91Èȱ¬

The response to the radio series has been fantastic but, as you can see, there are a lot more than the 100 objects from the series on the website.

Over 350 museums from all over the UK have added things to the site with more joining each day. Every week, we'll try to pick an object or two out of the collection and find out a bit more about it.

This week, I talked to Dr Jason Monaghan from about the Roman bilge pump bearing found in St Peter Port harbour. The obvious question was: you've got a bilge pump but what about the rest of the boat?

We have three quarters of the bottom of the boat, a section about 18 metres long, which was found in the mouth of the bay on Christmas Day, 1982, right in the centre between the two pier-heads.

It's no coincidence that it was found on Christmas Day; it's the only day you can dive in the bay, as there are no ships moving. Divers go down looking for scallops and other shellfish. They weren't expecting to find a Roman wreck.

By a further happy coincidence, the man who discovered it was a marine biologist, Richard Keen. He reported his find straight away but it was four years before it was all recovered from the harbour. Its condition meant it had to be raised piece by piece, one of those pieces being the bilge pump.

The boat would have been held together by iron nails as long as your forearm but they had dissolved in the water and now it was being held together by the willpower of mud.

On board there were blocks of pitch made from tree-resin. They might have been trading it, or the pitch could have been for waterproofing barrels, for sealing amphora, or something else. But we know a fire sank the boat, because some of those blocks melted. The bilge pump only survives because it was preserved in this melted pitch.

The boat has been named the Asterix and is currently in the final stages of preservation at the , in Portsmouth. The museum is now looking at how it can be .

But what would a Roman boat have been doing in Guernsey in the first place? When I think of Romans coming to these islands, I have images of tribes of natives brandishing spears at boats brimming with armoured soldiers. But Dr Monaghan reminds me that not every Roman visit was about charging ashore with sharp swords.

Guernsey has been on trade routes since 4,000 BC. For instance, we know that it was on the Iron Age, wine-trading route from the Bordeaux region, in western France.

There were no compasses and no charts at the time, so they sailed in sight of land and put ashore at night. These boats were flat-bottomed so that they could be run right up onto the beach.

The boat would have been making the run up the Atlantic coast, carrying 'cargoes of opportunity', which means picking up and trading whatever they could, and stopping at Guernsey was like pulling into a motorway service station.

So while they bought us roads, baths and horribly effective lessons in military strategy, the Romans, and others before them, were also bringing us things to make life a little easier, like wine.

This small, bronze pump helps show how we were connected with the rest of Europe through trade. And I'm sure the sailors who watched their boat burning found someone to put them up for a few nights, until they could thumb a lift from the next bunch of Italians pulling in to buy a few snacks and use the toilets.

The latest addition to the A History of the World website has come from China's ambassador to UK, Madame Fu Ying. She has added her mother's food ration coupons as an example of the changes in China over recent decades. The coupons were used by families throughout China to secure monthly rations and were printed right up until 1993.

for the programme, Madame Fu Ying explains how the end of rationing was a symbolic moment:

For thousands of years food was the priority, and in my mother's life food was still in shortage. After reform, and opening to the outside world, China's ecomony boomed. The most important acheivement in the country was achieving an abundant supply of food for everybody.

Watch our short video of the ambassador donating the coupons and hear Neil MacGregor, explain how the coupons are a perfect object for the website as "both an object of the past and a portent of the future."

Last week we heard about how making and using objects made us human. This week, we find the last Ice Age drawing to a close, about 10,000 years ago, and our ancient ancestors understanding and developing ideas about two of the most fundamental of human concerns: food and sex.

Jill Cook, curator of the oldest objects at the British Museum, told me about the impact of the outstanding development of the age: farming.

Before farming we had to go with the seasons, follow the animals and respect the natural world as very much part of it. Once we became farmers our relationship with nature changed. It became a relationship which wants to dominate nature, to change and control it.

Harnessing nature by cultivating crops and domesticating animals was a slow revolution that took centuries and occurred independently in about seven different parts of the world. But its effect went much further than food supply.

Farming meant people could stay in one place for much longer and to envisage, and invest in, the future by clearing the land and planting crops. The development of farming encouraged the development of villages, and gave us the chance to plan ahead.

We start to stay in one place and we become ever more reliant on things. People who haven't got land need to make things to trade for food. We start to distrust each other, so we have to make notes about what we've traded. If we haven't got goods to trade, we need money. We also need pots to cook and store things in.

Our population begins to build. Politics and hierarchies develop. All the things which are part of our modern world, including the devastating effects of climate change, crop failure and famine, began at this point.

This week's objects tell the story of humans finding new ways to find food, new ways to live, and starting to understand the male role in reproduction.

There's domesticated beasts in the Egyptian clay model of cattle; new food preparation tools in the shape of the Jomon pot from Japan and Bird-shaped pestle from Papua New Guinea; the Maya maize god worshipped in Mexico to explain seasonal crop cycles, and the early contemplation of the sexual act in the lovers figurine from the Middle East.

