This morning, despite a colossal downpour in central London, I whistled my way into work following the announcement last night that the British Museum had won the Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2011.

The reason was this project - A History of the World. A two-million-year history of humanity on air, online and on display in partnership with the BBC and over 500 museums, galleries and heritage sites across the UK.

The Art Fund judges made their choice (from hundreds of entries, a long-list of 10, and then a shortlist of four) – according to broadcaster and former MP, Michael Portillo – because of:

The truly global scope of the British Museum’s project, which combined intellectual rigour and open heartedness, and went far beyond the boundaries of the museum’s walls.

Above all, we felt that this project, which showed a truly pioneering use of digital media, has led the way for museums to interact with their audiences in new and different ways. Without changing the core of the British Museum’s purpose, people have and are continuing to engage with objects in an innovative way as a consequence of this project.

His words are certainly very flattering and describe the broadness of this project: a 100-part radio series; physical displays, and of course this website where listeners could explore the British Museum objects, download podcasts of the series and discover the thousands of objects uploaded by museums, galleries, and individuals.

Speaking today, Neil MacGregor, the Museum Director, explained that the prize rewards the hard work of the entire Museum, but also the work of all those other museums who made the project what it is:

It is the first time a national museum has won the prize, and it is truly a prize for the whole Museum, as everybody contributed to making the project such a success.

The prize is £100,000. We shall use it for a series of Spotlight Tours, lending star British Museum objects around England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This seems appropriate as A History of the World involved 550 heritage partners, from Shetland to the Scilly Isles, who worked hand in hand with the BBC to explore global stories through museum collections of every complexion.

So, in truth, it’s not just the British Museum that can now proudly call itself Museum of the Year, it’s 550 museums, galleries and heritage sites – not to mention the many thousands of individuals who shared their objects and stories with us on this website.

BBC Learning made some great short videos with Kay Topping from Haslemere Education Museum to give teachers an idea of the power of of objects in the classroom.

Watching the videos again, I thought they would be of interest to more than just teachers, so I've put one of them at the bottom of this post. And to introduce it, I asked Kay to explain why she believes objects can be such powerful educational tools:

When the BBC contacted us about doing some filming here at Haslemere Educational Museum around the Relic Challenge I was very happy to say yes, as I really believe in the power of the object and this was a great opportunity to show this in action.

School subjects can be learnt through books, film and the Internet but, however good these resources are, they are unlikely to be as powerful as an actual object. Children especially like to be able to touch things and by telling stories through objects history itself becomes more tangible and easier for children to understand.

As a museum educator I have the privilege of using objects everyday, but although I have a real familiarity with some objects, for example the ancient Egyptian shabti that I use regularly, they still have a special wow factor.

When I explain that this object was made for a real ancient Egyptian by another real ancient Egyptian I can see the kids faces reflecting this ‘Wow’.  Only objects and the actual places where events happened are able to do this.

It is often hard to see the children’s reactions while you are actually delivering a session but watching the film clips and listening to the children as they were discussing the objects confirmed the power of objects for me.

Watching them become really animated and discussing the objects with such passion just proved what I already knew – that I am very privileged to be able to use objects to bring history alive and spark kids imaginations.

You can see more videos about using obects to teach history and find out how to upload them to the site on our Schools page, including one about Kay's Egyptian shabti.

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So last night was the launch of the official book of the series. I managed to snag a ticket to the event at the British Museum in which Neil MacGregor and Mark Damazer looked back at how the series happened and what they feel it managed to achieve.

As Neil put it: “None of us can quite remember how it all began; there is a certain creation myth that has grown around it at the museum.” Mark Damazer admitted that the germ of the project had appeared around five years ago – and I thought that just the last year had been exhausting.

There were some insights into the process at the museum that led to the selection of the objects. It seems that half the museum must have been involved in the decisions at some point.

Neil said the process involved himself and the three main series curators meeting up with at least five other “curators of the week”, who represented individual collections within the museum. Between them they would then thrash out “what theme you might choose around, say, the year 800 AD that would allow you to talk about objects from Europe, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East.” (You can find out what they settled on here.)

What I took away from the evening is that the scale of the project and the decisions that arose from the central concept, that this had to be a world history, took even the museum team by surprise. Or, as Neil put it, “The shock when we realised that the Roman Empire would have one object; the Renaissance would have one object.”

