The success of the British Museum’s History of the World project has seen it named Museum of the Year.
The institution in Bloomsbury, central London, was presented with the £100,000 Art Fund Prize yesterday night.
The project included a 100-part series on BBC Radio 4 which attempted to tell the history of the world through 100 different objects including a Roman gravestone, the world’s oldest football and a Honda Civic.
Former Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo, who chaired the judging panel, said: “We were particularly impressed by the truly global scope of the British Museum’s project, which combined intellectual rigour and open heartedness, and went far beyond the boundaries of the museum’s walls.
“Above all, we felt that this project, which showed a truly pioneering use of digital media, has led the way for museums to interact with their audiences in new and different ways.
“Without changing the core of the British Museum’s purpose, people have and are continuing to engage with objects in an innovative way as a consequence of this project.”
The three other shortlisted museums were the University of Cambridge’s Polar Museum, the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, Scotland, and the Roman Baths Museum in Bath.
British Museum director Neil MacGregor said: “The British Museum is delighted to win the Art Fund Prize on behalf of the extraordinary coalition of UK museums that made A History of the World so successful.
“A History of the World celebrated objects and the stories they tell; the prize will pay for a series of Spotlight Tours, lending star British Museum objects around England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
“A History of the World involved 550 heritage partners, from Shetland to the Scilly Isles, who worked hand in hand with the BBC to explore global stories through museum collections of every complexion.”
This is the first time a London-based national museum has won the prize.
Previous winners include the Ulster Museum, Stoke-on-Trent’s Wedgwood Museum and the National Mining Museum in Wales.