The Drum and Bell towers were built in 1272 under the rule of Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty. Since that time, the towers have been continually reconstructed and renovated.
The Drum and Bell towers are located in Beijing and functioned as time keeping devices, sounding off the time in the city. The buildings have stopped with their original function, but the towers have become a major tourist attraction for the capital. In January 2010, the Chinese news media announced a plan to redevelop the area that would involve building new shopping areas and a museum at the site.
Cambridge University is the second oldest university in England and fourth in Europe. It is ranked academically as one of the world's top five universities and as the leading university in Europe. It grow out of a group of scholars who lived in the City of Cambridge, who left the University of Oxford after an academic dispute. These Oxford scholars, who were post-graduate researchers, started Cambridge’s life as a university in 1209.
The collegiate university is also widely known for its ancient architectural structure and the renowned Cambridge University Library, the Cavendish Laboratory and the King's College Chapel.
The university's forebear, The Mechanics Institute, founded in 1832. was formed in response to the need in the city for workers with cutting-edge skills relevant to the workplace. In 1882 the university was founded as 'Bradford Technical College'. In 1957 Bradford Institute of Technology was established to take over the higher education role of the Bradford Technical College. In 1966, Bradford Institute of Technology was granted a Royal Charter to become the University of Bradford and the 40th university to be created in Britain, making them one of the 'old' universities.
The Grant Museum of Zoology was founded in 1827 as a teaching collection and is now the only zoological university museum left in London. The museum contains over 62,000 specimens, covering the whole of the animal kingdom. Many of the speicies it holds are either endangered or extinct such as the Tasmanian Tiger, the Dodo and the Quagga. The museum displays animals in forms of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid, it also contains many of the original collections of noted zoologists, Robert Grant and Thoman Henry Huxley.
Richborough is one of Britain's most elegant and dramatic Roman forts, rising majestically from the marshes of east Kent. Wideley regarded as the landing site for the Roman invasion of 43 AD, the fort was erected in the same year and provided the basis for a prosperous trading town, called Rutupiae, which later comprised a temple, mansio and amphitheatre. Today the fort and amphitheatre stand proud looking over their lagoon, which have to be visited by boat (so check times if you're planning a visit), and stand out as some of the most dramatic fragments of Roman Britain. The town was so successful at defending Rome's new island aquisition that it proffered a triumphal arch, much like Rome's Arch of Janus, the foundations of which can still be seen today. Its staggered ramparts, which provide the remains with an excellent frame, were the result of 3rd century fortifications, as the Roman inhabitants rushed to safeguard Britannia's south coast from Saxon invaders. It thus became one of the famous Saxon Shore Forts, and took on the stone shape it holds today.
A number of timbers which can be seen jutting from the base of the River Thames at Vauxhall in central London have been identified by archaeologists as the remnants of a wooden structure that stood at the site in the Bronze Age. Most likely it was some kind of large wooden platform, probably a bridge leading out to a small island in the middle of the Thames. It's age - 3,500 years - would therefore make it London's very first bridge.
The timbers have only been revealed in the last couple of decades, as the river has eroded the bank in which they're buried. Archaeologists were alerted to their possible significance when two bronze spear heads - dating from the same period as the timbers - were located driven into the bank nearby. A short archaeological investigation was conducted in 2000 as part of the Channel 4 programme Time Team.
While it was only able to remove one timber from the site - a large post - due to a narrow timeframe, enough evidence was gathered to conclude that a large structure did stand there, and that as well as representing a crossing-point, the bridge also served a ritual function. It was the spot from which Bronze Age people were able to make votive offerings to the gods of the river, by throwing precious items such as spearheads into the water.
The National Centre for the Peforming Arts or the 国家大剧院 also holds archaeological exhibitions. The most recent has been one centered on China's Three Kingdoms period.
The Tutankhamun Exhibition is a small museum in the town of Dorchester in Dorset, England, dedicated to the famous Egyptian pharaoh King Tut. It's housed in an old converted Roman Catholic church, and features a single permanent exhibition comprising various replicas of items from the tomb of Tutankhamun, laid-out in a scale recreation of the tomb itself.
The brainchild of Dr Michael Ridley, the museum was founded in the wake of the massive success of the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum in London in 1972. It reveals the history of King Tut through the eyes of British Egyptologist Howard Carter, as he explored the tomb in 1922.
While none of the exhibits in the museum are originals, some original techniques and materials - even gold - have been employed in the creation of facsimilies of such famous objects as the Golden Death Mask, the Canopic Shrines and the Golden Throne. A life-sized replica of King Tut is also displayed. It's said to have taken two years to create, using X-rays of the real mummy, and to be the only anamatonically exact recreation of Tutankhamun anywhere in the world.
The Hands on History Museum is dedicated to the story of the city of Hull, in the north east of England, and its people. It's housed in a grade-A listed old red-brick grammar school. It's also well-known for its collection of early replicas from the tomb of King Tut, which in their early days attracted the ire of the discoverer of Tutankhamun's tomb, Howard Carter.
The ground floor of the Hands on History houses Victorian Britain - a Victorian themed hands-on interactive exhibition which includes a mock-up of a Victorian school room. The first floor is home to The Story of Hull and its People. The Ancient Egypt display features the mummy of a real ancient Egyptian priest, plus a number of replicas of items found in the tomb of the famous pharaoh Tutunkhamun in 1922.
The Luxor Museum is a small, purpose-built museum in the Egyptian city of Luxor (ancient Thebes). Inaugurated in 1975, it stands on the corniche, overlooking the west bank of the River Nile in the city centre.
After the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Luxor Museum holds the largest collection of items from Tutankhamun's tomb, KV62, in the world. These include his hunting chariot, and various votive weapons. Other key pieces include 26 well-preserved New Kingdom statues, found buried in a cache at Luxor Temple in 1989, the royal mummies of Ahmose I and Ramesses I, and a calcite double statue of the crocodile god Sobek and pharaoh Amenhotep III. Another major attractions is a reconstruction of one of the walls of Akhenaten's temple at Karnak.
The Luxor Museum features a far smaller collection than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but this is intentional - the Luxor Museum prides itself on showing a limited number of important pieces in a clear and uncluttered way, with multi-lingual labelling, that does them the best possible justice. The museum is regularly complemented by tourists as presenting a pleasant contrast to the clamour of the over-crowded Egyptian Museum.