Despite a distance of 10,000 years, the impact of this age on our lives is clear:Ìý the towns and cities we live in, the pots we use to cook our dinner and even the markets we buy it from - puts a new perspective on seasonal veg when you consider those people who in millennia past developed the tools and knowledge to make it possible, doesn't it?

It might only be week two, but in these objects we find the roots of the modern world - to subvert the old cliché, perhaps the ancient past isn't such a foreign country after all?

A History of the World is now up and running. It's been a busy week. Here's a few of the things that have been happening:

You still have a couple of days to catch up with The Culture Show special with contributions from Sir David Attenborough, on stone age tools, and Matthew Collings, looking at royalty. It also includes an interview with Neil MacGregor looking at the objects on the list and how they were chosen.

There was lots of interesting coverage of the objects from museums around the country on Inside Out on Monday. In the West Midlands, find out how Birmingham gave the world the steel pen and in the North East John Clayson from The Discovery Museum in Newcastle explains the surprising link between the light bulb and the first man-made fibre.

Radio Scotland's Radio Café will be looking at an object from Scotland every Tuesday and they started with an interview with Dan Cruickshank looking at how history isn't just about mummies and gold coins but can also be told by the objects that people may have in their homes.

And there's been plenty of talk on local radio across the UK. You can see some great objects from the people at 91Èȱ¬ Suffolk and 91Èȱ¬ Sheffield. I particularly enjoyed this from 91Èȱ¬ Radio Merseyside about a lifejacket that tells a small part of a famous story.



Don't forget that Radio 4's Making History will be looking at objects from A History of the World throughout the year, including the best, most unusual and most imaginative objects uploaded by you.

Your objects have already started to appear on the site. From a flint arrowhead to a length of alarm wire from the Berlin Wall, and stopping at all points in-between, including a lead cutter for setting type, a demob souvenir from the First World War, to a picketing badge from the 1926 General Strike. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Finally, remember each episode of A History of the World in 100 Objects is available after broadcast to listen again or download as a podcast from our programmes page.

So how are you enjoying the site? I've just listened to episode four while looking at the swimming reindeer on the site using the deep zoom. If you haven't tried it yet, you really should. Just go to the page and click on the '+' button to the left of the photo. Then click again to get even closer or use the clickwheel on your mouse. If you click on the bottom button in that column you can fill your whole screen with the image. (Just click the same button again to return the page to normal.)

There is some fantastic detail in the photo. You can actually see where the maker has scratched the tusk to show the fur on the lead reindeer's coat. Is maker the right word or should I say artist? Was there such a concept in Ice Age France? It's a question they tackled in the programme.

Was carving this object more a religious, or ritualistic, gesture than an artistic one? Was it less about making a likeness of two reindeer and more about capturing or holding their spirit? Perhaps where I see a work of art, they saw a talisman.

I guess that even when I can see this object up close, and in such amazing detail, I can never see it in the same way as they did.

It's a beautiful thing though. Undoubtedly at the top of my list of favourite tusks. Maker or artist, I hope he had some luck while out hunting reindeer that year. He deserved it.

• If you want more tips on the best ways to use the site, you can always try our FAQs.

Well it's been a chaotically busy three days here and as a result I'm already playing catch-up with the series. I listened to yesterday's programme about the Olduvai handaxe on the train this morning. If asked, I might claim I'm listening to the latest but actually I'm finding myself enthralled by a different kind of cutting edge.

Particularly thrilling was the sound of Phil Harding demonstrating how to make a handaxe. The slightly hollow click and then the solid bounce of the debris hitting the floor suddenly reminded me of a visit to the a few years ago and seeing a video of two , a man and a woman, sculpting a variety of stone tools.

I'd never really thought much about these dull looking stones or how they were made before. I think that my attitude to the Paleolithic display cases had remained the same since I was about ten years old: 'Sharp stones. Okay. Now where are the Romans?'

But on that visit I found myself mesmerised and spent about fifteen minutes staring at it. That's a quarter of an hour spent watching someone, essentially, hitting a rock with another rock. It made me realise the amount of consideration and planning that requires. (And how fantastic is it that you can learn flint knapping on YouTube? Is there a teach yourself to cave-paint video out there?)

I think James Dyson makes a good point though, I was also wondering exactly how you use the Olduvai handaxe without slicing through two sets of flesh - the carcass and your own hand. Perhaps, after the handaxe, our next invention was the sticking plaster?

We've had some more stone tools added to the site by you guys too, including a flint arrowhead and a stone tool from Kenya, and a possible grinding tool from near Conwy Bay. Great stuff, keep them coming.

• If, like me, you're playing catch up, remember that you can listen again to the programmes on the site while looking at the objects or you can download the podcast for your own journey to work.

• The picture shows from Kimble County, Texas. It's by and it's used .

In this strand of the History of the World blog I'll be exploring the themes behind the programmes: the big ideas revealed by the 100 objects.

