The British Museum is presented as a grand London institution and a persistent rival in the struggle over archaeological discovery, credit, and possession. Its importance lies not only in its imposing galleries but in its history with Alistair Throckmorton: after a colleague betrayed him and another man claimed the discovery of a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the museum refused to back Alistair. Years later, its interest in the Was scepter threatens to repeat that history for his family.

The Museum and Alistair Throckmorton

When Alistair was working for the British Museum, he had spent years researching the likely location of the tomb of Thutmose III, a powerful pharaoh of Egypt’s New Kingdom. He and Henrietta Throckmorton travelled to the Valley of the Kings, leaving their two-year-old daughter, Theodosia Elizabeth Throckmorton, with her British grandmother. Their expedition succeeded, but a colleague betrayed them, and Victor Loretti claimed official credit for the discovery. The British Museum declined to support Alistair and accepted Loretti’s claim instead.

That decision is the decisive institutional event in the museum’s history with the Throckmortons. Alistair left the institution and joined the Museum of Legends and Antiquities. The contrast between the two museums is therefore personal as well as professional: the British Museum had the opportunity to stand behind his research and did not, while his later workplace became the base from which his family pursued and exhibited discoveries. His earlier experience gives the museum’s subsequent interest in the Was scepter a pointed history of its own.

A Monumental London Setting

Theodosia follows Lord Snowthorpe to the British Museum and enters a foyer whose scale impresses and irritates her. It is filled with elaborate buttresses, Gothic arches, and an enormous diplodocus skeleton; she half resents how much grander the building seems than her own museum. The display and architecture make institutional prestige visible before she learns anything about the museum’s current plans.

The interior continues that impression of wealth and authority. The hallway has lush carpet, deep, rich paneling, and mahogany doors bearing shiny brass nameplates. When Lord Snowthorpe stops to speak with a man, Theodosia turns away and pretends to inspect a nameplate, trying not to attract attention. In this scene the museum is not merely a backdrop: its formal corridors provide the setting for covert observation, while its grandeur sharpens the contrast with the smaller institution where Theodosia’s family works.

The Was Scepter and Renewed Competition

At the British Museum, Theodosia and Henry Throckmorton overhear Lord Snowthorpe speaking with one of his subordinates. He is trying to organize an expedition specifically to find the Was scepter and regards it as nearly as valuable as the Heart of Egypt. The news transforms the museum’s earlier rivalry into an immediate threat to the Throckmortons’ work in Egypt.

When Theodosia tells her mother, Henrietta reacts indignantly: the proposed expedition would intrude on their excavation simply because the British Museum wanted the object. Theodosia presses the point by recalling how little the institution’s past conduct gives them reason to expect restraint. The exchange connects the planned expedition to Alistair’s old grievance: a museum’s authority and resources can determine who pursues a find and who receives recognition for it.

The family’s response is practical as well as emotional. After hearing of the British Museum’s plan, Alistair is furious at the prospect of another discovery being taken from under his nose. He petitions the board of the Museum of Legends and Antiquities for permission to travel to Cairo with Henrietta; the board grants it. Their decision is partly driven by institutional competition—the board, too, does not want the British Museum to get the better of them. The dispute thus extends beyond one family’s hurt into a contest between museums over access to, and credit for, archaeological finds.

A Rivalry That Shapes the Story

The British Museum’s role is defined by repeated encounters rather than by a full account of its administration. It appears first as Alistair’s former employer, whose decision cost him institutional support and helped redirect his career. Later it becomes the place where Theodosia discovers Lord Snowthorpe’s plan, turning architectural prestige into the setting for information that affects the family’s next expedition.

The museum also forms part of the story’s larger concern with the movement and ownership of artifacts. Henrietta reports that von Braggenschnott has influence despite smuggling antiquities out of Egypt, and that he helped her persuade local officials to let her take her discoveries home to England. Separately, Nabir warns Theodosia away from a black market in artifacts, which her mother avoids. These details distinguish competing routes by which objects are moved—permission, institutional pursuit, and illegal sale—without making the British Museum responsible for every act of removal. The central question remains who can claim a discovery and determine where it goes.

When Theodosia later encounters von Braggenschnott and recognizes Tetley, a British Museum employee, among her pursuers, the museum’s connection to the danger becomes personal and immediate. Yet, after she is injured in the tomb, her mother asks whether the men were from the British Museum, and Theodosia answers that they were Germans seeking objects for the black market. The distinction matters: the museum is a rival in the struggle over archaeological finds, but the Germans in the tomb are identified as black-market thieves, not as British Museum agents. By the end, Alistair and Henrietta choose to feature the Was scepter in their own museum’s new exhibit and list Theodosia as its discoverer—a recognition that answers, in a different generation, the earlier denial of credit.