Controversies aside, this remains one of the greatest museums on Earth
Seven wonders of the British Museum, London
Containing vast collections of treasures from the ancient world, the British Museum in London is a prodigious source of education and wow moments.
Enter the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos
The Mausoleum of Halikarnassos – the giant ornamental tomb created for King Maussollos of Karia, south-west Turkey – was one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.
These days, significant sections of the 40-metre-tall, 2300-year-old mausoleum are inside Room 21 of the British Museum. These include the Amazon frieze, depicting Herakles and Theseus battling with the Amazon women, the massive statue of Maussollos and – most photo-friendly of all – one of the giant marble horses from the tomb roof.
Say hi to Ramesses II
For many visitors, the Egyptian collection is the British Museum's highlight. There are several rooms of mummies on the first floor, but the most striking single piece is the partially damaged 2.7-metre statue of Pharoah Ramesses II in Room 4. Originally from the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses II in Thebes, where the lower part of the statue is still in situ, this grey-pink granite behemoth was carved from one block of stone, then transported on sleds overland before being taken on a purpose-built boat along the River Nile.
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Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Nowhere on Earth feels more connected to the ancient world than here
On the desert outskirts of Cairo, new and old stare each other down. From atop their lofty plateau, Giza's pyramids peer over what's being billed as the world's largest archaeological museum. Twice the size of the Louvre and New York's Metropolitan Museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum will harbour 100,000 artefacts when the doors to its full 12 galleries officially open to international and domestic visitors by year's end. But you needn't even set foot in a museum in Egypt to sense history on the grandest of scales. Nowhere on Earth have I felt the ancient world as real and all-encompassing as on a journey through this country, with this my first visit. In its millennia-old temples, tombs and pyramids, ambition and accomplishment remain on vivid display, but even as I travelled between its ancient wonders on a 16-day visit with Bunnik Tours, new wonders materialised, with Egypt's vast modern ambitions and aspirations on full show. In one of the world's greatest ancient civilisations, what's old is new. The greatness of Giza Car horns chatter, the call to prayer sounds across the city and there are the constant cries and shouts of roadside exchanges. It's the everyday cacophony of a single city – the largest in Africa – with a population almost that of Australia. From the windows of our tour coach, the rooftops of Cairo's apartment blocks sprout satellite dishes like fields of metal mushrooms. Minarets rise like the hands of drowning swimmers. It's a sensation as much as a city, and yet it all ends so suddenly and reverently beneath the Giza Plateau. Where modern Cairo finishes, antiquity begins. Atop this limestone mantelpiece, a trio of pyramids – burial tombs for Egypt's pharaohs – has come to embody the ingenuity of the ancient world. Tallest among them is the Great Pyramid, rising almost 140 metres above our heads. For about 4000 years, this was the world's tallest building, puzzled together from 2.3 million limestone blocks during the lifetime of the pharaoh Khufu, who would be buried within. Despite my Egypt first-timer status, it all feels so familiar that there's almost a sense of deja vu. Camels lollop across the sands, tourists riding high on their backs, and souvenir vendors chirp their soon familiar, cryptic greetings: 'Welcome to Alaska' (yes, Alaska…), 'Walk like an Egyptian', or the seemingly promising entreaty, 'Only $1', though, of course, what they're selling is never only $1. But even as I ponder the scale of everything around me – the pyramids, the desert, the expanse of history – I realise that a member of the party is missing: the Great Sphinx. To find this celebrated stone creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion, we must head down, for it's set shyly into a hollow, seemingly guarding now against encroachment from the city that's grown to almost reach to its paws. Once, the Sphinx would have loomed large from the desert but today it feels so much less prominent than I've imagined all my life. Over its 4500-year battle-scarred life, it has lost its nose and, at times, it has been buried up to its neck in sand. It's a survivor, and in this narrow space between the city edge and the pyramids, it's a kind of bridge between antiquity and modernity, like Egypt itself. A town called Alex Egypt is 95 per cent desert, but you wouldn't know it on the so-called Desert Road from Cairo to Alexandria. Once a grey line through a dun-coloured landscape, the road is today a strip turned green. A fertile facade of wheat, peanuts, grapes, oranges and tomatoes flicker past the coach window as we drive through an irrigated corridor from Cairo to the coast. Running beside the road for a time also are the supports for one of Egypt's newest infrastructure projects: the world's longest driverless monorail, a 53-kilometre