Ashmolean Museum

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology is the University of Oxford's museum and Britain's first public museum, opened in 1683 around the collection donated by Elias Ashmole. Its present building dates from the 1840s and houses collections spanning Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities, classical archaeology, and European painting and decorative arts. Admission is free, and the museum runs a changing programme of temporary exhibitions and displays alongside its permanent collections.