I think my grandfather or my great-grandfather must have been given a bust of Rossini, the composer.

And because they didn't have images of the human body, they knocked off his nose.

Hello, I'm Neil McGregor. And in this series of podcasts, I'm looking at objects to see how shared beliefs have helped shape societies.

Now we're focusing on images.

In this episode, we explore the danger of images

and the appeal of words.

This is the BBC.

In March 2001, the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan blew up the Bamiyan

Buddhas. Two monumental images, one 35, the other over 50 metres tall, the largest representations

of a standing Buddha anywhere in the world were in a few hours

reduced to rubble. Photographs of the empty niches were reproduced around the globe,

eliciting outrage and condemnation. This is what the world has lost. It is not just the monumental

stone and plasterwork. Iconicalism had returned to world politics, and it is still very much with us.

In the year since 2001, other pre-Islamic images have been systematically destroyed in Syria and Iraq

by the so-called Islamic State. In all these cases, religion and politics have been inextricably

mixed.

But we nevertheless find here the most violent demonstration possible

of a recurring and profoundly influential idea in religion around the world,

that images are effectively idolatry and that only the word can lead to God.

You don't have to look to Islam or to go to Afghanistan to witness violent iconoclasm.

Christian Europe has had more than its fair share.

And here in the British Museum,

...