line that will connect Cairo to the prosaically named New Administrative Capital. Inaugurated as Egypt's capital city in 2024, NAC is one of 24 new cities built in Egypt over the past 15 years to ease congestion in metropolises such as Cairo. Travel the country and you see them rising like sci-fi settlements in places such as El Alamein and New Qena, just outside of Luxor. Behind its outer skin of industry, Alexandria is a city where you can almost feel the formation of language. The Pharos of Alexandria lighthouse, one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, gave the Greeks the word 'pharos' for lighthouse, while the Mouseion of Alexandria, built in the 3rd century BC, was the origin for the word 'museum'. Suitably in this city of words, it's a library that commands centre stage. On the shores of the Mediterranean, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina is one of Africa's most striking buildings and proof that not all of Egypt's grandest constructions are ancient. Opened in 2002, the library is a giant, angled disc, resembling a sun rising from the Mediterranean and covered in eye-shaped windows (complete with eyelids) that flood the world's largest reading room with natural light. It's as far in appearance from Egypt's temples and tombs as it's possible to get, but despite the modern design, the Bibliotheca is, in effect, a cultural replica of one of the world's most impressive ancient libraries. The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the largest cultural centres of its time, holding up to 400,000 scrolls, and it is said to have gone into decline only after being accidentally burned by Julius Caesar in 48 BC. Today, the Bibliotheca holds 2.1 million items, including half a million books and a replica of the only surviving scroll from the Great Library, held in one of its four museums. Step outside the library, and it appears like the Mediterranean's northern shores, with Alexandria more architecturally reminiscent of Italy or Greece than Cairo or Luxor. 'I've been to Turin [in Italy] twice, and I felt like I fitted right in,' says Hassan Abdelrazik, our Bunnik tour guide, archaeologist and Egyptologist It feels fitting for a city with European origins, having been founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. Hunt further within the city and a 26.5-metre Roman column known as Pompey's Pillar spears up from between apartment blocks. Burrow beneath the city and the 30-metre-deep Roman-era Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa, rediscovered in 1900 when a donkey fell through the earth, reveal themselves. They're sights worthy of Rome or Athens, but in Egypt they're like tales from modern history. Of temples, tombs and Tutankhamun After a night back in Cairo, it's an hour by plane to Luxor, flying over a blank sheet of desert marked only by the long green squiggle of the Nile River. Egypt's capital for 1500 years, Luxor was the city of Tutankhamun, Ramses II and Nefertiti, and yet this city of 420,000 people feels more like a town grown large. Horse-drawn carriages wheel visitors around its riverside streets, and at dawn the sky fills with hot air balloons – I count 50 hovering overhead one morning. The Nile River is Luxor's defining line. On its east bank, the ancient Egyptians built their colossal temples, and on its west bank they buried their regal dead in tombs that line the suitably barren landscape of the Valley of the Kings like houses on a dusty street. Luxor is claimed as one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, though it's still a 900-year step forward in time from the Giza pyramids when you enter the Valley of the Kings. And lessons had been learned. Pyramids had proved easy targets for tomb raiders, so Luxor's rulers elected to be buried underground in this valley opposite the city. To date, the tombs of 64 royals and nobles have been discovered in the Valley of the Kings, but there are likely to be more hidden within. A new tomb was discovered as recently as 2006 (and other nearby tombs have been unearthed even this year) and tombs for Ramses VIII, Nefertiti and Tutankhamun's wife, Ankhesenamun, have never been found. Entry tickets grant access to any three tombs in the valley, and while the tomb of Tutankhamun, containing the 19-year-old's sarcophagus and, rather ingloriously, his withered mummified body, is the resoundingly popular choice, it's the painted tombs of Ramses III and Ramses IV that are most memorable. As I step inside these tombs, the colourless desert is replaced by brightly painted walls and ceilings – scenes of kings interacting with gods, wartime heroics and ceilings bedazzled with stars. They are 3000-year-old creations, and yet at times it looks almost as if somebody ducked out to the hardware store for paint just a few months ago. I feel as if I'm standing in a Sistine Chapel from antiquity. Back across the river, it's temples rather than tombs that dominate Luxor's cityscape in a scene often described as the world's greatest open-air museum. At one end of the city, Karnak Temple was the world's largest religious complex, sprawling across 5000 square metres. It might also have been the longest construction project: its multitude of structures were built across 2000 years. It's akin to a construction job starting around the time of Christ and finishing up only now. Inside, Karnak is a