Ceredigion Museum is partnering BBC Cymru Wales as part of a pan-BBC project to tell the story of “A History of the World” through the objects humans left behind. Ceredigion Museum has added two artefacts to the Wales section of the new website www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld which aims to create a unique digital museum online.
The objects that Ceredigion Museum has included are lead bullets found on Aberystwyth castle and date to the time of the British Civil War during the 1640s and the builder’s drawing of the Edith Eleanor, constructed at Aberystwyth in 1880-1881. They were chosen to reflect the importance of lead mining and boat building in Ceredigion and the effects these industries had throughout the world.
Michael Freeman, curator of Ceredigion Museum said “We are delighted to be part of this high profile project. It is part of Ceredigion Museum’s plan to digitise and upload as much information about the museum’s collections as possible onto web sites.”
As well as visiting Ceredigion Museum to actually view the objects, individuals can get involved in the BBC’s A History of the World project in several ways. BBC Cymru Wales will be broadcasting a new series “Wales and the History of the World”, presented by rugby broadcaster and journalist Eddie Butler, telling the story of Wales’s influence on the world and the world’s influence on Wales through some museum artifacts. The programme, which will air in the spring of 2010, covers the themes of Welsh “firsts”, trade and industry, conflict, identity and belief.
Periodically, from now until the spring, Roy Noble’s programme on BBC Radio Wales will also be taking a look at some of the best Welsh objects while the Nia Roberts programme on BBC Radio Cymru will feature regular updates on some of the website artifacts and some of the listeners’ objects for five weeks from Monday 25 January 2010.
As well as browsing the various objects on the website, www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld, everyone in Wales can also upload their own treasures to help build the digital museum.
Clare Hudson, acting Director of BBC Wales, said she hoped people would visit some of the museums to see the website objects close at hand, but also think about what articles they may have at home to upload to tell a story related to the history of the world.
“This is an opportunity to help create a unique digital museum, where not just the famous objects that have imparted their knowledge to us, but also those very personal things kept at home or in the attic which still have a story to tell, can take their place,” said Clare Hudson.
The BBC project ties in with Wikipedia’s current scheme to encourage visitors to take photographs in their local museum and share the photographs on Wikipedia. Ceredigion Museum is taking part in that project too. More detail is accessible on: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Britain_Loves_Wikipedia/Museum_participation
