29 things you (probably) didn't know about the British Museum (2024)

8. The Museum has been a popular film set

With 15 films to its name, the British Museum has a recognisable role in the movie world. The cameras first arrived in 1921 for The Wakefield Cause, and were here again in 1973 for Hollywood classic, Day of the Jackal. In 1929, Alfred Hitchco*ck's Blackmail was shot in the Museum, becoming one of the first movies to feature the Schüfftan process – a special effect that uses mirrors to make it appear that the actors are on a vast set. You can see it in action in the clip below.

Younger readers might remember its appearance in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Sian Toogood was broadcast manager on the film: 'The limitations of what is possible within the British Museum meant that Fox only filmed here for three nights, from the moment the gates closed to the public to 07.00 the next day. They had 200 crew on site, a 40-tonne crane, helium balloon lights so large they couldn't fit through the front door when inflated, and a myriad of other lights, cameras and stands. A visual effects crew also 3D-scanned key spaces and dozens of objects to populate the film. Then there were the horses (outside) and the monkeys (inside).' Each year around 50 film crews come to film everything from documentaries to music videos, so Night at the Museum won't be the last time we see the Museum on the silver screen.

9. The British Museum is the largest indoor space on Google Street View

In November 2015 the Museum broke a modern record. Mapped out and presented digitally, the Museum became the largest indoor space on Google Street View. You can explore it at your leisure from the comfort of your own home (or the discomfort of the bus, or anywhere really), plus there are stories of thousands of highlight objects at the Google Cultural Institute.

10. The railings aren't black, they're...

...any guesses? They're actually painted a colour called 'invisible green', used on many historic railings throughout London.

11. The Museum once had a 'Cabinet of Obscene Objects'

Others have called it the British Museum's 'p*rn room', but the title it was originally given is a little more salubrious: the Secretum. Opened in 1865, following the publication of the Obscene Publications Act (1857), the Secretum contained around 200 objects, labelled (possibly with the curator's tongue firmly in cheek?) as 'abominable monuments to human licentiousness'. Anyone who wanted to get in for an afternoon of fun and games serious study required a special permit. Strictly for gentlemen only, one needed to demonstrate 'mature years and sound morals' in order to qualify. Details on how this was decided have not been recorded... The obvious questions for many people reading this will be, 'where is it now and how do I apply for a permit?' Alas, the Secretum is no more, but don't despair, as the objects are now dispersed throughout the Museum. As well as many of them being proudly on display today, you can still view some of the Secretum's contents in the most obvious place: the internet. We don't even check if you're of mature years and sound morals anymore, so anyone can check out things like this satyr and goat, this Indian temple frieze carved with human figures engaged in a variety of sexual acts or this lamp featuring a naked woman sitting on a huge human phallus on the back of a crocodile. As you do.

12. A hundred years ago you had to be a cross between Wikipedia and Google to work here

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Back in 1912, staff at the British Museum had to sit a written entrance exam, as staff were part of the Civil Service. However, if you wanted to work in, say, Prints and Drawings, you had to answer additional questions like 'What was the relationship between the art of the goldsmith and that of the engraver, in Germany, during the 16th century?' and 'What do you know of the Iconography of Anthony Van Dyck?' To work in Coins and Medals, tasks included 'Give a brief account, with periods and types, of the coins of one of the following cities:– Nola, Poseidonia, Terina' and 'Trace in the coinage of South Italy the influence exerted by either the kings of Epirus or Hannibal.' We haven't asked the current curators if they can answer these, but they'd probably give it a good go. Or say 'not my period'...

13. Banksy had an unofficial exhibit at the Museum

In May 2005, world-famous street artist Banksy snuck a rock depicting a caveman with a shopping trolley into the British Museum. It stayed there for two days before anyone noticed it. He even added his own sign, saying the cave painting showed, 'early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds'. It has since disappeared, and nobody's sure where it is today!

14. A British Museum snail holds the record for longest suspended animation

Yep, you read that correctly. Of all the things in the British Museum that could come back to life, the world record for the longest period spent 'dead' before reanimation goes to a humble snail. Donated in 1846 (so when the natural history collection was still in Bloomsbury), the snail belonged to a collection put together in Egypt and Greece. They were stuck onto cardboard for display, and remained there for four years until the zoologist William Baird noticed that one of them had started producing a strange mucus-like membrane in an apparent attempt to stop itself drying out. The snail was quickly rescued from its papery captivity and rehoused with a living partner, where it lived until its (actual) death in 1852.

15. Possibly the world's oldest customer complaint is on display

This Mesopotamian tablet was written by a chap called Nanni nearly 4,000 years ago, clearly upset with the customer service he received from his copper merchant, Ea-Nasir. He writes:

When you came, you said to me as follows: 'I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.' You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots that were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: 'If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!' What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt... Take cognisance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.

It's written in cuneiform, a type of writing that means 'wedge-shaped' as it was created by impressing a stylus into clay, and then firing it so it hardened. It required a bit more effort than an angry comment on a blog...

16. The Museum is still acquiring

It's easy to assume that museums only house ancient objects, but in fact acquisitions (of ancient and modern objects) continue to be made all the time. A poignant modern acquisition in 2015 was a Lampedusa Cross, donated by an Italian carpenter who made it with pieces of wood from the wreckage of boats used by refugees trying to reach Europe. For something a little older, in December 2016, the Museum acquired a beautiful medieval alabaster of the Virgin and Child, made in the Midlands in the 1360s.

17. The Japanese Galleries house a replica of a traditional tea house...

Twice a month, the Urasenke Foundation hold a Japanese tea ceremony. It's free to watch, so keep an eye out for timings if you want to experience something a bit unusual in the centre of London.

18. ...and the Korea Gallery contains a full-size replica of a scholar's study, known as a sarangbang.

The reconstruction of a traditional Korean scholar’s study was built by contemporary Korean master craftsmen in the summer of 2000. It displays traditional Korean architecture. Please try not to set off the alarm when you look at it!

19. The British Museum is the UK's most popular attraction

With around 6.5million annual visitors, the British Museum is the UK's most visited attraction, more popular than the Tate, the National Gallery and even Blackpool Pleasure Beach!

20. The Museum loans more objects than any other institution in the world

As a museum of the world, for the world, it's vitally important that the objects in the collection are shared with as many people as possible. In 2015/16 over 5,000 objects were sent across the globe on loan, making us the most sharing museum on the planet.

21. The most searched-for things on our website are not the opening hours

In fact, they are 'Egypt' (53,000 annual searches), which isn't too surprising given the amount of mummies residing at the British Museum, and 'shunga'. Perhaps this is equally unsurprising as 'shunga' is an explicit and beautifully detailed Japanese erotic art form, and was the subject of a special exhibition in 2014. The 40,000 annual searches for shunga seem to prove that there are plenty of Nipponophiles out there (that's 'lovers of Japan or Japanese culture', for those of you snigg*ring at the back).

22. The Museum's pediment depicts 'the Progress of Civilisation'

The triangular thing over the columns of the Main entrance is an architectural feature known as a pediment. It shows the development of 'mankind' in eight stages – quite an old-fashioned idea now, but then it was designed and built in the 1850s. As you look at it, the left hand side shows the creation of man as he emerges from a rock as an ignorant being. He meets the next character, the Angel of Enlightenment who is holding the Lamp of Knowledge. From the lamp, man learns basic skills such as cultivating land and taming animals.

The next step in the Progress of Civilisation is for man to expand his knowledge and understanding. The following eight figures represent the subjects he must learn to do this. From left to right they are: architecture and sculpture, painting and science, geometry and drama, and music and poetry. The final human figure, on the right, represents 'educated man'. Having expanded his knowledge, man can now dominate the world around him.

The original pediment had a Wedgwood blue background and the statues were all painted white.

23. The Museum has an extremely rare North Korean collection

In 2001 and 2002 colleagues from the British Museum and the British Library visited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). Jane Portal, then the curator of the Korean collections (and now the Museum's Keeper of Asia) built one of the largest collections of works of art from North Korea in a western museum. On her first trip she collected woodblock prints, ink paintings, oil paintings, posters, calligraphy, ceramics, lacquer and commemorative coins. On her second visit she collected mostly prints and posters. Thanks to this initiative the Museum now has about 80 objects from North Korea.

24. The window cleaning bills aren't small

The Great Court at the British Museum is the largest covered square in Europe, so the roof needs to be pretty big. It ismade up of 3,312 panes of glass, and they are all different because the Reading Room isn't centrally located in the Great Court. A roof this size is no trifling matter – it takes two weeks to do a complete clean.