[The Persian Empire] left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together.

For many, the icon of the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone, that administrative by-product of the Greek imperial adventure in Africa.

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.

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.

Objects let you tell a narrative that encompasses everybody. Texts don't.

[The Persian Empire] left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together.

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.