National
Loans, touring shows and shared expertise with more than 250 cultural organisations across the UK, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which records finds made by the public in England and Wales.
You are in the Research section
The working
museum
Behind the galleries: eight collection departments, conservation and scientific laboratories, study rooms open by appointment, and partnerships across the UK and the world.
Conservation and science
Reading objects with instruments
X-ray fluorescence, CT scanning, isotope analysis and microscopy answer questions the eye cannot: where a metal was mined, whether a pigment is original, what a mummy's bones record about a life. The laboratories publish their findings and train conservators from partner museums.
Projects
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The question
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How it is done
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What has come of it
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Departments
Who looks after what
Eight collection departments, each with curators, a study room and a publishing programme. Enquiries about an object go to the department that holds it.
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Resources
Come and use it
Most of the collection is not on display, and most of it can be seen. Study rooms give access to objects in store, with a curator present; the library and archive hold the Museum's own paper record since 1753.
Study rooms
Prints and Drawings, Coins and Medals, and departmental rooms, by appointment.
Library and archive
Trustees' minutes, excavation notebooks, correspondence and object registers.
Collection online
Four million records, most with images free for non-commercial reuse.
Publications
Research papers, catalogues raisonnés and the online research repository.
International
Joint fieldwork, training programmes for museum staff and archaeologists, and long-term loans to partner museums. Objects travel out of Bloomsbury every week of the year.
Learning
Free school visits and taught sessions, community projects, adult courses and studentships held jointly with universities. Doctoral students work inside the departments.