 

Those decisions led to a series that looks at cultures some of which I certainly knew little or nothing about. So it was gratifying to hear that the same had happened to the team behind it, including Neil:

I don’t know about your education but mine had very little about the Yemen in the early Christian era. It had simply never occurred to me to think: ‘what was happening in Yemen in 200-300AD?’

Me neither, but now I have some idea thanks to the Arabian bronze hand that was chosen among the 100 objects. Similarly, I now know something about the Huastecs, the Indus civilisation and the Tang dynasty. It has been a very long journey of discovery.

And now it’s a book. The thing that struck me is the size of it; around 650 pages plus another 50 pages of bibliography, index, references, etc. Just the weight of it reminds you of the epic nature of the series.

Fortunately, just like the radio series, it’s in bite-sized chunks, so you can rest your arms every 400 years or so.

We’ve had a number of curators on the blog over the last few months looking at objects from their own collection as well as ones added by you. Then someone pointed out that the BBC has its own collection and we should get some of those objects onto the site.

 

Robert Seatter, the Head of BBC History, kindly responded to our call and has uploaded some of the objects from the BBC’s long broadcasting history. He’s also picked out a few of his favourites and the stories behind them.

Collections are funny things – occasionally purpose-built, but all too often accrued organically by happenstance.

The BBC has been a bit of a schizophrenic ‘collector’ in its long history. Its written archives reflect an essentially bureaucratic set up, with scrupulously stored minutes of meetings, annual reports and correspondence, while its TV and radio programmes were ephemeral, here-and-gone products. The early radio programmes were saved, for example, only by being stashed in a conscientious producer’s bottom drawer!

As for BBC artworks and artefacts, these have only latterly been collected with coherence, as interest in them has grown and grown. Here are a few gems from that collection…

Of course, we’d have to begin with the iconic BBC microphone, with its rather grand nomenclature: AXBT! Now, it’s a very symbol of the BBC, from its multiple depictions in the early days of radio - as announcers and singers, often be-suited and bow-tied, appeared behind them.

We had one out latterly at the behest of the President Sarkozy and the French Embassy, who were after the microphone used by General de Gaulle in his famous BBC broadcast to occupied France in June 1940. They gasped as we produced its pristine and shiny metallic form!

 

A little earlier in 1933, Eric Gill captured the new magic of broadcasting in the lyrical  statuary of Ariel and Prospero.

This stands above the entrance to Broadcasting House in London, and is one of the loveliest artworks commissioned by the BBC. Notorious in its day for the brazen nakedness of the boy Ariel, the statue attracted mythologies all of its own.

Like the story of the sculpture behind the sculpture…When the statue was being cleaned, we tested this one, and found to our delight that there was indeed something carved on the flat back of Prospero: the head of a beautiful girl. No-one knows who she was.

And of course, the collection also fascinates itself with the evolution of the BBC brand. It’s hard to believe now that in the BBC’s early days there was no formal BBC logo. It grew out of a sequence of decorative motifs – via the first TV on-air branding: the famous Bat’s wings logo (designed by Festival of Britain designer, Abram Games in 1953).

 

We also have in the collection that famous revolving globe, which so many of us grew up watching.

Here’s the simple mechanical box which created it in 1963, when the world was still black and white, and when we saw the globe turning and reflected flat behind it via a simple mirror wall.

• Take a look at the rest of the BBC objects, including the various Blue Peter badges, a Dalek mould, the Mastermind buzzer and a Blattnerphone.

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So, this is it: after 10 months, 95 objects and 1,425 minutes of history on the radio, it’s the final week and our story has at last caught up with us.

But what a story… the past century has brought immense change - the way we live has been altered at an unprecedented speed in part due to new technologies, new materials, and consumption of material goods.

Over the last 100 years we’ve made more objects as a species than ever before - it has even been suggested that more objects have been made in the last 100 years, than in the preceding two million put together. For a vast archive of evidence just explore the objects you’ve uploaded to this site that were made in the last few decades.

For JD Hill, lead curator of the series, this has presented a great challenge:

Many listeners have asked how do we do justice to the last 100 years with five objects, especially, as this history is so well known to many. Should the objects be those associated with big events, or do you go for objects to do with underlying historical processes?

Although, in reality, choosing five objects to explore the last 100 years is not more difficult than choosing five to explore the second millennium BC. It has been about finding five objects that tell strong stories, unexpected stories and stories told through the things themselves.