forest of columns and obelisks, including the tallest obelisk found in Egypt and the incredible Great Hypostyle Hall, with its 134 columns standing as tall as 21 metres. It's a complex so large it somehow makes the city's other great temple, Luxor Temple, look like a chapel in comparison, and yet the latter is also one of the ancient world's grandest buildings. At the end of a 2.5-kilometre-long avenue lined with 1050 sphinxes that connected the two temples, the entrance to Luxor Temple is framed by towering 14-metre statues of a seated Ramses II and a lone obelisk. A matching obelisk, gifted to France in the 19th century, now stands in Paris's Place de la Concorde. Like Karnak, it's the column-lined Great Colonnade Hall that seems to define Luxor Temple, though look at any wall in the complex and there are carvings, hieroglyphics and reliefs telling historic tales, including additions from Alexander the Great's followers and the Romans. 'They're like the National Geographic of the day,' Hassan says, bouncing with enthusiasm as he details the stone stories of gods and kings. 'Each one is a chapter.' It's late afternoon as we wander through the temple, watching the columns and architraves turn to gold in the day's last light. We're staying this night on a Nile river cruiser docked immediately across the road, and at dawn I return to the temple, somehow compelled to view it one more time, as if to affirm that something this magnificent is real. From feluccas to fancy liners The romance of long felucca journeys on the Nile might have been almost consigned to history, but the world's longest river is still the highway of choice between Luxor and Aswan. Today, three-level ships with comfortable cabins, buffet restaurants, rooftop bars and swimming pools make the voyage, travelling almost in convoy up and down the river. Loading As we set sail, the sky is hazy under the 40-degree heat, with Luxor soon fading into the smudge like a Turner watercolour. Buffaloes and donkeys graze the riverbanks, and villagers wrangle fishing nets from dugout-style boats, as Egypt morphs from a swirl of tourism to rural simplicity. Only 240 kilometres separates Luxor from Aswan, a distance that could easily be covered in a couple of days, but sailings stretch over four days, with boats rising and falling through locks and pausing to visit Egypt's second-largest temple in Edfu and a temple to the crocodile god Sobek in Kom Ombo, where about 300 mummified crocodiles have been found. Most fascinating is the moment, on the approach to Kom Ombo, when the boat squeezes through Gebel Silsila, a 350-metre-wide gorge that forms the Nile's narrowest point in Egypt. Desert dunes roll back from the edges of its low cliffs, stretching for thousands of kilometres across north Africa, and it feels like an origin story: the gorge's sandstone was quarried to build the temples in Luxor, Edfu and beyond. Thousands of years on, that work is still visible. The cliffs are shaped into blocks, resembling something built from Lego bricks. Life on the Nile 'Luxor is about monuments; Aswan is about the Nile,' Hassan says as we sail into Egypt's most southerly city. At dusk, motorless feluccas drift about the river in such numbers as to resemble the start of a Sydney-Hobart yacht race, and the hotel in which Agatha Christie penned Death on the Nile famously sits atop riverside cliffs. For all that, Aswan is still a city dominated by a distant temple and its remarkable survival story. When the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s to create Lake Nasser, the world's sixth-largest artificial lake, more than 100,000 people were displaced and resettled, but even more challenging was the threat the dam posed to one of Egypt's greatest temples. With its iconic 20-metre-high rock reliefs of the seated Ramses II, Abu Simbel was the original Mount Rushmore. Unlike Egypt's other temples, built from stone, Abu Simbel's two temples were carved into the slopes of a mountain. When the dam was built, the temples were doomed to flood, until the world banded together to raise them to higher ground. As Lake Nasser filled, thousands of engineers and workers cut the main temple into 807 blocks, each weighing about six or seven tonnes, piecing them back together 65 vertical metres higher up the slopes and reconstructing their interiors with their walls and ceilings filled with painted tales of Ramses II's war exploits. Dozens of buses now leave Aswan before dawn each day for the three-hour drive to Abu Simbel, and to reach this ancient wonder, you pass more new wonders. Close to Aswan, one of the world's largest solar-power plants, visible from space, opened in 2019, while the road to Abu Simbel cuts through a band of desert greenery – a vast and ever-growing area of circular, pivot-irrigated crops planted to secure Egypt's food security in response to the war in Ukraine. See it from the air and the desert looks pixellated. Back where we began In the imagination, Egypt's pyramids often start and end in Giza, but there are more than 115 pyramids across the country, including 14 alone near Sakkara and Dahshur, 20 kilometres beyond Giza. On arriving back in Cairo, our final day in Egypt is a glimpse beyond the Great Pyramid to this cluster of pyramids, which have their own distinct stories and characteristics. The six-tier Djoser Step Pyramid is the world's oldest pyramid, built a century before the Great Pyramid, while the strangely lopsided Bent Pyramid seems to fold in on itself as it rises. Loading As structures, they're overshadowed by Giza's pyramids, but that somehow only enhances their effect. 