Museums have an old patience. They gather what a community values, protect it from loss, and allow time to do its work on any visitor who wanders the halls. The oldest museums are especially good at this and were born in eras when travel was harder and “public access” was still a developing concept.
Some museums throughout history only started once public access became more readily available, but others were brought into existence long before that, with the curation of art collections or the use of a building for nothing more than storage.
So, which museums can claim to be the oldest in the world? Click on to find out.