The British Museum

It was founded in 1753 with the collection of physician Hans Sloane and opened in 1759 as the world's first public national museum. The Great Court, the central courtyard roofed in glass by Norman Foster in 2000, surrounds the old round Reading Room.

Its eight million objects include the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, Egyptian mummies, the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo treasure and the Lewis Chessmen. Its colonial origins are still debated, especially the marbles Greece wants returned.