From the point where our ancestors started making tools, people have been unable to survive without the things they make; in this sense, it is making…

- Neil Macgregor

In 1600, when Shakespeares audience at the Globe heard Hamlet for the first time, every one of them knew very well what it meant to be handed a cup o…

- Neil Macgregor

Objects are better than text at conveying narrative

- Neil Macgregor

Objects let you tell a narrative that encompasses everybody. Texts don't.

- Neil Macgregor

In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are shrill. But ... the wisest voice of all of them may well be the voice of this mute thi…

- Neil Macgregor

The British Museum was founded with a civic purpose, to allow the citizen, through reasoned inquiry and comparison, to resist the certainties that en…

- Neil Macgregor

For a million years the sound of making handaxes provided the percussion of everyday life. Anyone choosing a hundred objects to tell a history of the…

- Neil Macgregor

[The Persian Empire] left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together.

- Neil Macgregor

For many, the icon of the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone, that administrative by-product of the Greek imperial adventure in Africa.

- Neil Macgregor