Neil MacGregor
Neil MacGregor
Robert Neil MacGregor, OM, AO, FSAis a British art historian and former museum director. He was the editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, and finally Director of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth16 June 1946
wine cups firsts
In 1600, when Shakespeares audience at the Globe heard Hamlet for the first time, every one of them knew very well what it meant to be handed a cup of wine by a figure of authority and told to drink.
narrative objects
Objects let you tell a narrative that encompasses everybody. Texts don't.
adventure museums icons
For many, the icon of the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone, that administrative by-product of the Greek imperial adventure in Africa.
motivation inspiration voice
In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are shrill. But ... the wisest voice of all of them may well be the voice of this mute thing, the Cyrus cylinder.
narrative conveying objects
Objects are better than text at conveying narrative
god dream people
[The Persian Empire] left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together.
people tools ancestor
From the point where our ancestors started making tools, people have been unable to survive without the things they make; in this sense, it is making things that makes us human.
years everyday world
For a million years the sound of making handaxes provided the percussion of everyday life. Anyone choosing a hundred objects to tell a history of the world would have to include a handaxe.