What was life like in Roman Empire? The new exhibition at the British Museum will give visitors a unique opportunity to find out. Curator Paul Roberts explains his ambitious project to recreate a typical 1st century AD house and garden, bringing a slice of Pompeii and Herculaneum to London.
Ice Age art at the British Museum
Perhaps one of the most exquisite works of art in the world today is that created by a man or woman about 13,000 years ago. Skilfully carved from the tip of a mammoth tusk, it depicts two reindeer swimming one behind the other and is naturalistic, detailed, and charmingly tender. It was found at Montastruc, [...]
Meet the Vikings: at the National Museum of Scotland
The stereotypical Viking of popular culture is a marauding raider in a horned helmet, but the archaeological record provides a much more nuanced view. Vikings!, a touring exhibition drawing on the collections of the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, explores some of these ideas, showing the inhabitants of Medieval Scandinavia not just as warriors, but [...]
Nomads and Networks at the Smithsonian Institute
September 21, 2012
Filed Under: Issue 55, Kazakhstan, Museum
Recent excavations at Iron Age kurgans (burial mounds) in eastern Kazakhstan have uncovered spectacular artefacts preserved beneath the permafrost. Once belonging to elite members of the nomadic communities who inhabited the Eurasian steppes in the 1st millennium BC, these objects bear witness to far-reaching networks of communication and cultural exchange extending across Central Asia and [...]
Spilling the beans on BRONZE … coming soon to the Royal Academy
The Royal Academy is planning a spectacular and innovative new exhibition that will bring together an eclectic collection of bronze artefacts spanning the world and time. Simply called Bronze, it will display more than 150 rare and precious works of art, from the 14th century BC Trundholm Chariot of the Sun – on special loan [...]
Artefact: Sarcophagus of Seti I
This magnificent alabaster sarcophagus comes from the tomb of the 19th Dynasty pharaoh Seti I. It was discovered in 1817 by Giovanni Belzoni, a flamboyant Italian Egyptologist – and former barber, circus performer, and hydrologist. Belzoni discovered the intricately carved coffin during his excavation of Tomb KV17 in ancient Thebes, now known as the Valley [...]
Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Due to celebrate the 100th anniversary of moving to its current location next year, Cambridge University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has reopened to the public following a £1.8m transformation of its ground-floor galleries. Over 4,000 objects have been redisplayed during the 18-month redevelopment, many never shown in public before. New exhibition space houses ‘Gifts [...]
The Search for Immortality at The Fitzwilliam Museum
The Han Dynasty was founded in 206 BC, and their 400 years of near-continuous rule represent a Golden Age for China. By the 1st century AD their territory rivalled the Roman Empire for population and power, but this success was hard-won, forged through long struggles with neighbouring states. Now the Fitzwilliam Museum’s new exhibition, The [...]
Zeugma Mosaic Museum
When magnificent mosaics were revealed in the Roman villas at Zeugma, such was their impact that the Turkish authorities decided they deserved their own museum. So it was that the largest mosaic museum in the world opened its doors last year; within two days, more than 3,000 visitors passed through them. The Zeugma Mosaic Museum [...]
Denmark: National Museum
We travel from all over the country to visit a special exhibition at the British Museum in London, or even hop across the Channel to Paris and Brussels. The journey to Copenhagen is not that much more of a stretch, and it is certainly worth the trip to visit the fabulous National Museum of Denmark, [...]
Museum review: Vergina
Excavation following the discovery of the tomb of Philip II in Vergina (see p20) posed two huge problems: how to preserve the tomb, and how to present the finds to the general public. The solution was remarkably simple: build a museum, and then bury it within a new mound. Unlike the original design, this time [...]
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