The British Museum’s new digital experience: Theirs spiritually, but ours legally

By: Zainab Salam, Opinions Editor

Preserving our history

In a bold leap into the 21st century, the British Museum is proud to unveil its brand-new website, designed to educate, inspire, and preserve everything we had the foresight to collect everywhere we went. We are thankful to have attained these artifacts before they could be ruined by weather, war, or heaven forbid, people.

Every artifact has a story, and a British collector

We offer a dazzling array of interactive features: panoramic views of Mesopotamian skeletons, AI-generated reconstructions of plundered cities, and a soothing voiceover by Dame Judi Dench explaining why none of this is technically theft if you write it down in a ledger.

Visitors can browse curated collections such as:

“Mediterranean Memories” — celebrating how Roman sculptures and Greek marbles found eternal rest in the calm, non-seismic embrace of London.

“Treatures of Turtle Island” — a moving tribute to the sacred items of Indigenous North America, acquired during “diplomatic conversations.”

“Auspicious Australian Afternoons” — a breathtaking VR experience, taking digital visitors on a tour of our 39,000 artifacts from down under. Can you believe we just found them in the woods? Finders keepers, I guess!

“Private Indian Palace Collection” — Suddenly gifted to us by destiny, a collection of Islamic-ish or Buddhist-ish art (we’re not actually sure, and we don’t care). Plus, a massive diamond that might be seen on the ring of a lucky gal: catch it on the next season of The Bachelor UK.

Luckily, our ancestors had the good sense to place them here, in our little sanctuary. We are the proper guardians of such treasures.

British hands

The addition of a new feature that allows visitors to trace the journey of each artifact from its point of origin to its proper display behind reinforced glass.

Haida Totem Fragment (British Columbia → “Diplomatic negotiations” → Ship Hold → London)

The museum assures visitors that every item is photographed, and kept in a glass display, away from the possibility of local mishandling and inconvenient spirituality.

Cultural preservation, the British way (the superior way)

All the items on display were in danger of being lost to time, fire, or Indigenous use. The new “Cultural Guardianship” tab outlines the museum’s deep commitment to ethical artifact holding.

Looking ahead

Our future website update will include the following:

A blog series called “We Found It First (If we don’t take it, someone else will)”
A downloadable museum map in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Dutch.

A message from the museum

We’re not just curating history, we’re preserving the very soul of global culture — by removing it from its source and polishing it with a microfiber cloth.

As the site loads in all its glory — powered by Wi-Fi, and centuries of confident audacity — we remind you of one timeless, universal truth: History belongs to everyone, as long as it is nailed to the floor in London.

For kids!

Colour your own empire!
Match the artifact to the continent!
Draw a treaty and ignore it in real time!
Looting simulation!
Digital hide and go seek (can you find the 1,500 cultural items that we’ve lost? Oopsies!).