A History of the World in 100 Objects

This week's programmes in the history of the world look at the growing sophistication of modern humans around the globe between 5000 and 2000 BC. Mesopotamia had built the royal city of Ur, the Indus ...

4 Feb 201014min

The ancient city of Harappa lies around 150 miles north of Lahore in Pakistan. It was once one of the great centres of a civilisation that has largely disappeared, one with vast trade connections and ...

3 Feb 201013min

Neil MacGregor with this week's examination of the first great civilisations with one of the most spectacular discoveries of ancient royal goods. The magnificent gold and silver jewellery was found n...

2 Feb 201014min

This week, Director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor investigates the impact on human society of large numbers of people coming together in the world's first cities between 5000 and 2000 BC. As t...

1 Feb 201013min

A History of the World told through 100 objects from the British Museum moves to Japan and the story of a 7,000-year-old clay pot which has managed to remain almost perfectly intact. Pots began in Jap...

29 Jan 201014min

This week Neil MacGregor is exploring the growing importance of agriculture around the world at the end of the Ice Age, with objects that show and celebrate the key elements of the time; power, sex, w...

28 Jan 201013min

Neil MacGregor, in his history of mankind as told through objects at the British Museum, selects four miniature clay cows to show the major changes that early man was undergoing at the end of the Ice ...

27 Jan 201013min

The British Museum's Director, Neil MacGregor, investigates a palm-sized stone sculpture that was found near Bethlehem. It clearly shows a couple entwined in the act of love. The contemporary sculpto...

26 Jan 201013min