91Èȱ¬

Are you one of the people who's been emailing us to ask why there's no photo of the object on the podcast? (We'd love have one to but there is a technical problem stopping us.) If so, maybe I have a solution for you: look in your pockets.

We were already quite proud of putting a whole museum with objects from all over the country on your desktop. But now we've gone one better and put it in your pocket, with a version of A History of the World for mobile phones.

It means that you can see the object of the day, plus a daily selection of other interesting objects added to the site, and find the podcasts - all while doing your shopping or waiting for a train.

This is clearly exciting news, as confirmed by the email about it that arrived in my inbox:

Using device detection logic, mobile visitors should find the site optimised for their device, with quick, simple and accessible vertical navigation. All devices will be able to access recent podcasts without needing to sync with a desktop computer, and on some supported devices, there's even quick links into recent full programmes via the mobile iPlayer.

Now, personally, my excitement was only heightened by the fact that I didn't really understand any of this.

Vertical navigation? Sounds like rock climbing. Those of you who have been listening from the start will know that A History of the World is pretty keen on rocks, but this seems to be taking it a bit far. And exactly how many 'devices' will I need to find this new site? I asked James Simcock, the man behind the mobile site, to enlighten me.

Thanks to some clever technology, we can now spot whether someone is using a desktop, mobile phone or portable games console. If you are looking at the site on your mobile phone you will automatically get the new mobile site. It's been streamlined for quick access over mobile networks and features a simplified view of the latest object photos, info and programmes. And it's all shown in a single column to make it as easy as possible to use from a small screen.

No mention of rock climbing. But it does seem like the mobile site is a great way to see the object of the day while listening to the podcast or even, as announced last week, live radio on your mobile.

Just go to www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld on your mobile and we'll do the rest.

I've often heard the phrase "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." and wondered just how true it is.

It's easy to look into the past and get a little bemused by what those who came before us got up to, or what they thought, but this week on A History of the World we have five objects from around 2,000 years ago that show we're not so different after all.

JD Hill, lead curator of A History of the World, told me why:

Going to dinner with friends, watching a football match with mates, or sharing a cigarette are important features of many people's social lives that also reveal much about the structure and nature of 21st century society.

The objects we have this week show that 2,000 years ago we were doing pretty much the same things and, at the same time, they tell us a huge amount about the wider context in which they were made.

Objects used at Roman dinner parties reveal more than just what happened around the dinning room. They can reveal much about attitudes to sex and the surprising scale of the economy at the time. A sporting trophy from Central America shows how similar ancient passions for sport were to our own.

The Warren Cup is evidence, if any were needed, that the Romans took dining every bit as seriously as we do now. But in its scenes of love being made between men - scenes that were headline news as recently as 1999 when the Museum bought the cup - it's also evidence of Roman attitudes to sex and sexuality.

In the Hoxne pepper pot we get a sense of why this exotic spice graces our own meals to the extent it does. And the fact it was consumed in Suffolk, but grown in India tells the story of the extent of Roman trade at this time. Indeed pepper was such a significant commodity that there were those who feared it could bankrupt the empire.

In China fears over the future of empire in part inspired the creation of the Admonitions Scroll, perhaps one of the greatest works of art from the ancient world. Its scenes of life in the upper reaches of society aim to teach the women of the court how to behave, for fear their vanity, cowardice and tempting ways will undermine the dynasty. Attitudes to women have certainly changed, but the moral pronouncement on behaviour remains a feature of many modern publications.

The otter pipe shows how the earliest tobacco smoking in North America was a religious undertaking that underpinned daily life, while the ballgame belt reveals the world's oldest team sport to be a Central American ritual dedicated to the gods.

Smoking may not be so closely associated with religion anymore, but it's still with us. So too sport, which may not have the ritual significance it once did, but still retains some of the characteristics we associate with religion: hope, belief and the collective spirit. And sport can still bring together even the most disparate of tribes - just ask anyone wearing their lucky t-shirt and sobbing as penalties loom yet again at this summer's World Cup.

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It's been a busy week already for A History of the World, so I thought I'd just round up all that has happened so far and furnish you with a few links to things you may have missed.

