A History of the World in 100 Objects is a History Documentary programme.

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A History of the World in 100 Objects: Statue of Ramesses II

Series 1, episode 20

The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum. The Museum's giant statue of the king Ramesses II was a remarkable ruler who built monuments all over Egypt. He inspired a line of future pharaohs and was worshipped as a god a thousand years later. He lived to be over 90 and fathered some 100 children. Neil considers the achievements of Ramesses II in fixing the image of imperial Egypt for the rest of the world, and the sculptor Antony Gormley, the man responsible for a contemporary giant statue, The Angel of the North, considers the towering figure of Ramesses as an enduring work of art