英国社会与文学.docVIP

2009-2010学年 英国社会与文学 期末试卷 班级：0710班 姓名：高磊 Comparison of museums between China and Britain Museum is an important part of the country’s culture. If we want to know a country well, we need to visit its museums. So today I want to make a comparison of the museums between China and Britain. Let’s take The British Museum and The National Museum of China. I would like to compare them from three perspectives---the history, the collection and the building. History: The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1887. Some objects in the collection, most notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are the objects of intense controversy and calls for restitution to their countries of origin. Until 1997, when the British Library (previously centre on the Round Reading Room) moved to a new site, the British Museum was unique in that it housed both a national museum of antiquities and a national library in the same building. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all other national museums in the United Kingdom it charges no admission fee.[4] Since 2002 the director of the museum has been Neil MacGregor. The National Museum of China was re-organized in 2003 out of two separate museums that already occupied the building: the Museum of the Chinese Revolution in the northern wing and the National Museum of Chinese History in the southern wing. The Museum of the Chinese Revolution had been open since 1959 and had its origins in the Office of the National Museum of the Revolution, founded in 1950. The Natio