British Museum

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This ancient Egyptian stela, known as a cippus, was believed to be a magical artefact. It’s inscribed with spells and a ...
24/06/2026

This ancient Egyptian stela, known as a cippus, was believed to be a magical artefact. It’s inscribed with spells and a depiction of the god Horus triumphing over the dangers of the natural world. The ancient Egyptians thought that by reciting the spells they would be protected against wild animals such as lions and crocodiles.

It has travelled to Swansea as part of the British Museum Spotlight Loan ‘Ancient Egypt: magic and medicine’ display at The Egypt Centre at Swansea University. It has also travelled to two local primary schools for a day as part of a collaborative project, British Museum in your Classroom (BMIYC), to introduce Swansea schoolchildren to ancient Egyptian life.

The display at The Egypt Centre also features work produced by schoolchildren from Terrace Road Primary School and St Helen’s Primary School, and is on until 20 September 2026.

This spotlight loan is part of the BMIYC programme and was developed in partnership with The Egypt Centre. BMIYC works with schoolchildren and teachers, bringing British Museum objects directly into schools.

Supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.
Static photos by Adrian White.

Supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.
📸Photos 2-6 thanks to Adrian White Photography

We are delighted to launch Bayeux Around Britain, supported by WorldQuant, a nationwide programme that will bring the st...
23/06/2026

We are delighted to launch Bayeux Around Britain, supported by WorldQuant, a nationwide programme that will bring the story of the Bayeux Tapestry to audiences and schoolchildren across the UK through partner organisations, digital resources and curriculum-linked educational activities.

As part of the programme, schools have access to digital learning resources as well as a live broadcast designed for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 pupils unable to visit the exhibition in person. The interactive broadcast on 14 October will become the largest classroom in the country with direct access to experts and a live question-and-answer session.

To help widen access, every schoolchild visiting the Bayeux Tapestry Presented by IgorTulchinsky on an organised school trip will receive a free packed lunch, supported by Benugo, ensuring more young people can take part in this unique learning opportunity. Supported by WorldQuant

Today we enter cancer season! ♋🦀In mythology and astrology, Cancer is associated with a giant crab from Greek mythology....
22/06/2026

Today we enter cancer season! ♋🦀

In mythology and astrology, Cancer is associated with a giant crab from Greek mythology. According to the legend, the goddess Hera sent the crab to distract and attack Heracles while he was battling the multi-headed Lernaean Hydra.

The crab bravely (or foolishly) attempted to help the Hydra by pinching Heracles' foot during the fight. Although Heracles crushed the crab, Hera honoured its loyalty and sacrifice by placing it among the stars as the constellation Cancer, which later became one of the twelve zodiac signs. This myth contributes to Cancer's traditional symbolism of loyalty, devotion, protection, and tenacity, while its association with the water element has also led to interpretations of emotional depth and sensitivity.

Circular medallion blue jasper dip; Cancer – crab, Josiah Wedgewood, 1800

Two drawings, made decades apart by father and son.Jan Breughel the elder was an infant when his father, Pieter Bruegel ...
21/06/2026

Two drawings, made decades apart by father and son.

Jan Breughel the elder was an infant when his father, Pieter Bruegel the elder, died in 1569. He was raised by his maternal grandmother after his father's death.

Jan would have had few if any memories of his father, but he had his drawings. Decades after Pieter’s death, a drawing attributed to Jan revisits a composition first drawn by his father: ‘Woodland scene with bears’. An intimate conversation across time.

Both are displayed side by side in our free exhibition 'Early Netherlandish Drawings' in Room 90 until September.

🐻 Pieter Bruegel the elder, Woodland scene with bears, about 1554. Pen and brown ink over black chalk.
🐻 Attributed to Jan Brueghel the elder, after Pieter Bruegel the elder, about 1600. Pen and brown ink over black chalk.

Looking for a little inspiration? Ancient Greek mythology offers plenty. The nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne...
20/06/2026

Looking for a little inspiration? Ancient Greek mythology offers plenty.

The nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, were believed to inspire creativity, learning, and the arts. Their influence can be traced from ancient Greece to the Renaissance and even into modern culture.

The sisters were linked to Hippocrene, a spring on Mount Helicon said to have burst forth when the winged horse Pegasus struck the ground with his hoof. The spring became a lasting symbol of poetic inspiration and creative imagination.