I assume, if you're reading this, that you know the Radio 4 series began its second part on Monday with a coin showing the head of Alexander the Great. But did you catch Neil MacGregor on Start the Week just before that episode? He was talking about today's object the Rosetta Stone and how it is one of the objects whose history really inspired the whole concept of the radio series. Have a listen.



Then late on Monday evening there were 12 regional documentaries on 91Èȱ¬ One looking at ideas and inventions which different areas of England had given the world.

I still want to catch up with some more of these, particularly the one from the East Midlands about the invention of lock gates - I think we forget how important our canal system was to the industrial revolution, and the one from the North East about a wooden clock.

If there was one of these documentaries that you wanted to see but it wasn't shown in your region, then right now you can watch any of them on the iPlayer.

And while you're there you might be interested in the Story of Science. Somehow I have missed this whole series - I think I've been watching a certain bald and barmy chef/scientist eat chocolate graveyards on another channel - but I saw about half of last night's show and instantly spotted an object from our site.

This episode charts the history of inventions that create power - from water and wind power to steam power, power stations and nuclear power - and right in the middle was Trevithick's steam locomotive which is on the site from the National Waterfront Museum Wales. You can see Michael Mosley taking a bone-shaking ride on it about 23 minutes into the programme.

Finally, the Sunday programme on Radio 4 has started looking at religious and spiritual objects. This week they had an interview with the poet Andrew Motion, who has a small Hindu carving on his desk when he writes. Listen to the show or watch this short clip to find out how he came by it and what it means to him.

• The full list of A History of the World regional documentaries is: The Age of Steam;Ìý A Tale of Two Rival Cities; Brighton, The First Resort; The Clock that Changed the World; Cumbria's Atomic Pioneers; Jenner's Marvellous Medicine; King Alfred the Great?; The Man Who Shrank the Globe; Ploughs, Cows and Clover; Suffragette City; Towton 1461; Unlocking the Midlands.

So, why build an empire? And if you do, how do you keep it?

For our first week back on air, A History of the World in 100 objects has moved on to the last couple of centuries BC, where we meet Augustus, Alexander the Great, Ashoka, the Chinese Han emperor and the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt - each of them rulers of empires that dominated Europe, Africa and Asia.

JD Hill, lead curator of A History of the World, told me why empires were the thing to have at this time:

This is an age of empire, and what's interesting about it is how the idea of building and maintaining an empire spreads. The Persians have the first one; Alexander takes it over. Ashoka's grandfatherÌý does it in India and the First Emperor - Qin Shihangdi - does it in China.

Clearly, once you have the idea of a 'big empire' that brings together different peoples, languages and environments, it sticks. These are also empires of the mind, as well as empires in the real world.

I find the idea of 'empires of the mind' really interesting. The idea that holding power is as much about the brain as it is about brawn.

These past few weeks in election-gripped Britain have been something of a lesson in the tactical requirements of leadership. Looking back, it's clear that charismatic leaders in the ancient world knew as much about public relations as any modern politician. In fact it's their rulebook sitting under the metaphorical pillow of contemporary politics. We might have Twitter, billboards and leaders' debates to reach the populace, but these are just new ways to carry out old tricks.

Take Lysimachus, a Greek ruler in what is now Turkey. His claim to the crown was a little uncertain, so he minted a coin with his name on it, but the face of Alexander the Great. Nice move; associate yourself with a man whose almost superhuman ability to attract power led him to create an empire across three continents by the age of 24.

Rome's first emperor, Augustus, was also inspired by Alexander and knew that image was everything. He had statues of himself erected across his domain, ensuring all his subjects could put a face to his authority. In China, the Han emperor used luxury presents and gifts to buy favour and reward his followers.
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In India, Ashoka's ideas of peaceful rule were proclaimed in inscriptions on pillars throughout the subcontinent. Likewise Ptolemy, a Greek king of second century BC Egypt, had his name inscribed in three different languages on the Rosetta Stone - later to bring him even greater fame as it was this very stone that led to the deciphering of hieroglyphs, and the discovery of the secrets of ancient Egypt.
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So, what are we going to learn this week?

