Vidhana Soudha Part (1):

The building project was started in 1952 and was completed in four years. Five thousand labourers, 1500 chisellers, masons and wood carvers were employed to bring the building to its present form.

Vidhana Soudha counts amongst the most impressive as well as the most magnificent buildings in the Bangalore city of India. It is mainly famous for housing the Legislative Chambers of the state government. The three hundred rooms of Vidhan Soudha accommodate approximately twenty-two departments of the state government. The building rises to a height of almost 46 m, making it one of the most imposing structures in the city of Bangalore.

Built in the year 1956, Vidhana Soudha of Bangalore boasts of exquisite Dravidian architecture. It was built under the then chief minister of Karnataka, Mr. Kengal Hanumanthaiah, as a tribute to Indian temple architecture. The chief engineer of Vidhan Soudha, B.R. Manickam mainly made use of granite to get the edifice constructed. In the following lines, we have provided more information on the architecture of the Vidhan Soudha of Bangalore, India.

The majestic looking Vidhan Soudha located in Bangalore is a marvel of neo-Dravidian architecture and one of the most imposing building not only in Bangalore but also in India.
It houses the State Legislature, and is the largest Secretariat in India. Kengal Hanumanthaiah, Chief Minister of the then Mysore State between 1951-1956 was responsible for the concept, the structure and the setting of this magnificent building.The building project was started in 1952 and was completed in four years. Five thousand labourers, 1500 chisellers, masons and wood carvers were employed to bring the building to its present form. Built entirely from Bangalore granite in the Dravidian style, it has floral motifs on stone carvings drawn from the celebrated temple craft of South India.This are all the main features of vidhana soudha museums.

Vidhana Soudha Part (2):

Bangalore, popularly known as city of gardens and city of lakes, is famous for its pleasant climate and cosmopolitan lifestyle. Many people are fluent in more than one language. Kannada, the state language of Karnataka, is widely spoken here. There are also a large number of people with Telugu and Tamil as their mother tongues, together said to almost match the number of those whose mother tongue is Kannada. English is widely understood, and spoken with variable fluency, ranging from smatterings of Englpiesh (short for English in pieces) to convent-taught near-accentless English. Thanks to movies and television, Hindi is also widely understood. With the rapid growth of the information technology industry in Bangalore, English is becoming a standard. Kannada - aptly described as sirigannada (known to few as Kanarese) is one of the oldest Dravidian languages and is spoken in its various dialects by roughly 45 million people. ... Telugu belongs to the family of Dravidian languages and is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. ... The letter a consonant believed to be unique to Tamil and Malayalam Tamil is a classical language and one of the major languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. ... First language (native language, mother tongue, or vernacular) is the language a person learns first. ... Kannada - aptly described as sirigannada (known to few as Kanarese) is one of the oldest Dravidian languages and is spoken in its various dialects by roughly 45 million people. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Hindi is a language spoken in most states in northern and central India. ...
Set in the heart of the South-Deccan plateau, with an average elevation of 900 m above sea level, Bangalore has pleasant weather, with highs ranging from around 24°C in winter to 35°C during summer, despite being between the very tropical latitudes of 12° 39' N and 13° N. Bangalore is home to many parks and lakes. Notable lakes are Sankey lake, Bellandur Lake, Lalbagh Lake and Ulsoor lake. The tropics are the geographic region of the Earth centered on the equator and limited in latitude by the two tropics: the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. ...

Bangalore is called the "Silicon Valley of India" due to the large number of computer and technology companies, as well as the related infrastructure, located there. Many multinational corporations, especially computer hardware and software giants, have operations in Bangalore. But the city infrastructure and hygiene standards has been slow in keeping up with business and technology development. A view of downtown San Jose, the self-proclaimed Capital of Silicon Valley. Like many large cities, San Joses downtown is expansive and encompasses much more area than shown in this view. ...

