Something About the British Museum

Celebrating centuries of stuff

Birthday greetings I suppose are due for the British Museum. While it was established in 1753, based on the collections of the Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane, its first exhibition galleries and reading room opened on January 15, 1759.

What's your favorite items on display? Egyptian statues and Assyrian winged bulls? Rows of Egyptian mummies? Clocks? Irving Finkel? How about ushabti or the Lewis Chessmen, the latter of which Professor Childermass, Johnny, and Fergie found and returned in The Chessmen of Doom (1989)?

It does prompt me to wonder how many items Bellairs mentioned offhandedly over the years were actually inspired by something in the museum. Murgatroyd Freel notwithstanding. 

And if you think the name Sir Hans Sloane sounds familiar then it sound as he's the namesake of Sloane Square. But that's a different Johnny Dixon adventure to deal with.