Backing for museums' Hoard bid.Byline: Neil Elkes THE British Museum British Museum, the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. today formally backed the bid to keep the Staffordshire Hoard in the Midlands. The museum, which is responsible for studying the find, valuing it and then selling it, believes a joint bid by the Birmingham and Potteries museums would be the best result. Dr Roger Bland, responsible for portable antiquities Antiquities, nearly always used in the plural in this sense, is a term for objects from Antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. at the British Museum, said: "We very much hope and expect that these museums will be able to raise the money to acquire the hoard, but in the unlikely event that those museums are unable to do this, then the British Museum would seek to act as an acquirer of last resort to ensure that the hoard is held by a public collection. "The British Museum, with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, stands ready to work with those museums to secure that goal." The statement comes almost a week after the Anglo-Saxon treasure was first seen by thousands of visitors to Birmingham Museum Birmingham Museum can refer to any of the following institutions: Birmingham, United Kingdom
Birmingham's culture chief Coun Martin Mullaney said: "We are grateful to the British Museum for their understanding and welcome the statement that the hoard should rightly remain in the Midlands." |
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