Bengalooru is believed to have been founded in 1537 by Kempe Gowda (c. 1510 - 1570), although there is some evidence that it may be considerably older. After the arrival of the British, it was given the anglicised name of "Bangalore". The British established a large military cantonment here, which even today forms a large part of the city center. They also set up the Cubbon Park, which is today home to many Government office buildings including Vidhan Soudha. Events January 6 - Alessandro de Medici assassinated August 25 - The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior, was formed. ... Kempe Gowda Kempe Gowda is believed to have been the founder of the city of Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore, and of the country itself. ... Events Conquest of Pskov by Grand Prince Vasili III of Muscovy. ... Events January 23 - The assassination of regent James Stewart, Earl of Moray throws Scotland into civil war February 25 - Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England. ...

To the south of Vidhana Soudha, Karnataka government is constructing a similar office building named "Vikasa Soudha".

India Famous Museum Part (1):

It is situated in Pantheon road. This is not for its exquisite collection of more than 2000 Indian bronzes and Amaravathi marbles. Three great buildings of architectural value - the Museum Theatre, the Extension Hall and the Connemara Public Library are in this complex. The present Museum has several sections, four galleries- Hindu sculpture gallery, the Amaravathi gallery, the Bronze gallery and the National art gallery constitute the main attractions.
Visit : Tuesday to Saturday From 09.30 to 17.00 hrs.



Fort Museum:
It is at Fort St.George. The museum has 10 rooms displaying the documents of Indian history. The old uniforms, coins, padlocks, old prints and palanquins are displayed here. The banquet hall upstairs has a collection of paintings of the Governors and officials of the British regime.
Timing : Saturday to Thursday From 10.00 to17.00 hrs.

India Famous Museum Part (2):

The first Government-sponsored Museum in the country opened in Chennai in 1851. It is housed in the Pantheon Complex, and it is best known for two important collections:sculptures from Amravati and its famed Bronze gallery. Especially impressive are the Arms gallery, its pre-historic collection,its philatelic collection, its antique jewellery and the musical instruments collection.There are bronze sculpture from the later Pallava,Chola,Hoysala and Chalukya periods.


The museum displays collection of portraits and paintings of former governors of Chennai as well as of English royality. Among the other objects on view are weapons, coins, porcelain and the communion vessels of the church.

Uk Famous Museum Part (1):

In the museum, which is a Grade II listed Georgian Merchant's house at 26 South Quay, Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England, you can learn about Nelson and the times in which he lived.

Explore Nelson's career, from his Norfolk childhood through his famous battles to his tragic, heroic death, with our hands-on actvities. Find out about his mesmerising personality, his terrible wounds and his many illnesses - not to mention his scandalous love life. What was Nelson doing on your birthday? Find out here! Avoid the rats and beware of the cannonfire in Below Decks, a recreation of a man-of-war. Try our hammock, play ship's games, examine cannons from Nelson's time or relax in the picnic area of the Maritime Courtyard. "Man the Guns!": Life on Board a Naval Warship has just one more month to run, so visit soon. Come and see it all for yourself.

Everything that is represented in the UK Museum of Ordure (UKMO) is subject to the vagaries of an uncontrolled internal auto-destructive process (not a virus) which slowly deforms and disables all information held in the museum. This is comparable to the decaying processes which affect all artifacts in museums, regardless of all attempts at preservation: the retouching, repainting, cleaning, etc, which are incorporated risks to the purity of artifacts when first acquired by museums. Even 'successful' renovations are subject to periodic changes resulting from shifts in conservation policies. Eventually (and in accordance with the fallibilities of memory) artifacts are institutionally, progressively, determinedly and inadvertantly altered by acts of conservation (sometimes unintentional acts of institutional vandalism) until they cease to be recognisable as the objects first acquired. Of course in both cases - in the virtual environment and in the material world - the processes of generation, decay, and entropy are paramount. Museums are by this definition charged with achieving the impossible.