That at a certain point in time empire fever gripped the ancient world and that to get one some of history's greatest and most enduring leaders deployed a little more than just big armies. To borrow a modern phrase, they worked out how to win the peace as well as war.
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Though to be fair one or two were dab hands at the latter too.

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Today we start broadcasting the second part of A History of the World on Radio 4. Having steamed through almost two million years of human history in the first part of the series we gave you a bit of a breather, but now we're back with 40 more objects to carry on the story over another 2,000 years.

So, what do the next eight weeks have in store?

Well, this set of objects together covers about 1800 years of the world's history, from about 300 BC to AD 1500. This is a period of enormous political, social and religious change from the time of the Roman Empire to the end of the Middle Ages. But as this is a global history we also need to think of these programmes covering the period from the Han Chinese Empire to the rise of the Aztec and Inca empires in the Americas.

Our history will cover the rise and fall of great powers, such as Rome and Sasanian Iran; the spread of world faiths such as Buddhism and Islam; yet also deal in private moments and shared pleasures.

The objects we have chosen give us a chance to encounter players and powers well known to many Radio 4 listeners such as the Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Yet I hope that the objects will open new perspectives on the familiar.

Other objects will open doors to peoples, cultures and powers far less known to most listeners but in no way less significant, such as the Moche of Peru, the early great kingdoms of Indonesia and inhabitants of the Caribbean.

The objects you'll hear about might seem like ancient history, but actually in the context of a series covering more than 1.8 million years this is recent. But their closeness to us is more than just chronological. In so many ways we are living with the consequences of what went on during this period, when the seeds of our global world were sown.

For example, the great faiths that emerged and spread in this period are still the faiths that shape the modern world. Some see the twenty-first century world economy shifting back to the Asian focus it had in this Medieval period, while the legacy of developments from this time are still felt in many parts of the world - be it through allusions to the Roman Empire in Europe, or the continuing power of the idea of the Caliphate for some Muslims, or re-visiting China's Han and Tang dynasties.

A difference between this and the first part of the series is that you will have more time to explore the world in a particular slice in time. Across the next eight weeks the objects will often reflect on larger, broader themes and issues that run across this history. These include how political leaders should rule and represent their power; how religions visualise their deities and ideals; and the potency of even apparently mundane objects to unlock secrets of the past.

For me, one of the key themes running through the series is how connected cultures, powers and peoples were in the past. We can see this through objects that might have been crafted in one place but were absolutely made in a global context.

Take our Hoxne pepper pot; a grinder for spicing up the dining table of Roman Britain's elite. It would never have been made without pepper grown in India and transported thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean, and across Europe to Suffolk, where archaeologists found it buried in a field about 20 years ago. Or a handful of broken pot sherds from a beach in Tanzania; discarded pottery found on an East African beach but made as far away as China and the Middle East.

Uncovering and then working with Neil MacGregor to tell these surprising and vital stories that a handful of broken pottery or something as famous as the Rosetta Stone can reveal has been the great joy of this project. We hope that you will find them equally powerful.

• JD Hill is lead curator of A History of the World at the British Museum

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Did you ever see the C91Èȱ¬ series Relic: Guardians of the Museum? I wrote a post about it a while ago. It's a show in which children visit the British Museum at night and are set challenges by a ghostly tour guide.

Did you find yourself secretly a bit jealous of those kids getting to wander around a deserted museum, heels clicking noisily across the parquet floors? Well this weekend it is your chance to sneak around after hours, because it's weekend.

Once a year museums across the country stay open late and organise special night-time events. Looking at a few of them, I'm extremely pleased to see liberal use of the words "spooky" andÌý "ghostly". That's exactly what I want from a museum at night, people dressed up as knights, scullery maids and power-crazed industrialists pretending that they've been sucked through a wormhole in space and asked to lead strangers on ghost hunts or tell them scary stories. Excellent fun - especially when the kids start asking the industrialist why his moustache is falling off.

I'm happy to say that A History of the World is joining in the ghostly gatherings too, with special screenings of Relic: Guardians of the Museum at 15 museums around the country (see the list below to find one near you).

For those of you who can't make it, here is a peek at the visions that Agatha will be taking people on. Take a deep breath...

