Hardest of all for Europeans to negotiate are traditional African religions, whose transactions with unseen powers are central to the running of life in many areas, the main weapon in the struggle against the forces of evil. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
Thanks to the unprecedented reach of British navigation, London in the early 18th century was not just the emporium of the world, it was the first place in which it was possible to assemble artifacts from around the world and allow people to study them. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
It is a standing source of astonishment and amusement to visitors that the British Museum has so few British things in it: that it is a museum about the world as seen from Britain rather than a history focused on these islands. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
Prometheus – trickster, rebel and hero – links the realm of the gods with the world of humanity, with which he had such close affinity. His act of stealing fire has been viewed as the foundation of all man’s technologies. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
Creation stories, so central in the religions of the Middle East, play a surprisingly marginal part in Greek myth. The Greeks had nothing to set alongside the resounding ‘In the beginning’ in the book of Genesis, where one eternal God creates the universe out of nothing. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
In a very literal way, of course, Shakespeare did change the course of history: when it didn’t fit the plot he had in mind, he simply rewrote it. His English histories play fast and loose with chronology and fact to achieve the desired dramatic effect, re-ordering history even as it was then understood. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
While there are few records of Viking women participating in battle, they certainly held positions of high status in society as human sorceresses known as ‘volvas.’ Neil MacGregor Read Quote
Google the name Prometheus, and see how often it has been given to innovations in many different fields, notably science, medicine and space exploration. The fire he stole can be seen, too, as the spark generating all artistic creativity. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
For the Greeks, there was no single canonical version of creation, but a number of overlapping stories. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
A collection that embraces the whole world allows you to consider the whole world. That is what an institution such as the British Museum is for. Neil MacGregor Read Quote
