A History of the World in 100 Objects Read online

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  Contents

  Preface: Mission Impossible

  Introduction: Signals from the Past

  PART ONE

  Making us Human

  2,000,000–9000 BC

  1. Mummy of Hornedjitef

  2. Olduvai Stone Chopping Tool

  3. Olduvai Handaxe

  4. Swimming Reindeer

  5. Clovis Spear Point

  PART TWO

  After the Ice Age: Food and Sex

  9000–3500 BC

  6. Bird-shaped Pestle

  7. Ain Sakhri Lovers Figurine

  8. Egyptian Clay Model of Cattle

  9. Maya Maize God Statue

  10. Jomon Pot

  PART THREE

  The First Cities and States

  4000–2000 BC

  11. King Den’s Sandal Label

  12. Standard of Ur

  13. Indus Seal

  14. Jade Axe

  15. Early Writing Tablet

  PART FOUR

  The Beginnings of Science and Literature

  2000–700 BC

  16. Flood Tablet

  17. Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

  18. Minoan Bull-leaper

  19. Mold Gold Cape

  20. Statue of Ramesses II

  PART FIVE

  Old World, New Powers

  1100–300 BC

  21. Lachish Reliefs

  22. Sphinx of Taharqo

  23. Chinese Zhou Ritual Vessel

  24. Paracas

  25. Gold Coin of Croesus

  PART SIX

  The World in the Age of Confucius

  500–300 BC

  26. Oxus Chariot Model

  27. Parthenon Sculpture: Centaur and Lapith

  28. Basse-Yutz Flagons

  29. Olmec Stone Mask

  30. Chinese Bronze Bell

  PART SEVEN

  Empire Builders

  300 BC–AD 10

  31. Coin with Head of Alexander

  32. Pillar of Ashoka

  33. Rosetta Stone

  34. Chinese Han Lacquer Cup

  35. Head of Augustus

  PART EIGHT

  Ancient Pleasures, Modern Spice

  AD 1–500

  36. Warren Cup

  37. North American Otter Pipe

  38. Ceremonial Ballgame Belt

  39. Admonitions Scroll

  40. Hoxne Pepper Pot

  PART NINE

  The Rise of World Faiths

  AD 100–600

  41. Seated Buddha from Gandhara

  42. Gold Coins of Kumaragupta I

  43. Silver Plate showing Shapur II

  44. Hinton St Mary Mosaic

  45. Arabian Bronze Hand

  PART TEN

  The Silk Road and Beyond

  AD 400–800

  46. Gold Coins of Abd al-Malik

  47. Sutton Hoo Helmet

  48. Moche Warrior Pot

  49. Korean Roof Tile

  50. Silk Princess Painting

  PART ELEVEN

  Inside the Palace: Secrets at Court

  AD 700–900

  51. Maya Relief of Royal Blood-letting

  52. Harem Wall-painting Fragments

  53. Lothair Crystal

  54. Statue of Tara

  55. Chinese Tang Tomb Figures

  PART TWELVE

  Pilgrims, Raiders and Traders

  AD 800–1300

  56. Vale of York Hoard

  57. Hedwig Glass Beaker

  58. Japanese Bronze Mirror

  59. Borobudur Buddha Head

  60. Kilwa Pot Sherds

  PART THIRTEEN

  Status Symbols

  AD 1100–1500

  61. Lewis Chessmen

  62. Hebrew Astrolabe

  63. Ife Head

  64. The David Vases

  65. Taino Ritual Seat

  PART FOURTEEN

  Meeting the Gods

  AD 1200–1500

  66. Holy Thorn Reliquary

  67. Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy

  68. Shiva and Parvati Sculpture

  69. Sculpture of Huastec Goddess

  70. Hoa Hakananai’a Easter Island Statue

  PART FIFTEEN

  The Threshold of the Modern World

  AD 1375–1550

  71. Tughra of Suleiman the Magnificent

  72. Ming Banknote

  73. Inca Gold Llama

  74. Jade Dragon Cup

  75. Dürer’s Rhinoceros

  PART SIXTEEN

  The First Global Economy

  AD 1450–1650
/>   76. Mechanical Galleon

  77. Benin Plaque: The Oba with Europeans

  78. Double-headed Serpent

  79. Kakiemon Elephants

  80. Pieces of Eight

  PART SEVENTEEN

  Tolerance and Intolerance

  AD 1550–1700

  81. Shi’a Religious Parade Standard

  82. Miniature of a Mughal Prince

  83. Shadow Puppet of Bima

  84. Mexican Codex Map

  85. Reformation Centenary Broadsheet

  PART EIGHTEEN

  Exploration, Exploitation and Enlightenment

  AD 1680–1820

  86. Akan Drum

  87. Hawaiian Feather Helmet

  88. North American Buckskin Map

  89. Australian Bark Shield

  90. Jade Bi

  PART NINETEEN

  Mass Production, Mass Persuasion

  AD 1780–1914

  91. Ship’s Chronometer from HMS Beagle

  92. Early Victorian Tea Set

  93. Hokusai’s The Great Wave

  94. Sudanese Slit Drum

  95. Suffragette-defaced Penny

  PART TWENTY

  The World of our Making

  AD 1914–2010

  96. Russian Revolutionary Plate

  97. Hockney’s In the Dull Village

  98. Throne of Weapons

  99. Credit Card

  100. Solar-powered Lamp and Charger

  Maps

  List of Objects

  Bibliography

  References

  Picture Credits and Text Acknowledgements

  Acknowledgements

  To all my colleagues at the British Museum

  Preface:

  Mission Impossible

  Telling history through things is what museums are for. And because the British Museum has for over 250 years been collecting things from all round the globe, it is not a bad place to start if you want to use objects to tell a history of the world. Indeed you could say it is what the Museum has been attempting to do ever since Parliament set it up in 1753 and directed that it should be ‘aimed at universality’ and free to all. This book is the record of a series of programmes on BBC Radio 4, broadcast in 2010, but it is also in fact simply the latest iteration of what the Museum has been doing, or attempting to do, since its foundation.

