January 15, London The British Museum said 250 years from the date of opening. This museum, along with the French Louvre Museum, is one of the world's greatest collections of monuments of culture. To honor the anniversary of the Museum director Neil McGregor (Neil MacGregor) gave a lecture, which spoke of the role of museums in shaping public consciousness. In his view, people who learn at the museum from different cultures, learn to look at things from different angles.

McGregor gave the example of the current conflict between Israel and Palestine. He described the stored in the British Museum of ancient artifacts, which will allow the study to understand the essence of what is actually happening. «We have documents that need to know the people who are not Jews, in order to understand how they [the Jews. - Ed. ] see the world. The exhibition devoted to Babylon, cuneiform tablets on display, which tells of the invasion Babylonians in Jerusalem [in 597 BC. - Ed. ], the destruction of the first temple and the forced relocation of people ... And in a recent exhibition on the reign of Adriana, we have included most of the earliest known recordings, dating back to 139 a year in which the Romans in Judea literally erased from the map [renaming the province of Syria-Palestine. - Ed .]. It seems to me that these events need to remember thinking that is happening now ».

Look at the situation on the other hand the visitors will help the work of Palestinian artist Laila Shavy (Laila Shawa), recently exhibited in the British Museum. The main theme of her works - the plight of children living in Gaza.

In addition, the exhibition «Babel», you can see the cylinder of Cyrus II the Great (ca. 539 BC), who put an end to violence Babylonians over Jerusalem, Jews were allowed to return home and announced his desire to help them rebuild the temple. Thanks Kiru was possible peaceful coexistence of Jews and non-Jews. According to Neil McGregor, the cylinder is a symbol that even the conflict of such magnitude can be resolved.

Of course, using the artifacts exhibited in the museum, can not manipulate the public consciousness and dictate people what to think, but by studying these items, people can come to understand that the problems of today's world - a part of long historical processes .

British Museum - one of the most beautiful child of the Enlightenment. His extensive collection has started with 71 thousand objects that are assembled, Sir Hans Sloan (Hans Sloane). This famous British doctor that invented milk chocolate. Before his death, he also agreed to give the British nation and its library «cabinet of rarities» - on condition that parliament would pay him 20 thousand pounds for a dowry of his daughter.

British Museum - one of the most popular museums in the world. Once it attracted no more than 5 thousand visitors a year, and now look at the treasures of this museum each year come to about six million people. Like other public museums of Great Britain, the British Museum is taking the money only for the entrance to the exhibition, a permanent exhibition can be inspected free of charge.

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Source: britishmuseum.org , guardian.co.uk , artinvestment.ru