• You can check the or local listings for more information about the museums staying open late this weekend.
• The museums showing Relic: Guardians of the Museum are: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

I've seen a couple more of the 91Èȱ¬ One documentaries that are going out on Monday at 7:30pm and I am still trying to get my head around what I learnt in 91Èȱ¬ East Midlands' The Man That Shrunk The Globe.

The programme is about Frank Whittle's invention of the jet engine in a foundry in Lutterworth. Here is a clip of Jem Stansfield looking at some of the objects that have survived as mementos of the first successful test flight.




That was 1941, but the bit that blew my mind is the fact the RAF could have had jet engines before the war even began. As the inventor Trevor Baylis points out, that would have completely altered and probably shortened the war. For instance it would have meant no Battle of Britain and no blitz, as the jets would have swatted the German propeller planes out of the sky.

I always figured that the jet engine must have been a product of the intense technological competition between the nations during the war. But it turns out Whittle had a patent on a jet engine in 1930 but the Air Ministry just ignored his ideas. Incredible!

There is some really interesting stuff later on about how since the 1950s the commercial jet airliner has changed leisure, economics and international relations - and how Frank Whittle never got the credit he deserved for his invention.

The other documentary I've seen is Stuart Maconie's A Tale of Two Rival Cities looking at objects from Manchester and Liverpool. This, of course, means another chance to see some water and steam-powered machines from the industrial revolution running in all their clunking, whirring glory. Here is a clip of Richard Arkwright's revolutionary water frame in action.




I like Maconie's suggestion that Richard Arkwright was a considerate employer because he wouldn't employ anyone under the age of six. I assume that four and five-year-olds at the time had to make do with a paper-round.

But the programme suggests that these two cities have been locked in technological and economic combat for hundreds of years and as a result have became the country's manufacturing heartland. It seems like it's a grudge match that has eventually benefited us all.

• The Man Who Shrank the Globe will be show in the on 91Èȱ¬ One in the East Midlands at 7:30pm on Monday and A Tale of Two Rival Cities will be show at the same time in the North West. However, you will be able to watch both, and of all the other 12 A History of the World documentaries, for seven days afterwards on the iPlayer.
  
• The documentaries include objects from may museums including Lutterworth Museum, the Midland Air Museum and Manchester Museum of Science & Induustry, which all have objects on this site.
  

** UPDATE - You can now watch all the documentaries on iPlayer until Mon 24 May. **

So, as I said in my previous post, I've been sent a few of these local A History of the World documentaries that are going out on Monday on 91Èȱ¬ One and I was really looking forward to one in particular. Sheila Hancock has made a documentary for 91Èȱ¬ London looking at the objects that commemorate the and I will happily watch anything with Sheila Hancock in it. (Well almost anything - I'm not going to spend my Saturdays watching people sing about rainbows, not even for Sheila.)

However, when I found a few minutes to dip into Suffragette City - their pun not mine - I discovered that I actually only needed around ninety seconds as, teasingly, they'd just sent me the trailer. So, I figure, might as well share it with you in full.





As you can see, there are clearly plenty of objects that mark the violence of the struggle, such as hammers and force-feeding tubes, and I'm sure there will be too.

I'd never really thought about idea that this is the only political movement in British history to acheived its aims through violence. Is that true? I seem to remember that the Civil War wasn't exactly bloodless but I guess that is excluded from Roy Hattersley's category of Great Britain. (Act of Union in seventeen-o-something-or other, right?)Ìý But nothing since then while France, the United States, Russia and much of Europe had various types of revolutions?Ìý

Yet the suffragette item that I've always wanted is some distance from hammers and marching banners. It's the . Ever since I heard about it, I've loved the image of stuffy, buttoned-up husbands spluttering into their tea as they realise what their wife has served it up in. I like to think of it as embodying a secret groundswell of revolution in parlours around the country that supported all those marches and chanting.

Sadly, as a service sold a few years ago at auction for around £6,000, I think I'll still be drinking out of my range of mismatched, charity shop mugs for a while yet.

• Suffragette City will be show on 91Èȱ¬ One in London at 7:30pm on Monday but you will be able to watch it, and all the other 12 local documentaries, for seven days afterwards on the iPlayer. (I'll post links to them here on Monday.)
• The documentary was made with the help of the Museum of London, which has also added some of their objects on this site.

