Wonders of Civilisation: A Crash Course in Archaeology at the British Museum

Advance Booking Required

Follow in the footsteps of the great archaeologists, relic hunters and explorers who acquired the treasures of the British Museum, and learn about their adventures and the hazards they braved to make their astounding discoveries.

You’ll unlock the secrets of the British Museum’s extraordinary collection with a qualified archaeologist, tracing humanity's journey from the Stone Age to the modern age. You’ll get to grips with the history of human civilisation, exploring our earliest origins in Africa, the first civilisations in Mesopotamia and the first cities, and the great empires of Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome, and what happened after they collapsed.

Along the way, you'll tour the British Museum's most famous galleries, including Ancient Egypt and Assyria, Ancient Greece and Rome, the Vikings and the Aztecs, discovering world-famous artefacts such as the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Marbles and the Lewis Chessmen.

You'll also have some fun learning to play one of the world's most ancient board games, The Royal Game of Ur, whose rules were deciphered by British Museum scholars.

You’ll hear about the geniuses who decoded ancient languages such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform, the world's earliest written language.

You’ll then get to learn about some of the science behind archaeology, finding out how ancient objects are dated, how ancient sites come to be buried and puzzling over some of the mysteries of the ancient world that still elude us.