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A History of the World in 100 Objects

After the Ice Age: Food and Sex (9000 - 3500 BC)

Egyptian Clay Model of Cattle

Duration: 14 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

Neil MacGregor, in his history of mankind as told through objects at the British Museum, 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, way 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 made the humble cow transformed human existence. Show less

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