With a facade like a great temple, this celebrated treasure house, filled with plunder of incalculable value and beauty from around the globe, occupies a ponderous Greco-Victorian building that makes a suitably grand impression. Inside are some of the greatest relics of humankind: the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo Treasure -- almost everything, it seems, but the Ark of the Covenant. Many sections have been updated, particularly in ethnography, including the impressive Sainsbury African Galleries. The focal point is the Great Court, a brilliant techno-classical design with a vast glass roof that highlights and reveals the museum's most well-kept secret -- an inner courtyard. The revered Reading Room has a blue-and-gold dome, ancient tomes, and computer screens. If you want to navigate the highlights of the almost 100 galleries, join at least one of the free Eyeopener 50-minute tours by museum guides (details at the information desk).

The collection began in 1753 and grew quickly, thanks to enthusiastic kleptomaniacs during the Napoleonic Wars -- most notoriously the seventh earl of Elgin, who acquired the marbles from the Parthenon and Erechtheum in Athens during his term as British ambassador in Constantinople. Here follows a highly edited résumé (in order of encounter) of the British Museum's greatest hits: close to the entrance hall, in Room 4, is the Rosetta Stone, found by French soldiers in 1799, and carved in 196 BC with a decree of Ptolemy V in Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic (a cursive script developed in Egypt), and Greek. This inscription provided the French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion with the key to deciphering hieroglyphics. Maybe the Parthenon Marbles ought to be back in Greece, but since these graceful sculptures are here, make a beeline for them in Room 18, west of the entrance in the Parthenon Galleries. These galleries include the spectacular remains of the Parthenon frieze that girdled the cella of Athena's temple on the Acropolis, carved around 440 BC. Also in the West Wing is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World -- in fragment form -- in Room 21: the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos. The JP Morgan Chase North American Gallery (Room 26) has one of the largest collections of native culture outside the North American continent, going back to the earliest hunters 10,000 years ago.

Upstairs are some of the most popular galleries, especially beloved by children: Rooms 62-63, where the Egyptian mummies live. Nearby are the glittering 4th-century Mildenhall Treasure and the equally splendid 8th-century Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo Treasure (with a magnificent helmet and jewelry). A more prosaic exhibit is that of Pete Marsh, sentimentally named by the archaeologists who unearthed the Lindow Man from a Cheshire peat marsh; poor Pete was ritually slain in the 1st century, probably as a human sacrifice. The Korean Gallery (Room 67) delves into the art and archaeology of the country, including precious porcelain and colorful screens.

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