The British Museum’s exhibition ‘Thomas Becket murder and the making of a saint’ is into its last days now and will close on 22 August. It is being held to mark the 850th year of his death (or the 900th of his birth), with the slight discrepancy of it now being 2021 (he lived 1120 to 1170) being explained by a postponement from last year due to lock-down.

The main drawback of exhibitions is usually the other people there, preventing you seeing what you want to see when you want to see it...

Like all displays of objects from Ancient Egypt, the British Museum’s collection is biased towards funerary objects, as these are what have survived best. This is partly due to an early preference on the part of Egyptians to be buried in the desert, where the arid conditions have been conducive to preservation. Amongst the largest and most detailed of the objects on display is the False Door of Ptahshepses which dates to around 2440 BC - part of the Old Kingdom, which ran from around 2,686 ...

The Havering Hoard is the largest Bronze Age hoard to have been found in London, and is now available to see at the Museum of London Docklands, in Canary Wharf.

All 453 items from the site are on view, together with other items from the Museum of London, which help place the finds in context.

The objects, which date to around 900BC to 800BC, include axe heads, fragments of swords, axe heads, daggers and knives.

The finds were unusual in being recovered from four individually placed hoards within...