Short Thoughts on British Museum
The British Museum is famous for having some iconic pieces of history. It houses an Easter Island head, the Rosetta Stone, pieces of the Parthenon, multiple mummies, and the best part of it all - is that the museum is free to visit.
The British Museum offers an incredible opportunity for people around the world to visit multiple cultures in one place. Most people would probably visit London before Easter Island, so it allows those to see parts of the world you wouldn’t typically be able to see and allows greater access and also encourages museums to take care of historical artifacts.
The negative side of the British Museum though is that most items are stolen. When I visited Athens, we went to the Parthenon museum, and our guide mentioned how Greece is re-building the Parthenon. Archeologists from the British Museum visited the Parthenon, broke off the front pieces of some of the sculptures, now house them in the British Museum, and refuse to give them back to the Greek government to use for the rebuilding.
The British Museum does have a page of contested items, but it says they are open to loaning the parthenon sculptures… not returning.
There are also visible human remains, which made me uncomfortable both ethically and physically. There were people taking selfies with a gravesite which made me VERY uncomfortable.
Overall, I think the British Museum could be great! It certainly has the history and the artifacts, however, in present time, I have a moral quandary against them - I love the accessibility of being able to see such amazing artifacts, however I obviously am against stealing such objects and refusing to return them and the brazen display of human remains.
If you’ve been to the British Museum, what are your thoughts?