Each week you'll be able to spin the globe to hear about five objects made in different places during the same time period and bound together by a common concept. First up, I've been talking to JD Hill, lead curator of A History of the World, about the opening week of programmes. He explains:

Naturally you want to start with the oldest objects in the Museum, which are also some of the oldest surviving artefacts in the world but from the very beginning it was quite clear that week one was always about becoming human. What we wanted to say was you can't be human without things.

Human life began in Africa and our ancestors created the first stone tools to chop meat, bones and wood. Without these tools the evolution of our species could not have happened. It was making and using objects that allowed humans to adapt to different and changing environments, to build, to cultivate the land.

Under the title 'Making us human', the objects that start the series include a stone chopping tool from Africa, which dates as far back as two million years ago, a stone handaxe and a spear point, evidence of the first inhabitants of the Americas.

But the programmes don't just look at tools. From about 40,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, humans created the world's first representational art. At 13,000 years old, the Swimming Reindeer is one of the earliest pieces of art we have.

It's difficult to really understand the degree to which we are made by things. It's only when we go back in time to see how this began that this fact hits home. It isn't that we are the only animal to use tools; it's that we rely on them for survival and we depend on them, to say who we are.

We use these things to make statements about ourselves, express our ideals, our imaginations, in ways in which no other animal does. The first week of programmes is about telling the story of how that happened.

But why did the week start with an ancient Egyptian mummy?

Ancient Egypt and its mummies are often the first encounter many of us have with historical objects and museums. So, says JD, this is a fitting way to kick the whole series off.

Most of us came into the British Museum for the first time to see the mummies but this Museum is far, far more than just mummies and in some ways that's a good metaphor for this series. As a child I had to be dragged through the mummy gallery with my eyes firmly shut. I was too scared to even look at them.

It's good to know that embarking on such a voyage of discovery is daunting even for the keenest academic minds.

Most of us learn history from books, but I think that it is physical objects - actual things - that most powerfully connect us to the past - things made by somebody with hands just like ours, for a purpose we can still hope to understand.

It is the power of things that has inspired the British Museum and 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 series. The British Museum's collection is uniquely well placed to allow us to do this - ever since its founding in 1753 the Museum has collected and displayed the world.Ìý Through 100 objects from across the Museum's collection we will tell a global history - A History of the World.

So, what objects have we chosen, and how did we pick them?

You can find them on the A History of the World website, and on display in the Museum. As you'll see we didn't choose them simply because they are beautiful - although there are some stunning objects among them: the Swimming Reindeer, the Standard of Ur, or the Mold Gold Cape.

You'll also see that they're not in the series for their fame - although there are some celebrities, such as the colossal Statue of Ramesses II. Neither did we choose the most obviously impressive objects - in fact some are very small indeed, like the Indus seal.

We chose them because of the stories they can tell.

The objects I'll be talking about in each programme tell us what people were doing, what they were thinking, how they lived and why they did what they did. In many cases objects, especially in societies without writing, are the only evidence we have to connect us with the people of the past.

And so we travel through time and place from two million years ago right up to the present day. In fact, the final object has yet to be chosen but will be selected later in the year to represent the world as we move further into a new century.

Along the way we look at the connections and contacts between societies that show how the story of the world is the story of the whole world.

That's a story the Museum has been examining since it opened its doors to the public 250 years ago. Now, through the website, the whole world can come and look at the objects in the series - a natural progression of the Museum's original purpose, to give free access to all 'studious and curious persons', from across the globe.

ÌýIn addition I'm delighted that over 350 of our museum colleagues across the UK are joining in, nominating and displaying objects from their own collections which tell a local and global history.
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We also want you to show us your objects, to upload them to the website and tell us the personal, local and global stories that connect you to the rest of the world, or show your place in that world.

That's what A History of the World in 100 objects aims to do and through this ambitious project, on air and online, I hope that visitors and listeners will use museum objects, and their own objects, to construct their own history of the world - a true world history.

Welcome to the A History of the World blog.

Over the next year I hope to bring you all the news from the project, from the latest objects on the site to the best local events. I'll be talking to curators in museums around the UK and people uploading their own treasured objects. Plus, I'll be keeping an eye out for stories on historical objects in the news and what people are saying on the web.

David Prudames will be taking us behind the scenes at the British Museum, with insights into how the radio series came together, how the objects were chosen and what each week's programmes reveal about the story of who we are.

There will also be the occasional guest, starting with Neil MacGregor, the Director of the British Museum, who will give his personal introduction to the project.

The radio series kicks off on Monday, with Neil MacGregor unpicking the idea of telling history through objects by looking at the Mummy of Hornedjitef.

Finally, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the project and the objects on the site. What can objects really tell us about people seperated from us by hundreds, or thousands, of years of history? What are the real treasures on the site? And, most importantly, what are you going to add to it?

We're busy getting ready for the launch and still have a few glitches to sort out over the weekend. Let us know if you spot anything. It's going to be fascinating to see how people react to the radio series and what objects they add to the site. From Monday we're building a history of the world and, as the old joke goes, it's going to be just one thing after another.

• The picture shows the display in Room 63 at the British Museum. It's by and it's used .