The BBC’s Antiques Roadshow should address the legacy of colonialism when explaining the history of heirlooms and other artefacts guests bring to the programme, according to an Oxford academic.
Prof Dan Hicks, the curator of world archaeology at Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum, called for the show to inform its millions of viewers about the problematic and violent histories behind how objects came to the UK from its former colonies.
His comments came after the programme featured a Mughal ring, valued at £2,000, which the jewellery historian John Benjamin said had “somehow found its way from somewhere near the Taj Mahal over to a charity shop here 200 years later”.
The archaeologist, who jokingly tweeted “decolonise the Antiques Roadshow” in response to this explanation, said he was not trying to “cancel” the programme, which he enjoys watching. But he added: “The disappointing thing for me was that the histories of other objects on the show were told, whereas here the history was being euphemistically dodged.”
In response to Hicks, Pranay Manocha tweeted: “As an Indian, this hurts. There are historian friends of mine who will never have access to these things, and the effect is that a large part of Indian history continues to be written and interpreted by the British.”
Although the provenance of the ring, studded with rubies and diamonds, was difficult to ascertain as it was bought for £1 in a charity shop, Hicks said it was a missed opportunity to explain how other, better documented, Mughal artefacts “found their way” to Britain from India during imperial rule.
“The BBC has a great opportunity to acknowledge the legacies of empire [and] show people how intimately bound up the global history of Britain is in the personal or the private collections of families and households across the country,” he added.
“We need to start looking at the ethics and histories of the many different ways – whether by purchase, exchange, missionary confiscations, violent looting, and archaeological excavation – that objects came to Britain.”
Hicks, author of The Brutish Museums, which examines the looting of the Benin bronzes by British soldiers in the late 19th century, recalled another episode of Antiques Roadshow that featured a 20th-century example of the art form.
“It felt odd that there was no mention at all that there was something called the Benin bronzes that had been looted,” he added.
Although Hicks said his tweet, which has received more than a million views, was originally intended as a joke, the overwhelmingly positive response to it suggested to him there was a widespread audience for colonial histories.
A BBC spokesperson said: “Wherever possible, Antiques Roadshow explores the historical context of the items that are brought to the show by their owners. In this instance, as explained during the programme, the ring was found in a charity shop and there was no information about how it had come to be in the UK.”
She cited two examples of where the programme had explored the provenance of better-documented artefacts: items of Georgian silver, which prompted one expert to explore the link between slavery, sugar and tea-drinking; and a Chinese table that might once have graced the imperial palace in Beijing – prompting another expert to discuss the history of the 19th-century sacking of the Summer Palace by British troops.