So what objects have been chosen?

Our Russian plate explores how images and objects express the power of totalitarian regimes. In this case, the Bolshevik revolution in which propagandists painted over porcelain made by the previous imperial regime to make a statement about the communist future they were building towards.

A print by British artist David Hockney showing two men relaxing in bed together is used to discuss, sexuality and the rights of the individual to live as they choose.

In the Throne of Weapons we’re given an eloquent and poignant lesson in the horror of the wars played out in Africa, as Europe’s colonial empires came to an end. The cold war era weapons in the chair remind us that some of those African wars were in part fuelled, funded and facilitated by external forces. Many, many thousands have died, but another message in this seat is about reconciliation and the desire to begin building a future in peace.

Money has remained a constant through the series and a credit card speaks of our cashless world in which funds can change hands without being touched.

And, of course, our 100th and final object: the solar-powered lamp and charger. This object describes the challenges and ingenuity of today while also pointing to a possible future of renewable, non-polluting energy: kinder to our planet, and potentially liberating for the developing world.

So, without objects where would we be? Humans have always made, used and depended on things. They’ve been our ticket to the top of the food chain. They’ve enabled us to prosper in every single environment on the planet we occupy (even underwater!) not to mention beyond it.

So if there’s one message I’d like to sign-off with it’s that objects are powerful things - powerful because through them we can explore and understand ourselves.

• The photo of a junk shop in Kyoto is by Carol Green and is used under licence.

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Watch a video of Neil MacGregor unveiling the 100th object in the British Museum and live on the Today programme.

=======================   UPDATE - 07.45AM 14.10.2010    ========================

 

The 100th object is the solar-powered lamp and charger.

It's an object that can bring electricity those who have never had it before, and may point the way towards a more sustainable source of power for all of us in the future.

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The British Museum is revealing their 100th object at 7:45am on this morning’s Today programme. We’ve been looking at the five contenders this week but the final choice is still a mystery. All we know is that it’s “an object that tells the story of the ingenuity and the challenges that shape humanity in the 21st century.”

Looking at the five contenders, which of them best fits that description? You can argue that they all show some degree of ingenuity, though in the case of the pestle and mortar it’s the pretty basic kind of hitting rocks together, so I’m not sure that the ingenuity part is going to help us much.

I feel like it’s the ‘challenges of the 21st century’ that is going to be key to the final choice, so what challenges do each of these objects help define?

The football shirt has attracted a lot of discussion from football fans about whether it should have been a British footballer, such as Ryan Giggs or Steven Gerrard, but the 21st century challenge that it describes is the one of a globalised economy. This is an English football shirt for an Ivory Coast footballer made by a German sportswear company in China. That is a lot of nations with an investment in one shirt.

On the other hand, the pestle and mortar can also tell a story about globalisation. It tells us how it’s more than just goods and currencies that move between countries in a global economy; cultures and traditions travel too.

Then there’s the mobile phone, which shows how the large parts of the world currently left out of globalisation might be given access to the instant communication and spread of knowledge that the global market relies on.

Meanwhile, I think the solar-powered lamp and the Antarctic clothing both represent a different challenge of the 21st century: climate change.

The Antarctic clothing is needed by the scientists who are taking the climate measurements that may be driving the political and economic landscape by the end of the century.

But perhaps the solar-powered lamp and charger shows a route forward with technology that can bring us electricity from more sustainable, less polluting sources.

As a comment on the blog pointed out, the solar lamp also highlights how our entire modern infrastructure is built around electrical power.

From manufacturing plants, to computer design, to mobile communication, to a simple light for reading; without electricity there is no modern world. For that reason, from the contenders I would pick the solar-powered lamp as the 100th object.

But I also know that ‘global trade’ has been one of the key themes of A History of the World in 100 Objects, so I have a feeling that the final object might be the mobile phone. As David said on the blog on Saturday:

Now fishermen in Kerala, India, can use mobiles to check out where the best prices might be paid for their catch; farmers in Tanzania can sign-up to a text-messaging service that’ll keep them updated on the weather forecast, and small businesses across Africa can transfer their money through the air.

The mobile phone has also been the most popular choice by you in the suggestions for your 100th object, so maybe there is a nice synchronicity going on.

The announcement is around 7:45am and I’ll be there to see what Neil MacGregor reveals as the 100th object in our series. I’ll let you know as soon as that sheet comes off the display box.

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