An extract from a radio discussion, noted on David Gill’s Looting Matters blog. I am unclear though about what Tom Holland’s reason was for suggesting at the end that the Parthenon Sculptures should not be re-united in a single place.

From:
Looting Matters

Nefertiti and the Parthenon Marbles

I am grateful to my sharp-eared colleague Chris Hall for drawing my attention to this interview.

Salima Ikram, American University in Cairo, and Tom Holland, were in conversation with John Humphrys of BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme earlier today [Monday, February 21, 2011: interview]. They discussed the limited looting in the Cairo Museum and were in agreement that the people of Egypt demonstrated that they cared about the protection of their antiquities.
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The BBC’s series – A history of the world in 100 objects covered various artefacts whose ownership was disputed, many people aren’t happy with the way that this fact was only given cursory coverage, focussing on the artefact rather than its history.

From:
Modern Ghana

An Akan drum and the British Museum’s history of the world
Columnist: Kofi Amenyo

So it is true that human beings and human culture began in Africa, eh? Homo sapiens evolved in Africa at least 150,000 years ago. The fact was brought home to us again when the director of the British Museum (BM), Neil MacGregor, in collaboration with BBC, selected 100 items from the museum’s vast collection to tell the history of the world in a hundred 15-minute programmes on Radio 4.

Human life started in Black Africa – specifically in present day Tanzania. When the narrator tells us that “we all have Africa in our DNA” one feels proud to be African. Two items at the beginning of the series (2 and 3) were from the East African Rift Valley: the Olduvai Stone Chopper and the Olduvai Handaxe. Both have the distinction of being the oldest objects in the BM. They are 1.8 million years old!
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Following his earlier article, Tom Flynn was invited to contribute to a discussion about Radio 4’s collaboration with the British Museum – A history of the world in 100 objects. Unfortunately he was not able to attend, so the actual points he was making about the series were lost in an abridged quote which whole issue that he has with the series.

From:
ArtKnows

Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Banging the drum for the BBC

I’m running the risk of sounding like a stuck record, but that’s better than being accused of munching on sour grapes, which is what a guest on BBC Radio Four’s Making History programme has just done with regard to my criticism of the British Museum’s ‘History of the World in 100 Objects’ series.

Last Friday I received an email from the Beeb asking if I’d like to contribute to a discussion about whether the ‘100 Objects’ project had been a success. Sadly I had to decline as I had a teaching commitment that morning.
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Neil MacGregor’s immense Radio 4 series on the History of the World in 100 Objects has now finished & the book is available. What is interesting about the series though is how easily people were able to create a mental picture of the artefacts in question through MacGregor’s descriptions. In many ways a series that one would have expected to be on television because of its heavily visual aspect, in fact worked equally well on radio.

This fact (that you not only didn’t need to be there – nor even see the artefacts) at the same time could arguably undermine the British Museum’s on many issues. The museum would rather casts of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece than return the real thing – yet at the same time, it is becoming clear that actually being there with the real version of the sculptures isn’t perhaps as necessary to their understanding as the museum wants it to be.

From:
Daily Telegraph

A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor: review
By John Adamson
Published: 6:00AM BST 24 Oct 2010

The series A History of the World in 100 Objects shouldn’t have worked on radio but did, triumphantly. John Adamson wonders how Neil MacGregor’s world history will fare on the page

By most rational calculations, the original idea behind this enterprise was entirely mad. Attempting to write a history of the world, in any guise, is usually clear evidence of megalomania. Organising it, not as broad chapters on periods or themes, but as a series of 100 short essays about physical objects would seem to make the undertaking impossible from the outset. Deciding to deliver those essays through the one medium guaranteed to render the subjects of these essays wholly invisible – radio – would seem to move from the impossible to the perverse.
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Anyone who listens to Radio Four in the UK (& many who don’t) will have found it hard to avoid Neil MacGregor’s regular appearances on the radio to tell his version of the history of the world in one hundred objects. The story he tells though is often very much the story that the British Museum wants people to hear – in cases where there are questions over the ownership of the object in question, these are glossed over, to focus on other aspects that are deemed to be more interesting. Whilst many have eulogised about the power of this series along MacGregor’s excellent ability to create an image of the object through his narration, transcending the limitations of radio, others are not entirely convinced.

From:
Artknows

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
A History of the World in Looted Objects

The most remarkable thing about the British Museum’s forthcoming collaboration with the BBC — A History of the World in 100 Objects — is the almost total lack of critical response to the project from any quarter save for a few lonely voices of indignation echoing from the African subcontinent.

Instead we’ve witnessed a nauseating media hagiography of British Museum director Neil MacGregor in which he single-handedly educates the world from the comfort of his beautiful Bloomsbury office. We hear of “Saint Neil”, a “suave and smooth-talking Scot”, with a “lilting highland brogue”, a “skilled diplomat” with “infectious schoolboy enthusiasm”, a “natural storyteller” and “the most fortunate man alive.”
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James Cuno, Director of Chicago’s Art Institute, is a person who’s outlook on archaeology takes the opposite view from that of this website. His new book has just been released & is getting a lot of press coverage – in many cases though, on reading it, it opens people’s minds to the fact that they should be asking more questions rather than accepting his point of view as the only way things should happen.

On the morning of 16th June, he will be one of the guests on Andrew Marr’s Start the Week programe on BBC Radio 4 a 9:00 AM.

The programme’s details are here, but are not updated until nearer the broadcast date.