Royal Museum of Scotland
The Royal Museum of Scotland is part of the National Museums of Scotland and is located on Chambers Street in Edinburgh. The Royal museum is a great example of Victorian architecture designed in a Venetian Renaissance style by the famous architect, Francis Fawk. Fawk was originally a Captain and later joined the Royal Engineers association and was responsible for designing and building the famous Albert Hall.
It took the Royal Museum a period of 27 years before it was fully completed but while it was being finished certain rooms were open for the public to visit. The Royal Museum was opened in 1888 and from there has always had strong ties to the University of Edinburgh and is connected to the University buildings with a bridge. The museum contains an array of different artifacts and technology from around the world so take a couple of hours to visit with admission free excepting for exhibits on temporary display where a nominal fee will be asked for.
The large spacious rooms of the Royal museum are lighted up beautifully by the daylight that streams through the glass-topped roof inspired by the Crystal Palace. The large variety of articles that you will find here at the Royal Museum incorporate geology, science, industry, technology, archaeology, natural history and decorative arts. These collections originally came from the Museum of Edinburgh University and range from articles only a decade old to being millions of years old showing you interesting and central points throughout history.
Something that you should look out for while you are there is the exhibit of Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal that worked out successfully. Other exciting exhibits include that of a blue whale, whose skeleton is suspended for all to see, also the Millennium clock, as well as many of Elton John’s overstated costumes. If you are interested in Ancient Egypt then you will enjoy the exhibit on Egyptian sarcophagi found on the first floor of the museum. These mummies are from the Roman period of time when the mummy-face portrait was painted on. Another interesting sarcophagus was one that had the front carved like a woman but held a young girl something that was commonly done then.