  The rules of the game for A History of the World in 100 Objects were set by Mark Damazer, Controller of Radio 4, and they were simple. Colleagues from the Museum and the BBC would choose from the collection of the British Museum 100 objects that had to range in date from the beginning of human history around two million years ago and come right up to the present day. The objects had to cover the whole world, as far as possible equally. They would try to address as many aspects of human experience as proved practicable, and to tell us about whole societies, not just the rich and powerful within them. The objects would therefore necessarily include the humble things of everyday life as well as great works of art. As five programmes would be broadcast each week, we would group the objects in clusters of five, spinning the globe at various points in time and looking at five snapshots of the world through objects at that particular date. And because the Museum’s collection embraces the whole world and the BBC broadcasts to every part of it, we would invite experts and commentators from all over the world to join in. Of course it could only ever be ‘a’ history of the world, but it would still try to be a history to which the world had in some measure contributed. (Partly for reasons of copyright, the contributors’ words have been left here essentially as they were spoken.)

  The project was clearly in many respects impossible, but one particular aspect of it caused an especially lively debate. All these objects would be presented not on television but on radio. They would have to be imagined by the listener, not seen. At first I think the Museum team, used to the close examination of things, was daunted by this, but our BBC colleagues were confident. They knew that to imagine a thing is to appropriate it in a very particular way, that every listener would make the object under discussion their own and in consequence make their own history. For those who simply had to see them, and who couldn’t visit the Museum in person, pictures of all the objects have been available on the ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’ website throughout 2010, and are now reproduced in this beautifully illustrated book.

  Neil MacGregor

  September 2010

  Introduction:

  Signals from the Past

  In this book we travel back in time and across the globe, to see how we humans have shaped our world and been shaped by it over the past two million years. The book tries to tell a history of the world in a way which has not been attempted before, by deciphering the messages which objects communicate across time – messages about peoples and places, environments and interactions, about different moments in history and about our own time as we reflect upon it. These signals from the past – some reliable, some conjectural, many still to be retrieved – are unlike other evidence we are likely to encounter. They speak of whole societies and complex processes rather than individual events, and tell of the world for which they were made, as well as of the later periods which reshaped or relocated them, sometimes having meanings far beyond the intention of their original makers. It is the things humanity has made, these meticulously shaped sources of history and their often curious journeys across centuries and millennia, which A History of the World in 100 Objects tries to bring to life. The book includes all sorts of objects, carefully designed and then either admired and preserved or used, broken and thrown away. They range from a cooking pot to a golden galleon, from a Stone Age tool to a credit card, and all of them come from the collection of the British Museum.

  The history that emerges from these objects will seem unfamiliar to many. There are few well-known dates, famous battles or celebrated incidents. Canonical events – the making of the Roman Empire, the Mongol destruction of Baghdad, the European Renaissance, the Napoleonic wars, the bombing of Hiroshima – are not centre stage. They are, however, present, refracted through individual objects. The politics of 1939, for example, determined both how Sutton Hoo was excavated and how it was understood (Chapter 47). The Rosetta Stone is (as well as everything else) a document of the struggle between Britain and Napoleonic France (Chapter 33). The American War of Independence is seen here from the unusual perspective of a native American buckskin map (Chapter 88). Throughout, I have chosen objects that tell many stories rather than bear witness to one single event.

  The Necessary Poetry of Things

  If you want to tell the history of the whole world, a history that does not unduly privilege one part of humanity, you cannot do it through texts alone, because only some of the world has ever had texts, while most of the world, for most of the time, has not. Writing is one of humanity’s later achievements, and until fairly recently even many literate societies recorded their concerns and aspirations not only in writing but in things.

  Ideally a history would bring together texts and objects, and some chapters of this book are able to do just that, but in many cases we simply can’t. The clearest example of this asymmetry between literate and non-literate history is perhaps the first encounter, at Botany Bay, between Captain Cook’s expedition and the Australian Aboriginals (Chapter 89). From the English side, we have scientific reports and the captain’s log of that fateful day. From the Australian side, we have only a wooden shield dropped by a man in flight after his first experience of gunshot. If we want to reconstruct what was actually going on that day, the shield must be interrogated and interpreted as deeply and rigorously as the written reports.

  In addition to the problem of mutual miscomprehension there are the accidental or deliberate distortions of victory. It is, as we know, the victors who write the history, especially when only the victors know how to write. Those who are on the losing side, those whose societies are conquered or destroyed, often have only their things to tell t
heir stories. The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily skewed, only one half of a dialogue. If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects.