The world's oldest national public museum, the British Museum, will display part of its collection in China for the first time this month.

Exhibits covering a vast range of time from 2 million years ago to the present can be viewed at Capital Museum of Beijing from March 18.

A total of 272 priceless articles, collected from the world's five continents since it was founded in 1753, will be on show at a 1,400 square-meter exhibition hall in the newly-built museum until June 5, said Museum Director Guo Xiaoling.

"Each of the items is a masterpiece from the British Museum's vast collections and together they demonstrate the long history of human civilization worldwide," said Guo.

Including sculptures, paintings, jewellery, porcelain and stone artifacts, the treasures being displayed are divided into 13 categories based on their origins and date -- such as ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Europe in the Middle Ages and modern art.

Several renowned items will be on display at the exhibition entitled "Treasures of the World's Cultures -- the British Museum after 250 years."

"The exhibition will include the Rosetta Stone from Egypt which dates back to around 200 BC," said Guo. "With a text written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek, it enabled the crucial breakthrough in deciphering Egyptian writing," he added.

"And a stone chopping tool from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, which is the oldest object in the British Museum, will also travel to China and be included in the exhibition," said Guo with genuine excitement.

"The item was made nearly 2 million years ago and to date is the first known technological invention by humans," added Guo. World-famous sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome, paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello, Sanzio, Rembrandt and Van Rijn would also be exhibitied, Guo added.

"This is the first cooperation between our museum and the British Museum, and I hope we will have more exchanges in the future," Guo said.

(China Daily March 3, 2006)