5 ideas
Written history records mainly the literate and the victorious, so most past peoples appear only through others' descriptions. Things they made, such as tools, pots, and ornaments, are direct first-person evidence from societies that left no texts. Telling history through objects therefore redistributes attention away from a few literate civilisations toward the whole of humanity.
The brass plaques that decorated the royal palace of Benin in present-day Nigeria were cast from the sixteenth century onward, partly from brass manillas supplied by Portuguese traders. Some depict the Portuguese themselves, recording a trading relationship between equals.
An artefact's significance does not stop when its maker finishes it; each later owner re-carves, re-uses, or re-interprets it. For example, the Rapa Nui statue Hoa Hakananai'a was later carved on its back with birdman-cult imagery, and was later taken aboard HMS Topaze in 1868. Reading an object means reading this whole biography of use, capture, and display, not just its moment of origin.
Placing objects from different continents that were made at the same time side by side shows parallel developments that national narratives hide. Examples include independent agriculture, cities, and states arising in several regions. This comparison replaces a single Europe-centred timeline with a connected, polycentric picture in which societies faced similar problems at the same time.
The fact that a hundred objects from every continent can be gathered in one London building is historical evidence in its own right. It reflects the naval, commercial, and colonial reach of nineteenth-century Britain.