'This is my favourite pyramid,' Hassan says of the Bent Pyramid, a view that resonates across the travel group as we wander among these stepped, bent and coloured pyramids. For me, the culminating moment comes at the Red Pyramid, two kilometres across the sands from the Bent Pyramid. In their attempt to foil tomb raiders, the pyramid's makers built its entrance 28 metres above the ground. Climbing to the entrance is like ascending an unnatural mountain, with the desert falling away beneath me and other more distant pyramids rising into view. The pyramid is entered through a low, sloping corridor, its ceiling polished smooth by hats and heads to reveal the red colour in the rock. In the corridor, I make a crouching descent, almost crawling to emerge into a trio of chambers 30 metres below the Earth's surface. With their high, church-like ceilings, each chamber is like a pyramid within a pyramid. Tiers stripe the ceilings in almost mesmerising patterns that could easily be architectural features from a modern design home, and yet they were crafted 4500 years ago. If this is history, I'm a convert. Know before you go: Five dos and don'ts for Egypt Cover up There is no lack of midriffs and other body bits on display among visitors to Egypt's monuments, but this is a conservative country, so all genders, please cover up accordingly as a simple gesture of respect. The hustle Whether at monuments or in markets, you will be pestered to buy trinkets. Be polite in your refusal and try to enjoy the interaction. … but then again One of my most memorable encounters was with a felucca skipper in Luxor who followed me along the riverbank trying to entice me into a sailing, but who soon settled into a chat about our homes and families. Hands off I lost count of the number of people touching and leaning against the walls or columns of Egypt's temples and tombs. Sure, they're stone and solid, but human touch is still corrosive, and it'd be nice to think these monuments will survive tourism to still be around in another 3000 years. Mind your manners When eating in Egypt, it's considered a compliment (to the sheer abundance of food in this country) for the guest to leave a small portion on his or her plate, while it's also a compliment to accept a second serve. The details Loading Tour a-based Egypt specialist Bunnik Tours runs a 16-day Egyptian Discovery escorted journey with a maximum group size of 20. The itinerary includes visits to Cairo, Alexandria, El Alamein, Luxor and Aswan, staying in four to five-star hotels, with four nights aboard a luxury Nile river ship. Tours start at $12,295 a person twin share, with airfares included as well as gratuities. See Enter Tourist visas for a visit of 30 days can be obtained online, but it's also a simple task to organise on arrival at Cairo airport. See Fly Emirates operates direct daily flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide to Dubai, with connections to Cairo, a four-hour flight from Dubai. See
7NEWS
03-08-2025
- 7NEWS
How traveling to every country helped this American cope with a mental health disorder
He had struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder since childhood but Cameron Mofid says one thing helped him cope — traveling the world. Mofid, who is originally from San Diego, found he was constantly replaying and over-analysing conversations or 'obsessively needing closure or certainty'. But the 'freeing' sensation that came with being able to hop on a plane and travel to a new destination made him feel as though he could 'live with uncertainty'. 'OCD feeds on control: controlling your environment, routines, and outcomes,' Mofid tells CNN Travel. 'But when you're navigating chaotic borders, sleeping on floors, or figuring things out in countries where you don't speak the language, you're forced to surrender control. It's uncomfortable but also freeing.' Huge goal Mofid says the mental health condition — which the Mayo Clinic describes as a 'pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears known as obsessions' — can 'dominate your thoughts and actions in ways that are exhausting' and difficult to explain. 'Travel became my way of coping — first as an escape, then as a form of healing,' he says. And then, travel turned Mofid into a world record breaker. He had already clocked up visits to many destinations while playing tennis competitively when he came up with the idea — while grappling with OCD during the COVID-19 pandemic — of traveling to every country in the world. And in April 2025, Mofid, who is of Iranian-Egyptian descent, finally completed his quest to visit all 195 UN-recognised countries and territories after jumping on a plane to North Korea with some of his closest friends. While it's a feat that has been achieved only by an estimated 400 people, it was particularly significant for Mofid as he became, by some reckoning, the youngest person to do it. His record didn't stand for long but he says being exposed to so many different cultures has changed his perspective on life completely. 'Visiting every country wasn't just about geography,' Mofid says. 