''Our Top Ten Treasures'' was a 2003 special episode of the

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

series ''

Meet the Ancestors ''Meet the Ancestors'' (later ''Ancestors'') is a BBC Television documentary series first broadcast in 1998. It documented the archaeological excavation and scientific reconstruction of human remains. The series was introduced by archaeologist ...

'' which profiled the ten most important treasures unearthed in Britain, as voted for by a panel of experts from the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Production

The programme was commissioned for broadcast on New Year’s Day 2003 to tie in with an exhibition at the British Museum as part of new director

Neil MacGregor Robert Neil MacGregor (born 16 June 1946) is a British art historian and former museum director. He was editor of the ''The Burlington Magazine, Burlington Magazine'' from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 ...

's attempts to popularise the museum. Following the broadcast viewers were invited to vote for their favourites in a poll that was won by the

Vindolanda Tablets The Vindolanda tablets were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain (they have since been antedated by the Bloomberg tablets). They are a rich source of information about life on the northern fr ...

, with the

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two early medieval cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near the English town of Woodbridge. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when a previously undisturbed ship burial containing a ...

ship burial in second place.

Reception

Richard Morrison writing in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' criticised the British Museum for co-operating in an, "unashamedly populist television archaeology venture," and another article in the same title stated, "You may not like the idea of a league table of treasures that pits one priceless object against another, but television has its own logic."

Synopsis

Hart-Davis presents the top ten treasures as voted by the expert panel in reverse order.

Contributors

References

{{reflist BBC television documentaries about history Documentary films about the visual arts British Museum British Museum in media Prehistory and Europe objects in the British Museum

Production

Reception

Synopsis

Contributors

See also

References