Ruling with the Gods

Neil MacGregor concludes his series about shared beliefs. He began with the Lion Man, an object created 40,000 years ago, and now reflects on the present, on the future and on hopeProducer Paul Kobrak The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh. Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a look at the attempts of some faiths to establish a state of their own.An over-printed coin from 2nd century Jerusalem tells of the failed attempt of Shimon bar Kokhba to lay claim to a state for the Jews, free from Roman rule - while a white cotton flag, framed in pale blue, flew over Sudan after it had been taken by Mahdist forces and before the Islamic state collapsed in the mid 1890s.Producer Paul Kobrak Produced in partnership with the British Museum Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a focus on those faiths seen as a threat to the state.A plain board, to be found on a 17th-century Japanese roadside, offers generous rewards to anyone who informs on Christians. At almost exactly the same time a print from France depicts the officially sanctioned destruction of a Huguenot Church just a few miles east of Paris. Producer Paul KobrakProduced in partnership with the British Museum Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor focuses on societies which aimed to live without religious beliefs. Neil examines a revolutionary clock, from around 1795, created in the wake of the French Revolution, and designed to mark a new way of living: in an age of reason, there would no longer be royalism or religion in France. A poster from the Soviet Union celebrates the apparent triumph of scientific progress: the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin floats in space, looks out and proclaims 'There is no God!'. It seems that the heavens are empty of divine beings, but full, instead, of starry promise. Producer Paul Kobrak Produced in partnership with the British Museum Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a focus on earthly rulers and the gods. Queens and kings may be priests of the gods, or their representatives. They may be incarnations - or even gods themselves. Or the relationship may be so close that to divide spiritual from temporal power at all would simply make no sense. Neil examines these ideas, with the help of objects including a bronze staff belonging to the Oba of Benin, and a bronze vessel from China, whose inscription suggests that its dynastic leaders enjoyed a mandate from heaven. Producer Paul Kobrak The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh. Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor continues his series about the expression of shared beliefs with a focus on how faiths co-exist in India.Producer Paul KobrakProduced in partnership with the British Museum Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor continues his series about the expression of shared beliefs with a focus on gods can reach new communities, and how those communities can then adapt and change the faiths. Producer Paul KobrakProduced in partnership with the British Museum Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor continues his series about the expression of shared beliefs with a focus on societies who believe that they share the landscape with co-inhabitants who are not visible but are present. Such belief systems can be found in places such as the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. It is difficult, Neil MacGregor suggests, to express this relationship with the landscape in the English language. Words such as spirits, gods or beings do not adequately convey the nature of the co-inhabitants - and although these co-inhabitants cannot always be seen, they are always there, on the other side of the leaf. Producer Paul Kobrak Produced in partnership with the British Museum Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor's series on the role and expression of beliefs continues with a focus on societies and faiths with a single god. Using objects from both ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt, Neil examines how one god could become central to worship in these societies. Producer Paul Kobrak Produced in partnership with the British Museum Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor's series on the role and expression of beliefs continues with a focus on societies living with many gods. In the mid-1840s, a Roman earthenware jar was dug from the earth near Felmingham Hall in Norfolk. Inside, excavators found several belief systems, all mixed up together - for buried in the pot was a jumble of gods, deities of different kinds and origins, that tell us what it meant for people in Roman Britain around the year 250 to be living with many gods. The great ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh includes a narrative with striking similarities to - but important differences from - the story of Noah in the Bible. Here a council of gods is persuaded to unleash a great flood to wipe out humankind. Producer Paul Kobrak The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh. Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.