'It was about learning how to live with uncertainty, find calm in discomfort, and connect with people from every walk of life.' Mofid says the decision to try to visit every country came as a lifeline during a particularly low point. 'One day, I was in my apartment, and my anxiety, my OCD is kind of spiraling out of control,' he recalls. 'And I was on my computer just looking up randomly how many people had ever been to every country. 'More people had been to space than had been to every country in the world. I thought that was crazy.' Mofid soon realised that while the Guinness World Record for being the youngest person to do this was held by 21-year-old, he was technically able to beat the record listed by online platform NomadMania, which requires interactions with locals and visits to cultural or geographical landmarks in each country for it to count toward the record. 'The record was (held by) a guy who was 25 and a half,' he says. 'At the time I was 20 and I said, 'Maybe that's an amazing, crazy goal that I could reach'.' Feeling inspired, Mofid, who had previously worked in marketing, set up an event marketing company to earn enough cash to be able to achieve his goal, giving himself a three-year deadline to begin the challenge. 'I told myself, after I graduated college I would (begin,) which is what I did,' he says. Although he'd traveled to some countries as a child, he decided to 'restart' — only counting those countries he'd visited from the age of 18 onwards. Thanks to the 100 or so countries clocked up during his extensive travels for tennis, as well as trips he'd manage to squeeze in during his studies, Mofid needed to travel to just over 90 new countries to complete the challenge. In order to ensure that he did so 'legitimately,' Mofid came up with a list of his own personal requirements, while adhering to those set out by NomadMania. 'My rule was I had to do something in each country,' he says. 'Something meaningful. Most countries, I stayed at least four days.' 'Logistical nightmare' Mofid then created a 'massive spreadsheet' detailing the numerous combinations of flights and routes he could take, along with the many visas he'd need to obtain. 'It was a logistical nightmare,' he says, explaining he opted for the combination of flights and routes that 'made the most sense financially to do on such a budget'. In late 2022, Mofid 'threw a bunch of clothes into a Nike duffle bag,' along with some shoes, and began the journey to join the club of travelers who have visited all 195 UN-recognised countries and territories in the world. 'I started with the countries around Europe,' he explains, admitting he wanted to work his way up to the 'ultra-dangerous countries' by beginning with those he was more comfortable traveling to. 'And then maybe the South American ones. Australia, these sorts of countries that are not seen as dangerous.' To keep costs as low as possible, Mofid took many overnight buses and stayed in budget accommodation. 'I stayed in some two-star hotels,' he says. 'I stayed in a hotel in the country of Niger with no electricity and no running water … I've hitchhiked in crazy countries to get to the next border.' During a visit to his 115th country, West Africa's Nigeria, in January 2023, Mofid visited a floating village named Makoko and was so impacted by the experience he went on to found a non-profit organisation named Humanity Effect, to support children in the community. 'That's something that kind of is the biggest legacy for my travels, I suppose,' he says, explaining he has returned to the village several times over the years since. However, Mofid's journey certainly wasn't without its setbacks. After traveling to North African country Algeria in April 2024, Mofid became extremely ill and says he was unable to move from his bed for 15 hours. 'I couldn't even reach over to grab my phone to call anyone,' he recalls. 'I started having weird visions, hallucinating, sweating like crazy. I was so hot, and then I was freezing.' Mofid concedes this was probably the only point in the journey when he seriously considered giving up. Highs and lows 'That was the closest I got to a breaking point,' he says. 'I just thought to myself, 'Why am I here? Why am I essentially in a state of paralysis in the middle of the Algerian Sahara?'.' Thankfully, he recovered after being admitted into a hospital and was able to fully experience Algeria, which Mofid describes as 'unbelievable'. 'It's one of my favourite countries in the whole world,' he says. 'The countries that receive the least amount of tourism are often the ones where you have the best experience, because you feel totally immersed in their culture.' Mofid was also incredibly taken with Yemen, visiting the destination in February 2023, and says walking through the streets there was like 'going back in time'. 'To see people dress the same way that they were hundreds if not thousands of years ago,' he says. 'To see people living in mud houses, to see people still using flip phones.' Both Algeria and Yemen are subject to US State Department travel advisories. Caution is urged in Algeria due to 'terrorism and kidnapping. In March 2025, an advisory said travelers should avoid Yemen 'due to terrorism, civil unrest, crime, health risks, kidnapping, armed conflict, and landmines'. 'It's a country that's obviously in a very politically and economically difficult spot right now,' Mofid says about Yemen. 