British Museum

London--The British Museum will create a new and permanent North American Gallery for its unique Native American collections with a $1.6 million grant from the Chase Manhattan Bank, the largest single corporate gift in the 241-history of the museum.In announcing the grant yesterday, Thomas Labrecque, chairman of the American bank, said "the sponsorship continues the bank's tradition of supporting the communities in which we do business and demonstrates our high regard for London and the United Kingdom."

As excitement builds for this week's opening of the Summer Olympics, many an armchair athlete may yearn to hop a transcontinental flight to London. But if a trip overseas isn't in the cards right now, why not discover a taste of jolly olde England closer to home? The nation's capital offers its own brand of proper British attractions, dining and lodging, say experts, suitable for even the most discerning Anglophile. "There are actually quite a few similarities between Europe and Washington, D.C., and one can certainly discover elements of British culture close to home," says Georgia Johnson Kicklighter of American Express Travel.

LONDON - For decades, a visit to the British Museum was the ultimate lost and found experience. Through lengthy corridors and up imposing staircases, more than 6.5 million visitors a year searched for such treasures as the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens and the Rosetta Stone from Egypt. The masterpieces were there, somewhere, in the labyrinth. Now, the brain-twisting maze has been simplified by an architectural stroke of genius, the creation of Europe's largest covered square, a feat that adds light, space and order to one of the world's essential museums.

NOW OR NEVER The Walters Art Musuem's Eternal Egypt, the largest exhibit of Egyptian culture ever to visit Baltimore, will close on Sunday. If you can't fit a trip into your schedule this weekend, then stop by tonight for a last-minute peek at these treasures from the British Museum -- hours are extended until 8 p.m. tonight only. The Walters Art Museum is at 600 N. Charles St. Regular hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays- Sundays. For more information, call 410-547-9000 or visit www.thewalters.

Bluma L. Trell,94, a scholar of ancient Greece, died Tuesday in Englewood, N.J. She was an expert on the Temple of Artemis, built about 550 B.C., and her reconstruction of it is on display at the British Museum.

The old joke is irresistible. How do you move a 3,400-year-old, 5,785-pound red granite lion? Very, very, very carefully, of course. Sculptor-rigger Roger Machin uncrates The Lion of Amenhotep III Reinscribed for Tutankhamun as gently as a new bride unwrapping an heirloom tea set. But with a lot more noise because he's using a power wrench. The Lion of Amenhotep is a star in Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art From The British Museum, which opens Sept. 21 at the Walters Art Museum.

ATHENS, Greece - They convened in Greece last week from more than a dozen countries to search for a way to "right a historic wrong" or, in a contrary view, "to open a Pandora's box of cultural nationalism." The occasion was the first international conference on "The Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles." The participants represented more than a dozen countries - all those of Western Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada, Israel, India, Japan and, of course, Greece. The bare facts of the issue are these: In 1801, Thomas Bruce, seventh earl of Elgin, became ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (which then controlled Greece)

The British Museum will create a permanent North American Gallery for its unique Native American collections with a $1.6 million grant from the Chase Manhattan Bank, the largest single corporate gift in the 241-history of the museum.In announcing the grant yesterday, Thomas Labrecque, chairman of the American bank, said "the sponsorship continues the bank's tradition of supporting the communities in which we do business and demonstrates our high regard for London and the United Kingdom.""Nothing could be happier for us than to announce this munificent gift," said Claus Moser, head of the museum's development trust.

ATHENS, Greece - In 1801, Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin and British ambassador to Constantinople, hit upon what he considered a splendid idea. The ancient Greek temple of the Parthenon - among the most famous buildings in the world - was decorated with a series of 17 marble figures and a 525-foot-long frieze depicting the ancient Greek gods and heroes. They didn't seem to be doing anybody any good at the 2,500-year-old edifice atop the Acropolis. So why not hammer them off and transport them to a place where they would be better appreciated - that is, England's green and pleasant land?

NOW OR NEVER The Walters Art Musuem's Eternal Egypt, the largest exhibit of Egyptian culture ever to visit Baltimore, will close on Sunday. If you can't fit a trip into your schedule this weekend, then stop by tonight for a last-minute peek at these treasures from the British Museum -- hours are extended until 8 p.m. tonight only. The Walters Art Museum is at 600 N. Charles St. Regular hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays- Sundays. For more information, call 410-547-9000 or visit www.thewalters.

