Athletes, Warriors and Heroes: The man behind Auckland Museum's Ancient Greeks exhibition

Curator Peter Higgs looks out the window and sees more than just his garden.

I've got an office at the British Museum. For 15 years, I used to go in every day. I'd get the train just after 6 o'clock in the morning but since Covid, of course, I'm working from home a lot more. I can see my garden. It's looking pretty good. Everything's looking quite lush and fresh. It's one of those times you think those hard weekends you spent digging all day or potting stuff is worthwhile because things are starting to look after themselves. I'm pleased. There's lots of colour out there. The physical structures as well: the shed, the chairs, the windows; everything contributes to what a garden looks like.

I'm an acting keeper, looking after a department, so I actually have two offices at the museum at the moment but I tend to stay in my old office, which is full of books and files and things I started 25, 30 years ago, that I haven't got around to looking at for a long time. Most of us curators have piles of books and notes and things.

My main office leads out to the front of the museum, so you can see the visitors queuing up every day. It's a fairly busy but fairly narrow street. The front of the museum itself is a big courtyard. Years ago, you used to see people sitting around chatting and people nearby would come and have their lunch in the courtyard. Now, because of security systems, we have a queue. Everyone has to be searched. It's quite nice to think that people spend a long time queuing up to come to the place you work in. Obviously we enjoy the space as well, but our experience is different.

Peter Higgs with a marble head of Zeus dating from the 1st century BC. Photo / Jason Oxenham

We do spend quite a lot of time going around the galleries, whether it's to get to another part of the museum or to check up on objects or showcases or whatever it might be, so you can see people engaging with the collection, enjoying it, wandering around. If you have your badge, they ask you questions and although it's usually a question you can't answer because it's for another department, that's a nice feeling. What's great about a museum as well is you've got a lot of places within it where you can legitimately be working. You've got your office, you've got libraries, you've got other offices and students from other libraries in the museum, storerooms where you could work for days without anybody finding you, and the galleries themselves.

Some of the objects have not been on display for years. You go to see them in the storeroom and you see some other pieces. It is literally like being a child in a sweetie shop. It's inspiring and exciting. You can pick them up and hold them and move them around and see them in different ways.

The Greeks were not a united people in antiquity, until Alexander the Great came along, and were a united people for a short period of time. They were connected through their history, their religion, the way they look, the things they made. This phrase - I've always liked this phrase - I think it comes from the old android app, or android phone thing: "Be together. Not the same." It makes so much sense. People are different, but it doesn't mean they're so different they have to start fighting each other.

This is a conversation we should have over a few beers I think, but people have pretty much been the same since time began. They want certain things. They want relationships with people, they want somewhere to live, they want food, they want to be healthy, they want to be sociable, they maybe want to reproduce, see their line carry on, they want to feel safe. But we haven't always done the things we need to do to allow that to happen. We don't learn from history, but if we see more of it, we're more likely to learn a few things.

- As told to Greg BruceThe British Museum's Peter Higgs is curator of the exhibition Ancient Greeks: Athletes, Warriors and Heroes, on now at Auckland Museum.