** UPDATE - You can now watch all the documentaries on iPlayer until Mon 24 May. **

As you probably know, in a week's time A History of the World in 100 Objects returns to Radio 4. But it turns out that Monday is going to be a bumper day for A History of the World programmes, as in the evening there will also be a special documentary on 91Èȱ¬ One in each English region.

There are 12 programmes each looking at an invention or idea which came from that region and spread across the world and I've managed to get a sneak peek at a few of them and have a couple of clips for you.

In terms of inventions that changed the world, I wouldn't have thought you could get much more important than James Watt's steam engine. Except it turns out, in another example of my dim and fading memories of GCSE physics failing me, Watt didn't invent the steam engine. It was invented by a Baptist preacher from Dartmouth called .

This not-so-breaking news comes courtesy of Adam Hart-Davis who looks at Newcomen's reciprocating piston steam engine for 91Èȱ¬ South West with his usual boyish enthusiasm. Had he been my physics teacher I may have stuck with it a bit longer. Look at the glee on his face as he gets to run a replica of the engine.





Meanwhile 91Èȱ¬ South East have gone for something a little less tangible. Their world-changer is the seaside resort, which they say was invented by Richard Russell in the 18th century. It seems his obsession with sea water led to Brighton becoming a trendy spa resort, then a popular bathing spot and eventually a place for bikinis, sticks of rock and saucy postcards.

Suggs is your tour-guide for this programme and there are plenty of objects tracing the history of the seaside resort but here's a clip of one I was particularly taken by: . A mutant train carriage on giant, spindly legs that ran through the sea and which is, I think, accurately described on the page I've linked to as "somewhat bonkers".




I've got a couple more of the documentaries on my desk and I'll try and give you a taste of those too, particularly as I realise these are both southern regions - that's just how they arrived in the inbox. So I'll head north, when I get a moment, where it seems from the labels that I have canal locks from the midlands to look forward to, mill technology from the north-west and smallpox in the west of England. Hmmm... Where are my mask and gloves?

• Each region will show its documentary at 7:30pm Monday 17 May on 91Èȱ¬ One but you will be able to watch all or any of them for seven days afterwards on the iPlayer. (I'll post links to them here on Monday.)
• These documentaries were made with the help of Black Country Living Museum, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery and Hove Museum all of which have objects on this website.

** UPDATE - You can now watch all the documentaries on iPlayer until Mon 24 May. **

So finally, after all the finger pointing, name calling, baby kissing and general rough and tumble of campaigning, election day is upon us. I made my cross on the ballot this morning and it had me wondering what objects we have on the site about voting and elections.

Fantastically, from Wakefield museums we have Britain's first secret ballot box, which was used in Pontefract in 1872. It seems like an incredibly important object to me. For the first time people could vote for a candidate without having to declare who they were voting for. Imagine having to go into your polling station today and tell the person behind the desk 'I would like to vote for candidate x' and that vote being on an open register for anyone to look at?

Not that this stopped people from voting at the time - or wanting to vote. This Peterloo Massacre handkerchief from 1819 bears witness to the earlier struggle for the right to vote. And the Suffragette penny, which will start the very final week of the radio series later in the year, shows how that struggle continued into the 20th century.

And finally how about two items from international elections, one telling the story of the journey into repression and one about the long walk out? This German election poster from 1933, the last 'free election' before Hitler passed the Enabling Act that ended democracy and made him a dictator, makes you remember the importance of elections and casting your vote.

And so does this sample ballot printed in a South African newspaper in 1994 to help explain to people how to cast their vote the country's first open, multi-racial election. I've been squinting at the photo and I think that Nelson Mandela is at the top of the ballot (I assume that it's alphabetical with the ANC at the top) and F.W. de Klerk at the bottom.

So there you are five objects that show us how important voting can be and how people have fought for their right to put a cross on a piece of paper. Although it turns out that if inventor, and Merthyr Tydfil grocer, William Gould had got his way, we would be dropping tokens in a box instead.

Take a look at his patented Automatic Secret Ballot Box. As a system it clearly has some drawbacks but think how quick the count would be. We could all be in bed by eleven.