Since it opened nearly four months ago, some 72,000 people have purchased tickets to the exhibition Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum, making it the third most popular show ever presented by the Walters Art Museum. Now, as the show approaches its final day on Sunday, the museum has announced it is extending its normal visiting hours tonight and Saturday to 8 p.m. in order to allow as many people as possible to view the exhibition before it closes. The extended hours will be in effect despite the possibility of a snow emergency this weekend.

He looks so familiar, the square-chinned man who's staring straight ahead as he has for nearly 3,900 years, his eyes heavy, his firm mouth slightly turned down. Sesostris III, king of Egypt, neither young nor old, has the bearing worthy of his office. He looks irrefutably royal, powerful in every way, including the musculature of his chest. A workshop of sculptors carved at least six life-size granite statues of him sometime during Sesostris' reign, beginning in 1874 B.C. It was roughly the midpoint, and politically and economically the high point, of ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom.

The old joke is irresistible. How do you move a 3,400-year-old, 5,785-pound red granite lion? Very, very, very carefully, of course. Sculptor-rigger Roger Machin uncrates The Lion of Amenhotep III Reinscribed for Tutankhamun as gently as a new bride unwrapping an heirloom tea set. But with a lot more noise because he's using a power wrench. The Lion of Amenhotep is a star in Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art From The British Museum, which opens Sept. 21 at the Walters Art Museum.

WHILE THE AMERICANS were busy pre-empting Saddam Hussein, Baghdad's residents pre-emptied the National Museum. Bush administration leaders were quick to congratulate themselves for successfully securing Iraq's oil fields. The thorough looting of one of the world's great collections of antiquities? Well, that's just one of the costs of freedom. American soldiers and Marines argue that they were otherwise engaged while looters and professional crooks swiped and smashed tens of thousands of items from the museum over a period of 48 hours.

Mark McDonald peered closely at the 15th-century hand-colored print of St. Jerome by Albrecht Durer, then examined the black-and-white version of the same work hanging next to it. McDonald wanted to get a good look; after all, he'd traveled across an ocean to see them side by side. An art historian and curator at the British Museum, McDonald has spent a lifetime specializing in prints made during the 15th and 16th centuries - the great Age of Discovery. And the works he traveled to see this week at the Baltimore Museum of Art's new show Painted Prints: The Revelation of Color, are among the rarest and most beautiful examples of their type in the world.

ATHENS, Greece - In 1801, Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin and British ambassador to Constantinople, hit upon what he considered a splendid idea. The ancient Greek temple of the Parthenon - among the most famous buildings in the world - was decorated with a series of 17 marble figures and a 525-foot-long frieze depicting the ancient Greek gods and heroes. They didn't seem to be doing anybody any good at the 2,500-year-old edifice atop the Acropolis. So why not hammer them off and transport them to a place where they would be better appreciated - that is, England's green and pleasant land?

The National Geographic Channel makes its debut next Sunday not from studios in some exotic location, but from 17th and M streets N.W. in Washington, also home of the National Geographic Society headquarters. In its first year, the new channel plans to broadcast some 400 hours of original programming, a blend of news, features and global field reports on topics including history, science, exploration and adventure. But perhaps as much of a draw for locals is the show's studio, which has the same interactive, on-the-street design as NBC's "The Today Show" (the sets share the same architect)

He looks so familiar, the square-chinned man who's staring straight ahead as he has for nearly 3,900 years, his eyes heavy, his firm mouth slightly turned down. Sesostris III, king of Egypt, neither young nor old, has the bearing worthy of his office. He looks irrefutably royal, powerful in every way, including the musculature of his chest. A workshop of sculptors carved at least six life-size granite statues of him sometime during Sesostris' reign, beginning in 1874 B.C. It was roughly the midpoint, and politically and economically the high point, of ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom.

The National Geographic Channel makes its debut next Sunday not from studios in some exotic location, but from 17th and M streets N.W. in Washington, also home of the National Geographic Society headquarters. In its first year, the new channel plans to broadcast some 400 hours of original programming, a blend of news, features and global field reports on topics including history, science, exploration and adventure. But perhaps as much of a draw for locals is the show's studio, which has the same interactive, on-the-street design as NBC's "The Today Show" (the sets share the same architect)

LONDON - For decades, a visit to the British Museum was the ultimate lost and found experience. Through lengthy corridors and up imposing staircases, more than 6.5 million visitors a year searched for such treasures as the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens and the Rosetta Stone from Egypt. The masterpieces were there, somewhere, in the labyrinth. Now, the brain-twisting maze has been simplified by an architectural stroke of genius, the creation of Europe's largest covered square, a feat that adds light, space and order to one of the world's essential museums.