A History of the World in 100 Objects - The First Cities and States (4000 - 2000 BC)
Five objects from the British Museum's collection tell the story of the emergence of the earliest cities in the river valleys of North Africa and Asia
A History of the World in 100 Objects - The First Cities and States (4000 - 2000 BC) - Early Writing Tablet
Neil MacGregor celebrates the arrival of writing into our history, with a 5,000-year-old clay tablet from Mesopotamia that deals not in poetry but in describing the local beer.
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A History of the World in 100 Objects - The First Cities and States (4000 - 2000 BC) - Indus Seal
Neil MacGregor arrives at the great Indus Valley civilisation in present-day Pakistan and examines 4,500-year-old stone stamps from a city building boom of the period.
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A History of the World in 100 Objects - The First Cities and States (4000 - 2000 BC) - Jade Axe
Neil MacGregor focuses on a 6,000-year-old jade axe discovered near Canterbury but made in the High Alps. What was Britain like then?
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A History of the World in 100 Objects - The First Cities and States (4000 - 2000 BC) - King Den's Sandal Label
Neil MacGregor revisits the early days of a great civilisation on the Nile to examine the life of one of the earliest Egyptian kings through a tiny sandal label.
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A History of the World in 100 Objects - The First Cities and States (4000 - 2000 BC) - Standard of Ur
Neil MacGregor describes the discovery of a set of mosaics from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, now in southern Iraq, which shows intricate scenes of battle and regal life.
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