Our Top Ten Treasures

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Our Top Ten Treasures
Genre	Documentary
Directed by	Patricia Wheatley
Presented by	Adam Hart-Davis
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
Production
Executive producer(s)	Stephen Wilkinson · Caroline van den Brul
Producer(s)	Patricia Wheatley
Distributor	BBC
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC Two
Original airing	January 1, 2003
External links
Official website

Our Top Ten Treasures is a 2003 special episode of BBC Television series Meet the Ancestors, which profiles the 10 most important treasures ever unearthed in Britain as voted by a panel of experts from the British Museum.

Contents 1 Production 2 Reception 3 Synopsis 4 Contributors 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Production

The programmed 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’s attempts to popularise the museum.^[1]

Following the broadcast viewers were invited to vote for their favourites in a poll that was won by the Vindolanda Tablets with the Sutton Hoo ship burial in second place.^[2][3]

[edit] Reception

Richard Morrison writing in The Times criticised the British Museum for co-operating in an, "unashamedly populist television archaeology venture,"^[1] 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."^[4]

[edit] Synopsis

Every year thousands of precious things are dug up in Britain and many of them find their way here to the British Museum in London, together they represent an amazing amount of history. We’ve asked the museum to look out their top exhibits, both single objects and whole hordes, and we’re going to go behind the scenes down into the treasure room to have a look at the top ten treasures of Britain.

—Adam Hart-Davis's introduction

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

• The Bronze Age Ringlemere Gold Cup unearthed by metal-detectorist Cliff Bradshaw near Dover in 2001.
• The 10th-century Cuerdale Silver Hoard discovered by stoneworkers on the banks of the River Ribble in 1840.
• The 15th-century Fishpool Hoard of gold coins discovered in Ravenshead is the largest in Britain.
• The 4th-century Mildenhall Roman Dinner Service discovered by a ploughman near Cambridge in 1942.
• The Bronze Age embossed-gold Mold Cape unearthed by road builders at Mold, Flintshire in 1833 and reassembled in the 1960s.
• The 12th-century Lewis chessmen unearthed near Stornoway in 1831 but originating in Scandinavia.
• The Iron Age Snettisham Hoard of gold torques found from 1948 onwards at a sacrificial site outside King’s Lynn.
• The 5th-century Hoxne Hoard of Roman gold, silver and jewellery uncovered by retired gardener Eric Lawes in 1992 near Ipswich.
• The 7th-century Sutton Hoo ship burial unearthed by Basil Brown and Edith Pretty in 1939 near Ipswich.
• The Roman Vindolanda Tablets unearthed by Robin Birley in 1973 near Hadrian's Wall.

[edit] Contributors

Robin Birley (Director, Vindolanda Trust) Roger Bland (Head, Portable Antiquities Scheme) Alan Bowman (Centre of Ancient Writing, Oxford University) Cliff Bradshaw Christine Carpenter (Historian, Cambridge University) Martin Carver (Director, Sutton Hoo Research Trust) Barrie Cook (Curator of Coins & Medals, BM) Angela Evans (Curator, Anglo-Saxon Collections, BM) Irving Finkel (Asst Keeper, Cuneiform Collections, BM) J.D. Hill (Curator, Iron Age Collections, BM) Richard Hobbs (Curator, Romano-British Collections, BM)

Catherine Johns (Former Senior Curator, British Museum) Neil MacGregor (Director, British Museum) Ian McIntyre (Metal Conservator, British Museum) Stuart Needham (Curator, Bronze Age Collections, BM) Keith Parfitt (Canterbury Archaeological Trust) Jude Plouviez (Suffolk Archaeological Unit) James Robinson (Curator, Medieval Collections, BM) Leslie Webster (Head, Medieval & Modern Europe Dept, BM) Gareth Williams (Curator of Coins & Medals, BM) Jonathan Williams

[edit] External links

• British Museum Our Top Ten British Treasures online tour
• Our Top Ten Treasures at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] References