Neil MacGregor
Neil MacGregor
Robert Neil MacGregor, OM, AO, FSAis a British art historian and former museum director. He was the editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, and finally Director of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth16 June 1946
adventure museums icons
For many, the icon of the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone, that administrative by-product of the Greek imperial adventure in Africa.
motivation inspiration voice
In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are shrill. But ... the wisest voice of all of them may well be the voice of this mute thing, the Cyrus cylinder.
narrative conveying objects
Objects are better than text at conveying narrative
god dream people
[The Persian Empire] left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together.
people tools ancestor
From the point where our ancestors started making tools, people have been unable to survive without the things they make; in this sense, it is making things that makes us human.
years everyday world
For a million years the sound of making handaxes provided the percussion of everyday life. Anyone choosing a hundred objects to tell a history of the world would have to include a handaxe.
above bit body images nativity pictorial stage tradition western
The focus in the Western pictorial tradition is on the body of Christ, the bit you can paint, the Nativity and the infancy, but above all the Passion, where you can find images for every stage and every moment.
anyone brings commercial engage entire means shakespeare society
London theatre is different: it is a commercial theatre that brings the whole of society into one place. And Shakespeare grasped, better than anyone else, what it means to engage the entire audience.