British Museum [antikvár]

1 M i í fi f/8 Is II 1 I 1 k i Sajíj 1 Turn sharp left immediately inside the Main Entrance, go through the Bookshop, then through the first opening on your right into what is known as the Assyrian Transept. Spare only a quick glancé at those two huge monsters on your left - for we shall be returning to Assyria later - and pass straight into the world of the Pharaohs. Stairs up to 11 West Stairs Ground Floor 8a Ln [U 8b 10 9 H 12 13 14 -EE3- 21 24 25b ¦5. 15 20 ' 16 17 3 [Q 3a é 96 25a 19 Children's shop 26 Main Stairs to upper floors Shop ¦ ¦t 1 27 , Bookshop 28 0 o o o o o o o o o o o o For key to symbols see back cover ¦ÍJ Main Entrance Great Russell Street ÜEgypt ?A: ssyria f~lGreece and Romé N.B. Galleries may be rearranged from time to time, and objects removed on loan or for conservation. 25'| We enter the Egyptian Gallery between two black gránité seated statues of one of the great builders of ancient Egypt, King Amenophis III, who reigned from 1417 to 1379 bc. Justbehind the left heel of the larger one you will see carved the name belzoni. G.B. Belzoni was an extraordinary Italian who, having once earned his living as a strong man at London fairs, was responsible for moving several of the heaviest Egyptian statues (including the giant head of Ramesses II which you will see farther on) from their originál sites to the banks of the Nile, from where they were shipped to London - no mean achievement in the case of objects weighing se ven or eight tons. Behind this statue and to the left we come to one of the few items on the tour which is not a work of art as such: the famous Rosetta Stone, found in 1799 by Napoleon's soldiers in the Nile delta. The inscription on the stone is relatively unremarkable in itself: a fairly run-of-the-mill The Rosetta Stone