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Paul Sargeant Paul Sargeant | 14:29 UK time, Friday, 30 April 2010

Paracas textileIt's just over two weeks to go until A History of the World in 100 Objects returns to Radio 4. But looking at my iPod the other day I realised that I only had 28 of the episodes from the first part. So I've finally downloaded the two I was missing: the Paracas textile and the Basse Yutz Flagons.

I listened to the Paracas textile one this morning. It's great. The thing I think I like most about it is summed up by Neil MacGregor near the beginning:

We're learning new things all the time about the Americas at this date but, compared to what we know about Asia, much is still relatively mysterious.

That hooked me straight in. There's something exciting about being told that even the experts don't have all the facts. Maybe it's the vast amount of knowledge at our fingertips these days and the feeling you sometimes get that every inch of history has already been thoroughly scrutinised and pinned down. David described a similar thing at the end of his previous post when talking about the loss of the unknown when travelling.

But here is a civilisation, in fact an entire continent, that remains elusive. And if that wasn't enough for the ten-year-old in me, it turns out that this episode isn't really about weaving and cross-stitching, it's about mummies and ritual sacrifice.

Paracas textileIf you haven't heard the programme you can listen again from our object page for the Paracas textile by clicking on the big pink button on the right of the page. Or you can even save a copy of the episode onto your pc by clicking the 'Download' link. You can then listen to it whenever you want.

If, like me, you have missed some of the other episodes, they are all still available for free online. Choose any objects you missed from this list of the 100 British Museum objects and then on the object page click listen again or download.

If you're new to all this, then you can read the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s help pages to find out more about the and .

Fill in the gaps in your knowledge, even if it turns out that, ironically, your listening to someone discussing the gaps in theirs.

  • All episodes of A History of the World are free and available to keep as long as you want.

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