UKMO is primarily 'immaterial', but is no less susceptible to irrevocable change, revealing hardly perceptable but accreting shifts in qualities of appearance, meaning, and information, even as it consciously attempts to maintain the seamless surface of 'the museum' as a custodian or guardian of culture. There is a further question as to the inevitable fallability of bureaucracies common to institutional behaviours where the very systems employed are similarly subject to uncontrolled interference. In this respect, UKMO regards its endeavours - including the changing conditions it is subject to - and the subjection of changes on the immaterial condition of the artifact - as being subject to the fortunes of institutional bodies in general. However, UKMO is arguably of a different order. By continuing to preserve itself and at the same time embrace the inviolability of change, it asserts that changes wrought beyond the museum's control neither lower nor raise the values of the artifact in its remit. Are we witness to the death of something and the birth of something else? UKMO embraces all that changes while attempting to preserve productive contradiction and undetermined resolutions. It suggests a restless state of things and thinglessness, a dimension in the state of 'becoming', where redundant values may come to rest.

Uk Famous Museums Part (2):

The Fitzwilliam Museum was described by the Standing Commission on Museums & Galleries in 1968 as "one of the greatest art collections of the nation and a monument of the first importance". It owes its foundation to Richard, VII Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion who, in 1816, bequeathed to the University of Cambridge his works of art and library, together with funds to house them, to further "the Increase of Learning and other great Objects of that Noble Foundation".

Fitzwilliam's bequest included 144 pictures, among them Dutch paintings he inherited through his maternal grandfather and the masterpieces by Titian, Veronese and Palma Vecchio he acquired at the Orléans sales in London. During a lifetime of collecting, he filled more than 500 folio albums with engravings, to form what has been described as "a vast assembly of prints by the most celebrated engravers, with a series of Rembrandt's etchings unsurpassed in England at that time". His library included 130 medieval manuscripts and a collection of autograph music by Handel, Purcell and other composers which has guaranteed the Museum a place of prominence among the music libraries of the world.

Dome in the Founder's Building:

In 1848 the Founder's Building, designed by George Basevi (1794-1845) and completed after his accidental death by C R Cockerell (1788-1863), opened to the public. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the collections have grown by gift, bequest and purchase; their history is a continuous one which traces the history of collecting in this country over the last two hundred years. If the Museum owed its foundation to a Grand Tourist, it went on to benefit from the shift of taste towards the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance for which the Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century was responsible. By the same token, many of the Museum's early twentieth century benefactors may be counted among the heirs to the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic Movements. In recent years, the Museum's traditional base of support from alumni and private collectors has been augmented by generous provision from the National Art Collections Fund and other charitable organisations and public bodies, including H M Treasury (under the provision for the allocation to Museums of works of art accepted in lieu of capital taxes). Today, the Museum pursues a vigorous acquisitions policy as one aspect of its abiding commitment to hold the nation's "treasures in trust". The Standing Commission's view is both echoed and expanded by the University itself:

"The Fitzwilliam Museum is one of the greatest glories of the University of Cambridge. It is a museum of international stature, with unique collections most splendidly housed... Like the University itself, the Fitzwilliam Museum is part of the national heritage, but, much more, it is part of a living and continuing culture which it is our statutory duty to transmit".

History of the Collections

Few museums in the world contain on a single site collections of such variety and depth. Writing in his Foreword to the catalogue of the exhibition for Treasures from the Fitzwilliam which toured the United States in 1989-90, the then Director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, wrote that "like the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam addresses the history of culture in terms of the visual forms it has assumed, but it does so from the highly selective point of view of the collector connoisseur. Works of art have been taken into the collection not only for the historical information they reveal, but for their beauty, excellent quality, and rarity... It is a widely held opinion that the Fitzwilliam is the finest small museum in Europe".

This exhibition will celebrate one of the most enriching periods in the history of the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Directorship of Sir Sydney Cockerell (1908 - 1937).

It will examine his close relationship with leading artists, writers and collectors of the period, including John Ruskin, William Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Fairfax Murray, and Henry Yates Thompson.

It will also explore Cockerell's enormous impact on museum design and display in the early twentieth century.

The exhibition will bring together for the first time Cockerell's most spectacular acquisitions.

