【英语时差8,16】国家海事博物馆（在线收听）

The National Maritime Museum Jean: It sounds like waves on the ocean. Are we on a ship? Lily: No, no, we are here in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.You know, it’s the leading maritime museum in the UK and the biggest of its kind in the world. Jean: Wow！Is it really? Well, this is the largest maritime museum in the world and it has some 2.5 million items in its collection. The museum has 21 galleries, over 3 different sites so we have the main museum here. Well, the museum has the uniform that Lord Nelson was wearing at the Battle of Trafalgar and you can see the bullet hole just below his shoulder, where the bullet struck him; and he later died. The breeches that he was wearing, that were cut off his body, are also in one of our galleries. We have material from the Titanic, which sank in 1912, including a watch that someone was wearing, amongst many other things. Well this is the Explorer’s Gallery which is one of the most popular galleries in the museum. When you come into it you’re standing on board a creaking ship with a horizon in the distance, and then you come in to see a spice table, which shows some of the different spices that were taken across the oceans in the 16th century. We also have material relating to the mapping of the world at that time. And then finally, there’s a small section on Polar exploration, including Franklin’s expeditions and some of the early expeditions to find the North Pole. Britain has such a close relationship to the sea and has had historically, and the sea has been such an important way in which Britain has defined itself that the Maritime museum provides a snapshot of how exploration, discovery, Empire, colonialism – all these things have contributed to Britain’s place in the world and into Britain’s relationships with other cultures.