Hi Boys and Girls, and how are you? Mr. L and I went to the British Museum in London today and we saw things from the ancient Britons that were over 5,500 years old. That is so long ago that we cannot even imagine it!

It also has items from around the world, as the British loved to go on expeditions to try to find historical items. I liked these decorated wine jars that were made in southern Italy in 400 BC, that’s 2,400 years ago.

If something is dated BC,that means it is before our calendar time which is known as AD. BC stands for Before Christ. Years are counted backwards from the year 0 AD. To find out how long ago something was BC, you add the BC year to the current AD year. 500 BC is 2,500 years ago (2,000 AD years plus 500 BC years). That’s pretty hard isn’t it?

The museum also has one of the best collections of Egyptian items outside of Egypt. There are many pots and statues and mummies. I am looking at a mummy case (or cover) that was made in 945 BC, that’s 2,945 years ago. Next to that is the mummy of a priest named Hornedjitef who died in 240 BC.

The Rosetta Stone is also one of the museum’s great treasures. For many years scientists were trying to understand the ancient Egyptian language called Hieroglyphics (hi row glyf iks). The written language was part picture, part word. It was only when they found this stone that had the same announcement in many languages that they finally were able to read Hieroglyphics.