One of the great museums of the world, the British Museum is Britain's most popular tourist attraction after Blackpool, drawing more than six million visitors a year. With over four million exhibits ranged over two and a half miles of galleries, the BM contains one of the most comprehensive collections of antiquities, prints, drawings and books to be housed under one roof.

The building itself, begun in 1823, is the grandest of London's Greek Reial edifices, dominated by the giant Ionian colonnade and portico that forms the main entrance. The British Library's departure to St Pancras has allowed the museum to open up and redevelop the building's Great Court, which now features a remarkable, curing glass-and-steel roof, designed by Norman Foster. At the centre stands the copper-domed former Round Reading Room, built in the 1850s to house the British Library. It was here, at desk O7, beneath one of the largest domes in the world, that Karl Marx penned Das Kapital. The building is now a public study area, and features a multimedia guide to the museum's collections.

The BM's collection of Roman and Greek antiquities is unparalleled, and is perhaps most famous for the Parthenon sculptures, better known as the Elgin Marbles, after the British aristocrat who walked off with the relief in 1801. Amidst the plethora of Greek and Roman statuary and vases, the only other single item with a similarly high profile is the Portland vase, made from cobalt-blue blown glass around the beginning of the first century, and decorated with opaque white cameos.

The museum's Egyptian collection is easily the most significant outside Egypt, and ranges from monumental sculptures, such the colossal granite head of Amenophis III, to the ever-popular mummies and their ornate outer caskets. Also on display is the Rosetta Stone, which finally unlocked the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Close by the Egyptian Hall, you'll find a splendid series of Assyrian relief from Nineveh, depicting events such as the royal lion hunts of Ashurbanipal, in which the king slaughters one of the cats with his bare hands.

Among the most extraordinary artifacts from Mesopotamia are the enigmatic Ram in the Thicket (a lapis lazuli and shell statuette of a goat), an equally mysterious box known as the Standard of Ur, and the remarkable hoard of goldwork known as the Oxus Treasure.

The leathery half-corpse of the 2000-year-old Lindow Man, discovered in a Cheshire bog, and the Anglo-Saxon treasure from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, are among one of the highlights of the Prehistoric and Romano-British collection.

The medieval and modern collections, meanwhile, range from the twelfth-century Lewis chessmen, cared from walrus ivory, to twentieth-century exhibits such as a copper vase by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's also worth seeking out the museum's Money Gallery, which begins with the use of grain in Mesopotamia around 2000 BC, ends with a 1990s fie hundred thousand million Yugoslav dinar note, and includes coins from all over the world.

The dramatically-lit Mexican Gallery, and the North American Gallery, mark the beginning of the return of the museum's ethnographic collection, but lack of space means that only a fraction of the BM's enormous collection of prints and drawings can be displayed at any one time. In addition, there are fabulous Oriental treasures in the north wing of the museum, closest to the back entrance on Montague Place.

The displays include ancient Chinese porcelain, ornate snuffboxes, miniature landscapes, a bewildering array of Buddhist and Hindu gods, and - the showpiece of the collection - dazzling limestone relief from the second-century stupa of Amaraati in south India.

Tube: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-6pm; free; www.british-museum.ac.uk; Tube: Tottenham Court Road or Russell Square.

British Library / British Museum / Dickens’ house / University of London

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