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Remember when you could leave your front door unlocked and local bobbies upheld the peace with nothing more than a wink and a cuff round the ear? Me neither. But it's something of a habit in us humans to look for a moment in time when things were somehow better than they are now.

In week six of A History of the World in 100 objects we're parachuted back to between 500 and 300 BC a point in human history when ability, knowledge and vision had seemingly reached a high point.
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As lead curator JD Hill puts it:
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We have philosophical, intellectual and artistic traditions being created which will survive, be discussed and continue to influence for the next 2,500 years.

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For our objects this week, we look at five examples of this 'golden age', and ask whether it was really so golden.
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Take the Centaur and Lapith sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens. This is Classical Greece, when great statesmen were steering the earliest democracy, Plato was sharing ideas with anyone who'd listen and where one of the great masterpieces of world art was sculpted in marble on the Acropolis.

But Athens wasn't alone.
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In China, Confucius was forming ideas that would influence philosophical and political life in the east, and beyond, for thousands of years. The Chinese bronze bell shows the importance of music in China at this time and its influence on Confucius and his belief in musical harmony as a metaphor for social harmony.
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It was also at this point that the Persian Empire spanned three continents and, under the rule of Cyrus, enjoyed such familiar staples as religious tolerance, regional government and a postal service. We get all that from a tiny gold chariot model found in Tadjikistan.
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But, explains JD, as golden as this age clearly was, there are practical reasons why we tend to look to this moment as a high point of civilisation.
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Both in the West and in China there is a tendency to look back at the fifth century BC as somehow being an important intellectual age - as if there wasn't a similar tradition taking place before.

One of the big questions we have to ask is how much is that really true? Or do we in the west look to Classical Greece or the 'Age of a Hundred Schools of Thought' in China as the high point because it is a cultural tradition that left behind writings which are constantly picked up for the next 2,500 years? While other traditions have not left this continuing literary legacy.

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Telling a history of the world through objects, as we are, we can look past the page, papyrus or tablet.
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Greek and Roman writers describe the Celts of northern Europe as barbarians or noble savages. But the Basse Yutz flagons are evidence of a sophisticated, skilled and artistic people. The Olmec stone mask, made in what is now Mexico, reveals the culture behind the calendars, religion, town-planning and art that would characterise Central American civilisation for millennia.
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So how about it: was this really a 'golden age'? Were our 2,500 year-old ancestors better off, or more advanced, than those who came before?

Or are we living dangerously if we only believe everything we read?

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