The story of the discovery in East Anglia and restoration of the most iconic piece of the Sutton Hoo treasure, Britain's richest ever archaeological find.
Among the greatest artistic masterpieces of the ancient world, the Assyrian reliefs were found in the 19th century by an Iraqi archaeologist working for the British in competition with the French. The stone reliefs depict the great Assyrian monarch King Ashburnipal in his favoured practice of hunting lions.
Amongst the most appealing objects in the British Museum is a chess set, perhaps made by 12th century Norwegian craftsmen and discovered on a remote beach on the Isle of Lewis in 1831. Each piece is amazingly carved out of whale teeth - some are comic, some pensive and some grand.
The Benin bronzes and an exquisite bronze head known as the Head of Ife, estimated to be eight hundred years old, caused Europeans to revise completely their cultural assumptions about Africa. It is both artistically refined and made by masters of the technology of bronze casting.
Albrecht Dürer's Rhinoceros is one of the most famous works in the British Museum collection. It is also one of the great images of European art--an image that has taken on an iconic status all its own. But what is so special about this simple woodcut of a lumbering, clumsy, Asian animal? Why has it influenced generations of artists, designers and craftsmen?
The turquoise mosaic of a double-headed serpent is one of the most alluring objects in the British Museum Mexican Gallery. Made over 500 years ago, this icon of Aztec art is admired for its symmetry, beauty and colour. But it is also chilling and disquieting: those perfect curves end in teeth--and those teeth absolutely mean death.
