The National Museum of Scotland is one of the Top 10 UK visitor attractions, and in the Top 20 of the most visited museums and galleries in the world. It was formed in 1985 and incorporates the collections of the former National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, and the Royal Museum. As well as the main national collections of Scottish archaeological finds and medieval objects, the museum contains artefacts from around the world, encompassing geology, archaeology, natural history, science, technology and art.
The building is loosely modelled on Crystal Palace in London – the building that was the temporary venue for the 1851 Great Exhibition. The architect of the National Museum of Scotland was Francis Fowke, who took his inspiration from the design of Crystal Palace in London.
Fresh from a £47 million redevelopment, the museum houses today a spectacular array of over 20,000 fascinating artefacts. Visitors to the re-opened museum can explore 16 new galleries containing 8,000 objects from a giant T. rex skeleton to Alexander Fleming's Nobel Prize Gold medal for penicillin, and specimens collected by Charles Darwin to 3,000 year old mummies.
The National Museum of Scotland houses a collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts. In 1908 an untouched burial site was discovered in Qurna Thebes, the following year artefacts from the find arrived in the museum.
In 1996 Dolly became the first cloned mammal every created from an adult cell – the result of pioneering work by scientists at Scotland’s Roslin Institute.
Dolly lived for six years and was given to the National Museum of Scotland. Her remains were conserved by a taxidermist of the museum, and she can be seen in the ‘Connect Gallery’, where she has become a popular attraction with visitors from all over the world.
Photo source: wikipedia.org
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