British Museum and BBC launch world history series

The British Museum has joined forces with the BBC on a world history project.

In the new BBC Radio 4 series A History Of The World In 100 Objects, artefacts from the museum's world collection will be used to illustrate the last two million years of human development.

Each programme will focus on one object and will explain how it relates to various themes such as 'meeting the gods' or 'after the ice age', with each week designed to give listeners a sense of cultural achievements during a particular time period.

The first of the 100 episodes will look at one of the world's earliest dated items from Tanzania. The final item is yet to be chosen, but will be something contemporary.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum and the series' narrator, commented: 'Parliament set up the British Museum to allow all "studious and curious persons" both "native and foreign-born" to construct their own history of the world and to find their place in it.'

He added that the series, which starts on January 18th, can be considered part of the fulfilment of this aim.