Press and hold the dots to see who will inspire you today

🪶Calliope – Muse of epic poetry

🏛️Clio – Muse of history

❤️Erato – Muse of love poetry

🪉Euterpe – Muse of music

🎭Melpomene – Muse of tragedy

🙏Polyhymnia – Muse of hymns and sacred poetry

🩰 Terpsichore – Muse of dance

😂Thalia – Muse of comedy

🔭 Urania – Muse of astronomy.


Series, Nine Muses, Hendrik Goltzius

Today is Juneteenth, an annual American celebration that honours the day when Black slaves were legally freed in the Uni...
19/06/2026

Today is Juneteenth, an annual American celebration that honours the day when Black slaves were legally freed in the United States. On June 19, 1865, Union troops freed enslaved African Americans in Galveston Bay and across Texas some two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

The late Emma Amos, African American painter and printmaker, created this work, ‘Land of the Free’, in 1992. It is a map representing the United States of America, covered with historic photographic images in purple, red, green, teal, sepia and black and white, showing various people (including a portrait of the artist), horses and carts, and landscapes, plus the names of African and Native American tribes and American place names. The sea is represented in blue with visible brush strokes and the visible Caribbean islands with a collaged patterned fabric.

🇺🇸 Emma Amos (1937-2020), ‘Land of the Free’ 3/3. Colour monoprint and photo laser transfer on paper with African fabric collage, USA, 1992.

The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 ended the blanket criminalisation of sexual relationships between men in England and Wal...
16/06/2026

The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 ended the blanket criminalisation of sexual relationships between men in England and Wales. For many gay and bisexual men, it marked a profound shift, signalling that the law was beginning to recognise their lives and relationships.

Yet the reform applied only to men over 21, imposed strict conditions about privacy, applied only to England and Wales and did not prevent further prosecutions. Many people continued to face discrimination, exclusion, and unequal treatment under the law.

Le****ns, whose relationships had never been criminalised, remained largely absent from debates surrounding the Act.

This loving cup, of blue and white jasperware, was created by Deborah Sim to mark the 50th anniversary of the Act in 2017. It reflects the Act as a landmark moment in LGBTQ+ history.

And it invites us to consider how progress does not arrive in a single, settled moment, but unfolds in waves of change.

This Pride Month, we’re dedicating to the Warren Cup. The Warren Cup is one of the most famous LGBTQ-related objects i...
14/06/2026

This Pride Month, we’re dedicating to the Warren Cup.

The Warren Cup is one of the most famous LGBTQ-related objects in the collection.

Named for its first owner in modern times, the art-lover and collector Edward Perry Warren (1860–1928), and made around AD 10, this silver drinking cup is decorated with two scenes of male lovers. It couldn’t be displayed publicly for most of the 20th century, as homosexuality was illegal in England and Wales until July 1967.

However, explicit sexual images were not unusual in the Roman world, and objects like this one remind us that the way societies view sexuality can differ widely.

The Warren Cup was acquired by the Museum in 1999 and, apart from short periods of time when it has been loaned to other institutions, has been on display ever since.

You can see the cup in Room 70 of the Museum, and it is part of our ‘Desire, love, identity’ tours and trails in the Museum, examining objects with LGBTQ connections.

🏆 The Warren Cup. Levant, Chased silver, c.10 AD.

‘As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them... and ...
10/06/2026

‘As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them... and when the Rain has wet the Kite and Twine, so that it can conduct the Electric Fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the Key on the Approach of your Knuckle... and from Electric Fire thus obtain’d, Spirits may be kindled, and all the other Electric Experiments be perform’d... thereby the sameness of the Electric Matter with that of Lightning compleatly demonstrated.’ - Benjamin Franklin, October 1752

Around this day in 1752, Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, conducted his famous experiment. He flew a kite in a storm, collecting a charge in a Leyden jar, when it was struck by lightning, thus proving that lightning was a form of electricity.

🪁 Illustration of Carl Rohl Smith's Statue of Benjamin Franklin for Electricity Building. Wood engraving on paper, USA, c. 1890s.

On this day in 1949, George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nighteen Eighty-Four was first published. More than 75 years ...
08/06/2026

On this day in 1949, George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nighteen Eighty-Four was first published.

More than 75 years later, its warnings about surveillance, censorship, authoritarianism and control remain as relevant as ever.

Eleven years earlier, before war had broken out, he had signed in to the British Museum’s Reading Room under his real name, Eric Arthur Blair. He submitted his application for admission citing research in modern history as his subject of reading.

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