History of the World
National Museums Scotland has joined forces with the BBC and the
British Museum to take part in a landmark project focusing on world
history.
The A History
of the World website allows visitors to explore artefacts
and objects from Museums across the country that have helped
shape history.
Listen in
The site also presents opportunities to listen, download and
take part in the Radio 4 series "A History of the World In 100
Objects", broadcast from 18 January 2010. Written and directed by
the British Museum director Neil MacGregor, the series narrates a
history of the world from two million years ago to the present day,
through objects from the British Museum's world collection.
Discover National Museums Scotland's contribution
As well as these 100 objects, hundreds more have been
contributed from over 350 museum venues across the UK, including
almost 60 objects from across Scotland, all telling a
history of the world from their local perspective.
National Museums Scotland has contributed six key objects to the
digital museum:
- a silver travelling canteen belonging to
Bonnie Prince Charlie, which was lost at the Battle of Culloden in
April 1746. The canteen is on display in the Scotland Transformed gallery in the National
Museum of Scotland.
- the Darien chest, which was used to store
money and documents associated with the Company of Scotland, a
trading company set up in 1695 and now remembered for its
disastrous venture to colonise Darien in Panama in 1698. You can
see the chest in the Kingdom of the
Scots gallery at the National Museum of Scotland
- Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from
an adult cell, currently on display in the Connect gallery at the National Museum of
Scotland.
- the Qurna burial, the only intact Ancient
Egyptian royal burial anywhere outside Egypt, which you can see in
the Treasured exhibition in the National
Museum of Scotland.
- the Scottish democracy tent, a home-made ‘mini
vigil’ travelling stall, used by members of the Democracy for
Scotland campaign to take their message to towns and cities
throughout Scotland and to get signatures for the petition asking
for a Scottish Parliament. See the tent in the Scotland: A Changing Nation gallery in the
National Museum of Scotland.
- Concorde, the world's only supersonic
passenger airplane, currently on display at the National Museum of Flight.
Get involved
Listeners and viewers will be encouraged to contribute to this
online museum by uploading pictures of objects they own and
explaining how these objects can help tell a history of the world.
Visit the History of the World
website to find out how you can get involved.