Fast visit to British Museum?

Get a map and scout out most efficient route to Rosetta Stone (Egypt), Assyrian palace reliefs, Parthenon marbles (Greece), Standard of Ur (Mesopotamia), and Mildenhall treasure and Portland vase (Roman Britain) to see the most world famous things. Sutton Hoo treasures and Lewis chessmen would be on this list but I understand they are being lent to France in exchange for Bayeux Tapestry.

The museum is large and it is not difficult (from personal experience) to get turned around,
but keep a map and your wits handy and you should be able to see everything Slate has
noted. If I recall correctly, the mummies, which Slate did not mention, are on the second
floor?

Check the London Walks site’s Friday night
indoor tour coincides with your travel dates.

www.walks.com

Might also find other walks that might interest you.

Great city. Enjoy it!

The museum has various tours they offer on their website. For example “Around the world in 90 minutes tour” which covers a range of objects or other more specialized tours. I did once the Egyptian tour and another time the Roman Britain tour. I think they call these now “eye-opener tours”

We took the London walks British museum tour. I don’t know if you can get it to sync with your other reservation, but I thought it was very worthwhile. We spent about 2.5 hours altogether in the museum (including some wandering around after).

It would save you having to plot it all out and the information given enriches your experience.

We used the Rick Steves audioguide for the British Museum that’s on his Audio App.
It takes you some highlights, it’s free, and without it (or some other guidance) I think we would have been overwhelmed.

The museum has free maps (donations accepted) that have a "top 10" objects or something like that. Between the Bayeux Tapestry (40 mins), and that trail, along with a little bit of side-tracking, I think it will be in your time-frame.

In November we visited the Sutton Hoo and Europe area which was less crowded than some areas, and very interesting.

Thank you so much for suggestions!

I appreciate all of you and everyone on this forum. I get the honest answers but written with sensitivity.

I do need to stay off Instagram and those crazy lists of "musts sees." Okay, the vintage store suggestions are tempting. LOL!

Slate listed the "must sees" and I think they really are must sees. British Museum would be my 3rd most important site in London, after Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London.

Slate listed the "must sees" and I think they really are must sees. British Museum would be my 3rd most important site in London, after Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. When the sun never set on the British Empire, they were able to pilfer and protect (let's be honest and admit both) a lot of great stuff.

Rick Steves’ guidebook (and, presumably his audiotour, too) describes a quickie route, starting with the Egypt and Assyria displays that Slate mentions. Getting though some of this might be affected by how crowded those parts are - our last time, clusters of large private tour groups made it very hard to get around and see particular things. Mummies are on the second floor, but the best mummy/Egyptian tomb viewing in London is actually at the free museum a few blocks north, the University College London (UCL) Petrie Museum. Petrie was one of the chief archeologists exploring Egypt in the 1920’s.

Another British Museum “must see,” at least for me, is the Elgin Marbles, the original carved marble figures from the Parthenon in Greece. You can get close-up looks at these stunning masterpieces!

As for less-crowded parts of the British Museum (more to see in less time?), it took us years before we made it to the Asia exhibits, with Ming vases and other ceramics, statues, and more jade than you’ve ever seen in your life.

There’s also a small room “covering” North America, mostly with totem poles and other artifacts from the Pacific Northwest.

I didn't visit the British Museum until my 4th of 6 visits to London...other places were more important to me, so I did my research and plotted out what I wanted to see and probably spent about 2.5 hrs there. Egyptian antiquities were not important so it was easy to avoid that entirely and focus on Europe and the Sutton Hoo sections.

I did one of the Egyptian tours the museum offers before regular opening hours. The guide was very informative and we had the Rosetta Stone all to ourselves. He also took us up to see the mummy “Ginger” before the crowds hit. Once the doors officially opened and I walked back down by the Rosetta Stone, you could barely get anywhere close to it.

I really enjoyed being there will only a small group. I definitely recommend going on one the pre-opening tours.