A Walking Tour of the National Museum

Welcome to the National Museum, and thank you for visiting us today. We have put together this short guide so you can explore our best-loved exhibits at your own pace. If you take your time, the whole walk should last about two hours.

Your first stop is the Entrance Hall. Look for the desk on the right, where one of our staff will hand you a free audio guide. We record the commentary in eight languages, and it covers every exhibit you will read about in this leaflet. One small request: all audio guides must be returned before you leave the building.

When you are ready, follow the signs from the Entrance Hall through to Gallery One. This room holds the museum''s famous collection of Roman coins. A private donor gave the collection to us in 1937, and it now numbers more than two thousand coins. Some of them are over two thousand years old, so they really are tiny pieces of history.

Now head upstairs to Gallery Three, the home of our Egyptian artefacts. Most people come to see the little painted coffin that dates from around 1000 BCE. It travelled to us all the way from Cairo back in 1903. You are welcome to take photographs in this gallery, but please switch off your flash.

Our last stop is the temporary exhibition space on the ground floor. Right now it is showing "Voices of the City," a set of photographs about street life in our capital between 1950 and 1980. Do try to catch it soon, because the exhibition closes on 30 September.

Feeling like a rest? The museum café sits on the ground floor, just opposite the gift shop, and serves visitors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. We kindly ask school groups to eat in the picnic area out in the garden rather than in the café.