Top of the tree - and the most popular attraction in the entire country - is the British Museum, which beat its visitor record in 2013 with 6.7 million patrons. This national institution occupies a huge site in Bloomsbury but is about to expand still further. A new dedicated exhibition space, the Sainsburys Exhibitions Gallery, opens in March with its debut exhibition, Vikings: Life And Legend (6th March - 22nd June 2014). This huge exhibition will re-examine the story of the Vikings in a global context, featuring weapons and treasures as well as the surviving timbers of a 37-metre Viking warship.
Mummies will be the focus of Ancient Lives: New Encounters With Egypt And Sudan (3rd May - 28th November 2014), which will use the latest technology to examine eight mummies - the oldest from 3500 BC - to see what we can learn about how these individuals lived and died.
The British Museum also holds smaller free exhibitions, such as Germany Divided: Baselitz And His Generation (6th February - 31st August 2014), featuring 90 prints and drawings from post-war Germany, and will also present a major redisplay of one room focusing on Sutton Hoo and Europe AD 300-1100 (opens 27th March 2014) telling the story of a formative period in Europe's history and including many of the treasures from the extraordinary Sutton Hoo archaeological site.