A History of the World in 100 Objects - After the Ice Age: Food and Sex (9000 - 3500 BC) - Egyptian Clay Model of Cattle

The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum. Neil selects four miniature clay cows to show the major changes that early man was undergoing at the end of the Ice Age. These four frail-looking cows were made from Nile mud in Egypt 5,500 years ago, long before the time of the pyramids or the pharaohs. Why did the Egyptians start burying objects like this one with their dead? Neil goes in search life and death on the Nile and discovers how the domestication of cattle transformed human existence. Producer: Anthony Denselow.