A History of the World in 100 Objects: Maya Relief of Royal Blood-Letting

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. This week he explores power and intrigue in the great royal courts of the world around 800 AD. Today's object offers a story of authority, pain and belief from the world of the ancient Maya. It is a limestone carving showing a king and his wife engaged in an agonising scene of ritual bloodletting. Neil describes a great city in the jungle of modern day Mexico and the culture that produced it. Expert on Maya iconography Virginia Fields and psychotherapist Susie Orbach help explain an object that has the power to unsettle the modern viewer