Neil MacGregor

“And the more you look at the history of Homo sapiens, it’s all about movement, right from the very first time they…

— Neil MacGregor

In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are shrill. But ... the wisest voice of all of…

— Neil MacGregor

The focus in the Western pictorial tradition is on the body of Christ, the bit you can paint, the Nativity and the…

— Neil MacGregor

For the Greeks, there was no single canonical version of creation, but a number of overlapping stories.

— Neil MacGregor

The deciphering of ancient scripts changed forever the way Europeans were able to imagine the story of humanity, destroying centuries of received…

— Neil MacGregor

Objects are better than text at conveying narrative

— Neil MacGregor

The distinction between a gallery and a museum is enormous. The gallery is about looking at a thing of beauty; the purpose…

— Neil MacGregor

While there are few records of Viking women participating in battle, they certainly held positions of high status in society as human…

— Neil MacGregor

“Gold was the attribute of the great Inca sun god and represented his generative powers – gold was described as the ‘sweat…

— Neil MacGregor

Creation stories, so central in the religions of the Middle East, play a surprisingly marginal part in Greek myth. The Greeks had…

— Neil MacGregor

The collapse of the Tower of Babel is perhaps the central urban myth. It is certainly the most disquieting. In Babylon, the…

— Neil MacGregor

The spread of Viking bling is a good indication of the spread of its culture.

— Neil MacGregor

Our collective memories are welcoming places, and one image, that of Jesus, has absorbed and appropriated elements of other traditions and aspirations…

— Neil MacGregor

The things we make have one supreme quality - they live longer than us. We perish, they survive; we have one life,…

— Neil MacGregor

In 1600, when Shakespeare's audience at the Globe heard 'Hamlet' for the first time, every one of them knew very well what…

— Neil MacGregor

Saddam Hussein was fascinated by ancient Babylon and Assyria. He made money available to protect and develop the great archaeological sites. The…

— Neil MacGregor

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

— Neil MacGregor

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

— Neil MacGregor

London theatre is different: it is a commercial theatre that brings the whole of society into one place. And Shakespeare grasped, better…

— Neil MacGregor

The Louvre stopped buying paintings in 1848, and neither the Metropolitan nor the Hermitage acquire contemporary material.

— Neil MacGregor

Google the name Prometheus, and see how often it has been given to innovations in many different fields, notably science, medicine and…

— Neil MacGregor

Because of the long, long history of British shipping, immigration, trade, empire, missionaries, you can have a better shot at telling a…

— Neil MacGregor

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

— Neil MacGregor

“It is, as we know, the victors who write the history, especially when only the victors know how to write.”

— Neil MacGregor

As the Persians wrote very little about how they ran their affairs, the Greek propaganda of the 5th century B.C. has for…

— Neil MacGregor