Within the main university building, this collection comprises mainly 19th-century plaster copies of ancient Greek sculptures, plus some mummies and other original artefacts displayed in the Chamber of Mummies, painted to look like the interior of an Egyptian tomb. The rest of the collection was evacuated to Russia in 1915 and has never returned. Admission includes entry to the attic lock-up, where recalcitrant students were held in solitary confinement, sometimes for weeks – some examples of their 19th-century graffiti remain.
In the 19th century, failing to return a library book on time could net you two days in the lock-up; insulting a lady, four days; insulting a (more sensitive?) porter, five days; duelling, up to three weeks.