'But again, what you find is that the countries that are in some of the worst situations have the kindest people.' While he says he was grateful to be doing something so few people have either the time, means, or desire to take on, Mofid admits he felt incredibly lonely a lot of the time. 'The reality is that 95 per cent of the time I was alone,' he says. 'You have to really learn to get comfortable being lonely and kind of love it in a way. 'To love really getting to know yourself, because you're going months on end without seeing anyone you know in places where there's maybe not a lot of connectivity … 'So that sort of loneliness can be very isolating at times. But at the same time, it really pushed me to make friends and meet people.' Aged 25, he visited North Korea — the final country on his list — by participating in the Pyongyang International Marathon, an annual race held in the capital city. 'That trip was just incredible. I mean, getting off the plane and touching down in my 195th and final country…' he says. 'I became the youngest person to ever visit every country per NomadMania, barely. I beat the guy who was the previous record holder by, I think, six weeks.' Big celebration Mofid celebrated reaching his 'grand finale finish line' by heading to a bar with his friends. 'That was the big celebration, to have some beers in the world's most isolated and remote country,' he says. 'We went to a dive bar. People don't even know they have those in North Korea, but they do.' Pferdmenges Lucas, 23, from Germany, may have since beaten Mofid's record, according to NomadMania's UN Master's list. Mofid particularly enjoyed getting the opportunity to watch people in North Korea 'going about their daily lives' and doing simple things such as running, commuting to work, and playing games with each other. 'I think that kind of sums up what I had learned throughout the whole journey,' he says. 'We have shared interests, we have shared hobbies … 'So those sorts of things, seeing that innate ability of humans wanting to connect with each other in the most isolated country in the world was something extraordinarily powerful.' Now back in California, Mofid is slowly readjusting to being in one place for an extended period of time. Reflecting on his journey, he admits he's incredibly proud of himself, and has learned 'no one is going to believe in you as much as you do yourself'. 'When I told my friends and my family that I had this mission, I was going to visit every country in the world, not a single one of them told me that I could do it,' he recalls. 'They all said, 'You're going to go to Afghanistan and North Korea and Somalia and Yemen and the Congo, and you're going to get yourself killed'.' Mofid was able to make 'hundreds of friendships' throughout his travels and is still in touch with many of the people he met along the way. 'It just goes to show the goodness of humanity,' he says. 'The fact that I could walk down a street and a busy slum in Central Africa and be welcomed with a smile, a glass of tea and an invitation of dance.' During the course of the journey, Mofid met many others who struggled with mental health disorders like his, and says this helped him immensely. 'Travel helped me recognise that mental health disorders don't discriminate,' he says. 'People from all over the world shared a lot of the same plights and challenges that I did with my own mental health, and there's something very comforting in that.' Mofid still struggles with OCD to this day, and says he's accepted it will always be a part of his life in 'some capacity'. 'But being able to accept that and speak so openly about my experiences makes it so much less scary,' says Mofid. 'And I feel like now, seven years after this whole journey began, I'm in control of my OCD, whereas before it was in control of me.'
Sydney Morning Herald
21-07-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Controversies aside, this remains one of the greatest museums on Earth
This article is part of Traveller's Destination Guide to London. See all stories. Seven wonders of the British Museum, London Containing vast collections of treasures from the ancient world, the British Museum in London is a prodigious source of education and wow moments. Enter the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos The Mausoleum of Halikarnassos – the giant ornamental tomb created for King Maussollos of Karia, south-west Turkey – was one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. These days, significant sections of the 40-metre-tall, 2300-year-old mausoleum are inside Room 21 of the British Museum. These include the Amazon frieze, depicting Herakles and Theseus battling with the Amazon women, the massive statue of Maussollos and – most photo-friendly of all – one of the giant marble horses from the tomb roof. Say hi to Ramesses II For many visitors, the Egyptian collection is the British Museum's highlight. There are several rooms of mummies on the first floor, but the most striking single piece is the partially damaged 2.7-metre statue of Pharoah Ramesses II in Room 4. Originally from the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses II in Thebes, where the lower part of the statue is still in situ, this grey-pink granite behemoth was carved from one block of stone, then transported on sleds overland before being taken on a purpose-built boat along the River Nile.
