Opening hours

Tue - Sat: 10am - 4:45pm
Closed: Sundays, Mondays and Bank Holidays

Free Entry

There may be a charge for special exhibitions. Please call to confirm.

Extraordinary closures

Please note that the museum will be closed as detailed below:

Mummy on the move!
The Egyptian gallery will be closed from the 28 April. The Mummy will reappear when the new Ancient Civilisations gallery opens on the 8 June

Saturday 24 November
The Museum and Library will be closed for the RIC Members Only day.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.

The collections include mainly prehistoric artefacts from other parts of Britain and Europe. Notable are the Ropley gold armilla from Winchester and the Westminster bronze sword, both dating to the Late Bronze Age.

The Museum also possesses significant collections of Egyptian, Greek, continental Roman and Byzantine artefacts. The collection houses the 25th Dynasty mummy, Iset Tayef Nakht, who was a priest from the Temple of Al Karnack. Some highlights of the collection are red-figure ware from Apulia in Italy when it was a Greek colony, Roman glass vessels from Tiberias in Palestine and Coptic textiles. These collections fall conventionally within the archaeological category. Other artefacts from Asia and the Far East that date from early periods, such as the Neolithic stone tools from India are for convenience included with later material in the World Cultures and Applied Art collections.

Archaeological research & collection enquiries will be suspended from July 2011 - March 2012 inclusive.  This is to enable the curator to work on a new Ancient Civilisations gallery, due to open in April 2012. Many thanks for your patience.

Note the issuing of accession numbers for archaeological archives is unaffected by this suspension.

The Egpytian Gallery and the Greek and Roman displays will be closed to the public from the 28 April to allow staff to relocate the collections to a brand new gallery opening on the 8 June.