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As the Persians wrote very little about how they ran their affairs, the Greek propaganda of the 5th century B.C. has for centuries gone virtually unchallenged - indeed, for Edward Said, it was the beginning of Europe's long habit of misunderstanding and ill-informed contempt of the Middle East.

From Neil MacGregor

The things we make have one supreme quality - they live longer than us. We perish, they survive; we have one life, they have many lives, and in each life they can mean different things. Which means that, while we all have one biography, they have many.

From Neil MacGregor

While there are few records of Viking women participating in battle, they certainly held positions of high status in society as human sorceresses known as 'volvas.'

From Neil MacGregor

The spread of Viking bling is a good indication of the spread of its culture.

From Neil MacGregor

In a very literal way, of course, Shakespeare did change the course of history: when it didn't fit the plot he had in mind, he simply rewrote it. His English histories play fast and loose with chronology and fact to achieve the desired dramatic effect, re-ordering history even as it was then understood.

From Neil MacGregor

Creation stories, so central in the religions of the Middle East, play a surprisingly marginal part in Greek myth. The Greeks had nothing to set alongside the resounding 'In the beginning' in the book of Genesis, where one eternal God creates the universe out of nothing.

From Neil MacGregor

For the Greeks, there was no single canonical version of creation, but a number of overlapping stories.

From Neil MacGregor

Prometheus - trickster, rebel and hero - links the realm of the gods with the world of humanity, with which he had such close affinity. His act of stealing fire has been viewed as the foundation of all man's technologies.

From Neil MacGregor

Google the name Prometheus, and see how often it has been given to innovations in many different fields, notably science, medicine and space exploration. The fire he stole can be seen, too, as the spark generating all artistic creativity.

From Neil MacGregor

It is a standing source of astonishment and amusement to visitors that the British Museum has so few British things in it: that it is a museum about the world as seen from Britain rather than a history focused on these islands.

From Neil MacGregor

Neil MacGregor

Notable Quotes

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