The British Museum is celebrating after receiving an extra £1m for exhibitions of African art.

Tony Blair announced a £500,000 Department for Culture, Media and Sport grant at a party to celebrate the museum's 250th anniversary.
And the British Council in Africa will match the grant, over five years, to fund an exchange of scholars.
The museum asked for the one-off payment instead of lobbying for an increase in its annual grant.
It now says it will pursue this policy far more in the future.
Other museums and galleries that complain of underfunding are likely to follow suit.
Jobs lost
Despite receiving nearly £40m of government money every year, the museum - home to the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone - says funding has declined by a third in real terms during the past decade.
Jobs have been lost and galleries closed to the public.
In his first speech on the subject of museums since coming to power, the prime minister said the museum, with five million annual visitors, was a "fantastic, national resource".
And the project would coincide with Britain's presidency of the G8 group of nations, focusing on the plight of Africa.

News sourced from BBC....

i would have thought that he british musuem has enough african artifacts?

LOL

LadyDay

They have MOST of it... more than Africa

LOL!

The Egyptian gallery is full of artefacts, some as big as a house. Makes you wonder if there is any left in Egypt at all.

Apparently the Britishare keeping the artefacts safe for us, funny how some of them are not even protected by a glass hey...? every dirty ******* coming from god knows where touching these priceless things, no one around to tell them to stop... Some of the colours you can see clearly starting to fade.

In Victoria and Albert museum you get security telling you off for standing too close to the ugly paintings but British museum you can touch, use the artefact as a back rest, and take flash photography no body cares...

Yep definitely doing a great job keeping it safe for us.