The world's oldest national public museum the British Museum will display part of its collection in China for the first time this month.

 

Exhibits covering a vast range of time from two million years ago to the present can be viewed at Capital Museum of Beijing from March 18.

 

A total of 272 priceless articles, collected from the world's five continents by the museum since it was founded in 1753, will be on show at a 1,400 square-meter exhibition hall in the newly-built museum until June 5, said Director of the museum Guo Xiaoling.

 

"Each of the 272 items is a masterpiece from the British Museum's vast collections and together they demonstrate the long history of human civilization worldwide," said Guo.

 

Including sculptures, paintings, jewelry, porcelain, and stone artefacts, the treasures on show are divided into 13 parts based on their origins and dates, such as ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, Europe in the Middle Ages, and modern art.

 

Several renowned items will be on display at the coming exhibition "Treasures of the World's Cultures the British Museum after 250 years."

 

"The exhibition will include the Rosetta Stone from Egypt, which is a slab dating back to around 200 BC.

 

"With a text written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek, it enabled the crucial breakthrough in deciphering Egyptian writing," Guo said

 

"And a stone chopping tool from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, which is the oldest object in the British Museum, will also travel to China and join the exhibition," said Guo with excitement.

 

"The item was made nearly two million years ago and is so far the first known technological invention by human beings."

 

World-famous sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome, and paintings from Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello Sanzio and Rembrandt Van Rijn, will also be on display, Guo added.

 

"This is the first cooperation between our museum and the British Museum, and I hope we will have more exchanges in the future," Guo said.

 

(China Daily March 3, 2006)