About

The British museum can be overwhelming if you do not already have an idea of what you want to see.

I live a block away from the British Museum and visit regularly. It occurred to me that many of my favorite objects were being overlooked by visitors who were either wandering aimlessly or were being guided to a few of the objects that appear in every guide such as the Rosetta Stone or the Parthenon galleries.

Over the course of about 5 months, I have put together an entry here for each of my favorite objects. They tend toward the unusual and the overlooked.

Feel free to use this Guide in conjunction with other guides as well to determine what it is you want to see. The British Museum currently has guides available which show you their History of the World in 100 Objects. These objects were I believe, chosen as a representative timeline of human artifacts. I do not have any such pedagogical instincts. Each object I have chosen is chosen for its instrinsic interestingness. There are only about 4 or 5 objects that appear in both lists and I have marked them with the tag AHOW.

Any other comments, please leave them below.