for the Rosetta stone back to be displayed in a museum there and the British have refused.

I always find these conversations strange. The stone was erected by a long dead Greek Pharaoh of an ancient civilization that happened to be located on what is now Egypt. The stone was found in 1798 by the French and taken by the British as a spoil of war and, eventually, found it's way to the British Museum.

Who has claim? The Greeks? It was ruled by a Greek at the time. The Romans who ruled later? The French? The British? The pre-revolution Egyptians? The post coup Egyptians?

Everyone involved is long dead. It's not like WWII looting where the grand child of the former owner wants their property back.

At some point this is all the ancient history of us all.

Also technically they stole it from the French

Hmmm... so, thieves who steal from other thieves may view their actions as less reprehensible than thieves who steal from the original owners?

European colonialism was just an example of a practice that dates back to prehistory, and can even be seen in the behavior of our chimpanzee cousins - 'raiding' is the word for it.

Sorry, I didn't mean to justify it. Just to point out that it wasn't only the British engaging in this behavior. Also I find it a pretty funny historical fact, large part of the British Museum's Egypt collection actually comes from French raids.

the sands of Egypt are soaked in blood of many nations, peoples and the rest

> The British Museum is one of the greatest places on earth.

Where treasures looted from other cultures are displayed ?

It’s not that simple, a lot of places in the world don’t have the means to preserve archeological artifacts. Also past a certain date I’m of the opinion it’s a shared human history (because the more we go back the more we share ancestors) that modern nations have no rights to claim exclusivity on, here for example the culture that produced the Rosetta Stone doesn’t exist anymore. Sure geographically it would make more sense, but as long as anyone can have access to it and it’s well preserved I’m fine with it.

I agree somewhat. Also, it's not always clear who the most legitimate heirs are in these cases. For example, why the Egyptian government and not, say, the Coptic Church? I don't have a source but I seem to recall reading once that Copts are genetically more similar to Ancient Egyptians than other modern Egyptian, who are predominantly of Arab descent.

I would rather go to the places these antiquities were from and visit in a museum there.

Another thing worth pointing out, the British Museum was founded with the objective of proving events written in the bible were based on historical events. Let's air all this dirty laundry while we are at it.

That's fascinating.

Maybe some day the Creation Museum in Kentucky (link omitted) will have the same longevity and benefits of colonial resource extraction.

I dunno—you set out to prove something about some battle recorded in the Bible, or whatever, you're gonna end up uncovering some real history (maybe even the kind you wanted!) probably, so there's a substantial connection to reality to drive the overall process, even if there's strong bias in the mission. The evolution (har, har) of that into something like a secular museum has a clear path to follow.

You set out to prove the Earth was made in 6 days a few thousand years ago, you're... likely not gonna be coming up with much that's connected to reality, even by accident.

Though it is funny to imagine.

I've never seen that particular claim about the museum - it was set up to hold Sloane's collection alongside the Cottonian and Harleian libraries. Where is it from? Is this a misremembering of the tale about the discovery of the flood tablet?

Not that I disagree with the general sentiment, but I'd be surprised if a National Museum of any country didn't have looted treasures. I'm not sure why the British are always singled out for this, and other countries conveniently ignored.

Other countries are not ignored, it's just that their looting pales in comparison and British culture gets talked about more by virtue of being in English.

CF : the next in line offender, our French friends in the Louvre.

Where the Rosetta stone would be if the British hadn't stolen it after the battle of Trafalgar.

Oh. As a French I did not know that. Those sneaky little thieves. Stilling our hardly acquired loot.

Typical.

Yes, exactly, imagine how much harder it'd be to see all that awesome stuff in one place otherwise.

By that same token it would be ok if I stole a bunch of jewelry from a bunch of different places, as long as I wear it all together in an awesome ensemble for all to see.

No. But in 2200 years you and your jewellery collection will fair game for which ever archaeologist digs you up.

Not if the British are still around.

Sure. But large scale Pillage like the sack of the summer palace in Bejing are just too in-excusable .

The summer palace WAS a place to see those stolen things already.

I had easy access to the display in 1983. Now it's usually surrounded by visitors 6-deep, very difficult to get near.

You are not in traffic, you are traffic

Another cool ancient propaganda piece/stone inscription is the Cyrus Cylinder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Cylinder