Explore the British Museum’s Massive Collection Online

Being stuck inside is not the problem. The problem is never leaving our house. We’d love being quarantined inside one of the world’s greatest museums. But while we don’t expect to be jet setting anywhere anytime soon, we can still explore one of the best and biggest collections on the planet. The British Museum has completely revamped it’s virtual offering. You can now get up-close, detailed looks at millions of items and images spanning two million years of history.

The British Museum has announced it has “completely redeveloped” its massive digital collection to be more intuitive for users. And it did so ahead of schedule to help a world in quarantine. You can now access 4.5 million objects and 1.9 million images on the site. It also offers suggestions as you search through the museum’s mammoth catalogue.

Nothing can replace the experience of seeing a great work of art or historical item in person, but the new online system offers a chance to inspect and appreciate the items in a way you might not be able to if you were physically there. It provides an opportunity to examine these priceless works of art in a manner not available to museum visitors. The high definition images “can be enlarged and examined in detail.” You can also scan over them. It’s away to appreciate aspects that might be hard—or even impossible—to see while at the museum.

Virtual visitors have the option to look at individual items. That includes items “from some of the earliest objects created by humankind to works by contemporary artists.” You can also take a digital tour through curated collections. The website has exhibits for the Americas, Animals, China, Death and Memory, Africa, and Egypt. And of course the British Museum has a massive collection of items from Ancient Greece…

So while we wish we were “stuck” inside the British Museum, this is still a great way to escape our own homes during quarantine. We don’t own any original Raphaels.

Featured Image: British Museum