Some of them, such as Titian's Tarquin and Lucretia or the ancient Greek vases, are among the Museum's iconic exhibits.

But many more are treasures rarely seen by the public, for instance the works of William Blake, William Morris' Kelmscott Press books, Keats' autograph manuscript of Ode to the Nightingale, and the superb collection of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

A number of these exceptional works of art were acquired by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum, another of Cockerell's novel creations, followed as a model by museums and galleries throughout the country.

To mark the centenary of the foundation of the Friends in 1909, the exhibition will conclude with a recent acquisition which attracted their most generous contribution ever and the largest public support in the history of the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Macclesfield Psalter. As a newly discovered member of the East Anglian school of illumination, which was first defined and studied by Sydney Cockerell, its acquisition is a tribute to his life-long passion for illuminated manuscripts - as a scholar, collector, and museum director.

The Stage Hermitage Museum Part 1:

The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is one of the largest museums in the world, housing over three million works of art and tracing the development of culture from prehistoric times to the present day. Highlights include Italian Renaissance art, in particular works by Michelangelo and Raphael, Flemish and Dutch painting, French Impressionist painting, and collections of Russian and Oriental art. The foundation of the collection stems from a purchase, in 1764 by Catherine the Great, of a considerable group of Western European paintings. First opened to the public in 1852, the State Hermitage Museum has belonged to the Russian people since the October Revolution in 1917; one of the five buildings in which it is housed is the magnificent Winter Palace, the former residence of the Russian Tsars.

From the 1760s onwards the Winter Palace was the main residence of the Russian Tsars. Magnificently located on the bank of the Neva River, this Baroque-style palace is perhaps St. Petersburg’s most impressive attraction. Many visitors also know it as the main building of the Hermitage Museum. The green-and-white three-storey palace is a marvel of Baroque architecture and boasts 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows and 1,057 elegantly and lavishly decorated halls and rooms, many of which are open to the public.

The Winter Palace was built between 1754 and 1762 for Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died before the palace’s completion and only Catherine the Great and her successors were able to enjoy the sumptuous interiors of Elizabeth’s home. Many of the palace’s impressive interiors have been remodeled since then, particularly after 1837, when a huge fire destroyed most of the building. Today the Winter Palace, together with four more buildings arranged side by side along the river embankment, houses the extensive collections of the Hermitage. The Hermitage Museum is the largest art gallery in Russia and is among the largest and most respected art museums in the world.

The Hermitage, the world-renowned art museum on the banks of the River Neva, is the pride of Russia and its northern capital, St. Petersburg. It contains incalculable treasures of world culture. In the Hermitage collections there are some three million separate items. They are works of art and culture of the peoples of East and West spanning an immense period of time from deep antiquity to the twentieth century. All forms of artistic creativity, a multitude of different facets of world culture, are represented in the museum's stocks. Archaeological items inform us about the oldest cultures of the ancient World, the East and Russia. Extremely rich collections of paintings, graphic art and sculpture give an outstanding picture of the history of fine art from the rock drawings of primitive peoples to the painted vases and sculpture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, from early Christian art - the Fayum portraits and Byzantine icons - to the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, from the Classical schools of the seventeenth century - the "Golden Age" of Western European art - to the French Impressionists and the leading figures of the twentieth century, from the painting of China and Tibet to the miniatures of India and Iran. The wealth of the Hermitage's collections of applied art is inexhaustible - Ancient pottery and Chinese porcelain, the gold of the Scythians and the Ancient Greeks, Persian carpets and European tapestries, the silver of the remote Sassanid kingdom and of the eighteenth-century craftsmen of Paris and Augsburg, clothing, furniture, jewellery and much else besides. Almost a million coins and medals, from ancient times to the present day, belong to the Hermitage's numismatic department. Glistening in this vast "ocean" are the masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Giorgione, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso.

Musée du Louvre in paris Part (1):

The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre), located in Paris, is the world's most visited art museum, a historic monument, and a national museum of France. It is a central landmark, located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st (neighbourhood). Nearly 35,000 objects from the 6th millennium BCE to the 19th century CE are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres.

