The National Museum of Scotland: Great Scots!

The story of a country that has long punched above its weight is told in Scotland’s refurbished National Museum, says David Forsyth.

The revamped Grand Gallery's Victorian ironwork. Photograph © Andrew LeeAlthough relatively small, Scotland has been home to many pioneering discoveries and has provided fertile ground for the promotion of ideas that have changed and improved the lives of people across the world. Yet the sheer scale at which in the past Scots have left their homeland and engaged in global and imperial enterprise perhaps partly explains why there has only been a purpose-built National Museum of Scotland since 1998 (the year before the opening of the Scottish Parliament).

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