A History of the World in 100 Objects

Thank you for this.. I grew up in Lon­don and would often vis­it the British Muse­um which was just a bus ride from my sec­ondary school. I knew it was a bit spe­cial and that I was sur­round­ed by cul­tur­al arte­facts from around the world. I nev­er realised that some­thing as sim­ple as the stone axes which I prob­a­bly rushed by in order to see the Aztec exhi­bi­tion or the ancient Egypt­ian Gallery, were, with­out doubt the most suc­cess­ful tech­no­log­i­cal inven­tion in the his­to­ry of man. Well done B.B.C. and the British Muse­um and well done Open Cul­ture for pub­li­cis­ing these pro­grammes and the web­site that goes along with it.

thanks for this, and it cer­tain­ly is a total­ly won­der­ful and impor­tant series. Huge & impor­tant expan­sion of the cul­tur­al com­mons. How­ev­er I am con­cerned, and have blogged, that it is at least in part about strength­en­ing the case for keep­ing the objects in the BM, as it is about what they have to tell us, and this should be part of the dis­course about the pro­gramme. Despite all the glitz, I think the very tech­nol­o­gy used actu­al­ly makes the oppo­site case.

I have a met­al dog col­lar on which it says “If on my Col­lar Look to See Whose Dog I be I am JOHN COULMANS Dog and no Prest man You See Iam Entered on Bord the——-A Vol­un­teer for Life both to Serve my Mas­ter and his Good Wife 1771.” We do not know any­thing about John Coul­man. My grand­moth­er found this col­lar in Bre­con, mid Wales in the 1920s or 1930s. It is inter­est­ing as it shows a lit­tle about sail­ing in the 1700s.