National museum and art gallery of France, housed in part of a large palace in Paris that was built on the right-bank site of the 12th-century fortress of Philip Augustus. In 1546 Francis I, who was a great art collector, had this old castle razed and began to build on its site another royal residence, the Louvre, which was added to by almost every subsequent French monarch. Under Francis I, only a small portion of the present Louvre was completed, under the architect Pierre Lescot. This original section is today the southwestern part of the Cour Carrée. In the 17th century, major additions were made to the building complex by Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Cardinal de Richelieu, the chief minister of Louis XIII, acquired great works of art for the king. Louis XIV and his minister, Cardinal Mazarin, acquired outstanding art collections, including that of Charles I of England. A committee consisting of the architects Claude Perrault and Louis Le Vau and the decorator and painter Charles Le Brun planned that part of the Louvre which is known as the Colonnade.
The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) which began as a fortress built in the 12th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are still visible. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1674, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum, to display the nation's masterpieces.

The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being confiscated church and royal property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The size of the collection increased under Napoleon when the museum was renamed the Musée Napoléon. After his defeat at Waterloo, many works seized by Napoleon's armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and gifts since the Third Republic, except during the two World Wars. As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings, and Prints and Drawings.


The Louvre Palace is an almost rectangular structure, composed of the square Cour Carrée and two wings which wrap the Cour Napoléon to the north and south. In the heart of the complex is the Louvre Pyramid, above the visitor's center. The museum is divided into three wings: the Sully Wing to the east, which contains the Cour Carrée and the oldest parts of the Louvre; the Richelieu Wing to the north; and the Denon Wing, which borders the Seine to the south.[32]

In 1983, French President François Mitterrand proposed the Grand Louvre plan to renovate the building and relocate the Finance Ministry, allowing displays throughout the building. Architect I. M. Pei was awarded the project and proposed a glass pyramid for the central courtyard.[33] The pyramid and its underground lobby were inaugurated on 15 October 1988. The second phase of the Grand Louvre plan, La Pyramide Inversée (The Inverted Pyramid), was completed in 1993. As of 2002, attendance had doubled since completion.[26]. These are all the main features of musee du louvre museum located in paris and its the part of 1.

Musée du Louvre in Paris Part (2):

The painting collection has more than 6,000 works from the 13th century to 1848 and is managed by 12 curators who oversee the collection's display. Nearly two-thirds are by French artists,
and more than 1,200 are Northern European. The Italian paintings compose most of the remnants of Francis I and Louis XIV's collections, others are unreturned artwork from the Napoleon era,
and some were bought.[52][53] The collection began with Francis, who acquired works from Italian masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo,[54] and brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court.[6][55] After the French Revolution, the Royal Collection formed the nucleus of the Louvre. When the d'Orsay train station was converted into the Musée d'Orsay in 1986, the collection was split, and pieces completed after the 1848 Revolution were moved to the new museum. French and Northern European works are in the Richelieu wing and Cour Carrée; Spanish and Italian paintings are on the first floor of the Denon wing.[53]Exemplifying the French School are the early Avignon Pieta of Enguerrand Quarton; Jean Fouquet's King Jean le Bon, the oldest independent portrait in Western painting to survive from the postclassical era;[56] Hyacinthe Rigaud's Louis XIV; Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon; and Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Northern European works include Johannes Vermeer's The Lacemaker and The Astronomer; Caspar David Friedrich's Tree of Crows; Rembrandt's The Supper at Emmaus, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and The Slaughtered Ox.
The Italian holdings are notable, particularly the Renaissance collection. The works include
Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini's Calvarys, which reflect realism and detail "meant to
depict the significant events of a greater spiritual world".[57] The High Renaissance
collection includes Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. John
the Baptist, and Virgin of the Rocks. Caravaggio is represented by The Fortune Teller and
Death of the Virgin. From 16th century Venice, the Louvre displays Titian's Le Concert
Champetre, The Entombment and The Crowning with Thorns.

Egyptian Museum Part (1):

The greatest collection of Egyptian antiquities is, without doubt, that of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It is a place of true discovery and, even after many visits, I continue to make new and delightful discoveries every time I venture into its many galleries.

In 1984 the Uruguayan Society of Egyptology opened an Egyptian Museum with the purpose of offering the students of the Uruguayan Institute of Egyptology an opportunity to see ancient Egyptian objects without leaving our premises. The small collection consisted then of mostly good reproductions of such objects obtained from big European or North American museums.

The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities contains many important pieces of history. Not only does it house the world’s largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, it also houses the many treasures of King Tutankhamen, and many interesting statues that moved with the museums many re-locations. The Egyptian government established the museum, built in 1835 near the Asbakiya Gardens. The museum soon moved to Boulaq in 1858 because the original building was too small to hold all of the artifacts. In 1855, shortly after the artifacts were moved, Duke Maximilian of Austria was given all of the artifacts. He hired a French architect to design and construct a new museum for the antiquities. The new building was to be constructed on the bank of the Nile River in Boulaq. In 1878, after the museum was completed for some time, it suffered irreversible damage; a flood of the Nile River caused the antiquities to be relocated to another museum, in Giza. The artifacts remained there until 1902 when they were moved, for the last time to the current museum in Tahrir Square. This is the history of Egyptian Museums.

Egyptian Museum Part (2):

There are two main floors of the museum, the ground floor and the first floor. On the ground floor visitors will find an extensive collection of papyrus and coins used in the Ancient world. The numerous pieces of papyrus are generally small fragments, due to their decay over the past two millennia. Several languages are found on these pieces, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, and the Ancient Egyptian writing language of hieroglyphs. The coins found on this floor are made of many different elements, including gold, silver, and bronze. The coins are not only Egyptian, but also Greek, Roman, and Islamic, which has helped historians research the history of Ancient Egyptian trade. Also on the ground floor are artifacts from the New Kingdom, the time period between 1550 and 1070 BC. These artifacts are generally larger than items created in earlier centuries. Those items include statues, tables, and coffins. If visitors follow these displays in chronological order they will end up on the first floor, which contains artifacts from the final two dynasties of Ancient Egypt. Some artifacts in this area include items from the tombs of the Pharaohs Tuhtmosis III, Tuhtmosis IV, Amenophis II, Hatshepsut, and Maherpen, and also many artifacts taken from the legendary Valley of the Kings.


The majority of the world has come to know the tomb of King Tutankhamun better than any royal tombs because unlike the others, it was found mostly intact. Inside the tomb you will find a large collection of artifacts used throughout the King’s life. These artifacts range from a decorated chest, which was most likely used as a closet or suitcase, to ivory and gold bracelets, necklaces, and other decorative jewelry, to alabaster vases and flasks. The tomb is also home to many weapons and instruments used by the King. Although the tomb holds over 3,500 artifacts, it should be noted that this tomb was not found completely intact. In fact, there have been at least two robberies of the tomb, perhaps soon after Tutankhamun's burial. The most well known artifact in King Tutankhamun’s tomb is the famous Gold Mask, which rests over the bandages that wrap around the King’s face. The mask weighs in at 24.5 pounds of solid gold, and is believed to represent what the King’s face really looked like. Many features of the mask the eyes, nose, lips and chin are all represented in very good.

Tutankhamun's tomb contained four gilded shrines nested one inside the other. All four of these shrines are on display in the museum. They are lined up in order of decreasing size. The innermost of these covered a stone sarcophagus which remains in the tomb.

Inside the stone sarcophagus were three coffins - the innermost being made of 110 kilograms of solid gold. Inside that lay the pharaoh himself wearing the famous gold mask remains in his tomb to this day.

Vatican Museum Part (1):

GALLERY OF THE MAPS
The Gallery is named after the maps painted on the walls in 40 different panels, each devoted

to a region, island or particular territory of Italy.

APARTMENT OF ST.PIUS V
Gallery of St. Pius V: tapestries produced in Tournai in the middle of the sixteenth century

and by Pieter van Aelst.
Chapel decorated with frescoes by Giorgio Vasari and Jacopo Zucchi.

SOBIESKI ROOM
Named for the painting which takes up the entire north wall with its depiction of the victory

of John III Sobieski, King of Poland, over the Turks outside the walls of Vienna in 1683. The

work was painted by Jan Matejko (1883).

RAPHAEL'S ROOMS AND LOGGIAS
The four rooms commonly known as the "Rooms of Raphael" were part of - togheter with the

"Chiaroscuri" room, the Old Room of the Swiss, the cubicle with its adjoining heater, the

Nicholine Chapel and the Loggia - the new residence chosen by Julius II on the third floor of

the building.
The series of four communicating rooms was a reconstruction carried out by Nicholas V

(1447-55) of the thirteenth century palace of Nicholas III (1277-80). Towards the end of the

first decade of the sixteenth century Perugino, Sodoma, Baldassarre Peruzzi and Bramantino

were all at work decorating them, but in 1509 Julius II dismissed them and commissioned

Raphael to decorate the whole of this part of the Vatican. He worked there for about ten

years, but only three of the rooms were completed before his death in 1520, and the direct

intervention of the master is certain in only two of them.


Deservedly one of the most famous places in the world, the Sistine Chapel is the site where

the conclave for the election of the popes and other solemn pontifical ceremonies are held.

Built to the design of Baccio Pontelli by Giovannino de Dolci between 1475 and 1481, the

chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who commissioned it. It is a large rectangle with a

barrel-vaulted ceiling and it is divided into two unequal parts by a marble screen. The screen

and the transenna were built by Mino da Fiesole and other artists.
The frescoes on the long walls illustrate parallel events in the Lives of Moses and Christ and

constitute a complex of extraordinary interest executed between 1481 and 1483 by Perugino,

Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli and Domenico Ghirlandaio, with their respective groups of

assistants, who included Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and others; later Luca Signorelli also

joined the group.
The barrel-vaulted ceiling is entirely covered by the famous frescoes which Michelangelo

painted between 1508 and 1512 for Julius II. The original design was only to have represented

the Apostles, but was modified at the artist's insistence to encompass an enormously complex

iconographic theme which may be synthesized as the representation of mankind waiting for the

coming of the Messiah. More than twenty years later, Michelangelo was summoned back by Paul

III (1534-49) to paint the Last Judgement on the wall behind the altar. He worked on it from

1536 to 1541.

Vatican Museums part (2):

EGYPTIAN MUSEUM
It consists of steleae and inscriptions from various ages, sarcophagi and mummies, Roman

statuary (from the first and second century A.D.) designed to imitate or interpret the forms

and aesthetics of Egyptian statuary, protohistoric and Roman ceramics, cuneiform tablets and

mesopotamic seals, assirian bas-reliefs from the palaces of Sargon the IInd (722-705 B.C.) and

Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) in Nineveth.


CHIARAMONTI MUSEUM
It was founded by Pope Pius VII (Chiaramonti) and includes: the Corridoio (Corridor), the

Galleria Lapidaria and the Braccio Nuovo (New Side). In the Corridor, divide into 60 sections,

is an interminable series of statues, busts, sarcofhagi, reliefs, etc: about 800 Greek-Roman

works. In the Galleria Lapidaria there are over 5000 pagan and Christian inscriptions. In the

Braccio Nuovo, the Statue of Augustus of Prima Porta, the Group of the Nile and the Doriforos,

deserve particular attention.


GALLERY OF THE CANDELABRA
Once a loggia, the gallery was enclosed during the pontificate of Pius VI. Arches supported by

columns and pillars were used to divide the space, which was then hung with candelabra, one

for each arch: hence the name of the gallery.


GALLERY OF THE TAPESTRIES
Decorated during the pontificate of Pius VI, the gallery is named after the tapestries which

were first exhibited there in 1814.