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A History of the World in 100 Objects

Factual: History

Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells humanity's history through objects

Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, narrates 100 programmes that retell humanity's history through the objects we have made.

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A History of the World in 100 Objects: The Threshold of the Modern World (1375-1550 AD): Jade dragon cup

Jade Dragon Cup

Jade dragon cup

The Threshold of the Modern World (1375-1550 AD)

A History of the World in 100 Objects Omnibus

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Neil MacGregor with a jade cup that belonged a great leader of the Timurid Empire.

Neil MacGregor's world history explores the great empires of the world around 600 years ago. Today he examines a jade cup that belonged to a leader of the great Timurid Empire.

The history of humanity as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London is this week exploring powerful empires around the world in the 14th and 15th centuries. Today he is with a handsome jade cup that once belonged to one of the great leaders of the Timurid Empire - the great power that stretched across Central Asia, from Iran to parts of India. The owner of the cup was Ulugh Beg, the man who built the great observatory in his capital Samakand and who - like Galileo and Copernicus - has a crater on the moon named after him. Neil tells the story of the Timurids and charts the influences that spread along the Silk Road at this time. The Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov and the historian  Beatrice Forbes Manz describe the Timurid world and the extraordinary character of Ulugh Beg.

Producer: Anthony Denselow



A History of the World in 100 Objects: The Threshold of the Modern World (1375-1550 AD)

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Neil MacGregor explores the great empires of the world in the threshold of the modern era.

This week Neil MacGregor is exploring the great empires of the world around 1500 - from the Inca in South America to the Ming in China and the Timurids in the Middle East.

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A History of the World in 100 Objects

The Threshold of the Modern World (1375-1550 AD)

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