Dating Advice
In a previous episode of the #membercast I spoke to Nick Ashton about the footprints he helped discover in Norfolk. Footprints that are over 500,000 years old left by a close ancestor to homesapians… well, a close ancestor and their kids.
The previous episode 004 - Footprints in time went into this in detail but I wanted to speak to Nick again and really get to grips with how we know how old something is and what is the science behind it.
In this I learned it isn’t just the object itself, but the ground it was found in, and the hundreds of fragments of supporting evidence that give us an understanding of what happened in the past. Each piece of evidence is in balance with the others, and together we can build a picture of what must have happened hundred of thousands of years ago.
The first in a new series, this episode of British Museum Untold sees Dr Julia Farley and Iszi Lawrence discover how explosions have affected objects, from bomb damage at the Museum during the Second World War, to the 2020 explosion in Beirut. They meet expert conservators, curators and archivists to find out how these objects have been painstakingly repaired.
Iszi and Dr Alice Roberts discuss her favourite ancient burial sites in the UK
Iszi and Caroline Lawrence discuss some of the Objects that inspired the Roman Mysteries series.
Iszi gets charmed by a curator into thinking Nero wasn’t as bad as all that.
Middle Eastern and North African Art - how does the British Museum chose what to add to its collection?
Curator Sue Brunning tells Iszi about the true story behind the excavation at Sutton Hoo, and how this famous discovery changed our understanding of the past.
From making up hieroglyphs to pinching obelisks, the history of Egyptology is nearly as fascinating as Egyptology itself.
In a new series the British Museum Untold sees Dr Julia Farley and Iszi Lawrence discover all the different ways The British Museum has been supporting international conversation projects and bringing the past to life!