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Lion of Knidos

1858 archaeological discoveriesAncient Greek and Roman sculptures in the British MuseumArchaeological discoveries in GreeceHellenistic sculptureMarble sculptures in the United Kingdom
Sculptures of lionsStatues in London
Lion of Knidos
Lion of Knidos

The Lion of Knidos is the name for a colossal ancient Greek statue erected near the ancient port of Knidos, south-west Asia Minor (now near Datça in Turkey). Although there is some debate about the age of the sculpture, in general, scholarly opinion dates it to the 2nd century BC. Since 2000, it has been prominently displayed on a plinth under the roof of the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court because soon after it was seen by British archaeologists in 1858, the statue was taken by the British to London where it became part of the British Museum's collection.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Lion of Knidos (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Lion of Knidos
Great Court, London Bloomsbury (London Borough of Camden)

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N 51.519 ° E -0.127 °
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Reading Room

Great Court
WC1B 3DE London, Bloomsbury (London Borough of Camden)
England, United Kingdom
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Lion of Knidos
Lion of Knidos
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British Museum
British Museum

The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. The British Museum was the first public national museum to cover all fields of knowledge.The museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the Anglo-Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. It first opened to the public in 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. The museum's expansion over the following 250 years was largely a result of British colonisation and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, or independent spin-offs, the first being the Natural History Museum in 1881. In 1973, the British Library Act 1972 detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all national museums in the UK it charges no admission fee, except for loan exhibitions.Its ownership of a small percentage of its most famous objects originating in other countries is disputed and remains the subject of international controversy through repatriation claims, most notably in the case of the Elgin Marbles of Greece, and the Rosetta Stone of Egypt.