Iconic Bayeux Tapestry to be loaned to Britain
The loan of the embroidery depicting the 1066 Norman conquest of England will be made in exchange for ancient "treasures" mainly from the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo site, one of England's most important archaeological sites.
They will be loaned to museums in Caen and Rouen in northern France under the arrangement, two regional French newspapers Macron spoke to reported.
The Tapestry's loan will mark the first time in nearly 1,000 years that the 68-metre-long (224-foot-long) piece, which dates from around 1077, will have been on British soil.
The museum in the Normandy city of Bayeux that normally houses the tapestry is to close for two years for renovation from September 1.
"By its symbolic, unprecedented nature, and the priceless value of the loaned pieces, this unprecedented exchange signifies the desire to revitalise the cultural relationship between our two countries and the trust that exists between us today," Macron told Ouest France newspaper.
UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy called it "one of the most iconic pieces of art ever produced in the UK" as she welcomed the exchange. While its origins have been the subject of speculation, some studies indicate the tapestry was probably designed and made in England.
"This loan is a symbol of our shared history with our friends in France, a relationship built over centuries and one that continues to endure," she said.
"The British Museum is one of the world's most visited museums and is a fitting place to host this most treasured piece of our nation's history."
Director of the British Museum Nicholas Cullinan said it was "hard to overstate the significance of this extraordinary opportunity of displaying it at the British Museum".
"We are profoundly grateful to everyone involved," he added. "This is exactly the kind of international partnership that I want us to champion and take part in."
- Cross-Channel exchange -
The UK culture ministry noted the British Museum will loan the Sutton Hoo collection, the Lewis Chessmen and "other treasures" to France
Macron said in his comments that would include the Battersea Shield, a metal cover believed to have once been attached to the front of a centuries-old wooden shield.
The British Museum holds 82 out of 93 ancient Lewis chess pieces found buried on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland.
Meanwhile the Sutton Hoo collection comprises relics discovered by archaeologists in 1938 at Sutton Hoo in the English region Suffolk, where they unearthed an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.
The finds were part of a seventh century Anglo-Saxon ship burial, and provide remarkable insights into England from a time before the Norman Conquest.
The search for more treasure there continues to this day.
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the famed Battle of Hastings when William the Conqueror crossed from France to defeat English forces in southern England.
The story of the 1066 military defeat, in which England's King Harold famously died after taking a French arrow in the eye, is still taught to British school children and is a founding moment in the long and bloody history of Anglo-French rivalry.
The tapestry has been on display in various locations in France throughout its history, including most recently at the Bayeux Museum.
It has been recently restored for the first time since 1870, after Paris and London announced in 2018 that it would be loaned to Britain.
But the plan for the tapestry to cross the Channel for a mooted 2022 exhibition did not materialise, and there had been no recent update on when it would happen.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The South African
4 hours ago
- The South African
Ozzy Osbourne: 'Prince of Darkness' and maestro of heavy metal
Ozzy Osbourne will go down in rock history as the 'godfather of heavy metal' who fulfilled his hard-living dreams as the frontman of Black Sabbath. After decades of debauchery and more than 100 million albums sold, the British singer died on Tuesday at the age of 76, leaving behind his wife Sharon, six children, a host of grandchildren and a permanent legacy in the annals of rock'n'roll. His death came a little more than two weeks after Black Sabbath played a farewell concert to 40 000 fans at Villa Park, in his native Birmingham. Rock royalty lined up to pay tribute to him including Metallica, Guns N' Roses and members of Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones at the stadium that is the home to his beloved Aston Villa football team. Ozzy, as he was routinely referred to, attracted legions of new fans in the 2000s after appearing as the hard-of-hearing, slightly crazy but doting grandfather in MTV's hit reality show 'The Osbournes', a far cry from the excesses that defined his 1970s heyday. Until his renaissance, he was best known in the mainstream for biting the head of a live bat during a concert and for urinating in the wine glass of a record-label chief – as well as on the Alamo monument in Texas. But for hard-rock fans he will forever be remembered as the 'Prince of Darkness' leading Black Sabbath, the band that helped launch heavy metal, a blend of rock and blues drenched in distortion and dark lyrics. The band enjoyed immediate success on the release of its eponymous debut album in 1970. Hundreds of thousands around the world continued to flock to hear rock hymns such as 'Paranoid', 'War Pigs' and 'Iron Man' at the band's riotous live shows for almost 50 years, until the band brought down the curtain a first time with a gig in Birmingham in 2017. The hit reality TV show 'The Osbournes' introduced Ozzy to legions of new fans, along with wife Sharon and children Jack and Kelly © LUCY NICHOLSON / AFP/File Ozzy, like many of his contemporaries, suffered from gaps in his memory due to drink and drugs on on the road, but few can claim to have such monumental black holes. He said that he had forgotten attempting to strangle his wife Sharon the year their eldest daughter was born, adding that he had very few recollections from the 1990s as a whole. In 2010, scientists even analysed his genome to try to understand how he had survived so much self-inflicted punishment. Ozzy said he could not remember where he performed Black Sabbath's debut album for the first time. 'But I can sure as hell remember the audience's reaction: all the girls ran out of the venue, screaming,' he recalled in his autobiography 'I am Ozzy'. His wild lifestyle led to run-ins with the law, including visits to court on charges of satanism and encouraging suicide, though his criminal career started before he joined the band, spending time in jail for stealing a television and baby clothes. John Michael Osbourne was born into a working-class family in Birmingham on December 3, 1948. He inherited his nickname in primary school. Dyslexic and angry with homework, he left school at 15 before working in manual jobs, including at an abattoir. But he decided he would become a rock star after hearing the Beatles on the radio, a fantasy he realised incredibly quickly. Shortly after meeting guitarist Tony Iommi, the two decided to 'stop doing blues and write scary music instead', inspired by horror movies. The resulting sound of heavy riffs accompanied by Ozzy's droning voice singing lyrics exploring the dark side of human nature became the template for heavy metal. After leaving Black Sabbath in 1979 Ozzy embarked on a successful solo career, releasing 11 albums, while juggling a turbulent personal life © HECTOR MATA / AFP/File 'Pink Floyd was music for rich college kids, and we were the exact opposite of that,' he said. Albums followed at a frantic pace, often shunned by critics but acclaimed by fans. Ozzy left the band in 1979, going on to have a succesful solo career and releasing 11 albums while juggling a turbulent personal life. His first marriage to Thelma, with whom he had two children, Elliot and Jessica, was by his own admission a disaster. In 1982 he married Sharon, his manager, who quickly became his rock. They had three children – Aimee, Kelly and Jack – and adopted another boy, Roberto. Despite his seemingly carefree personality, the deaths of his rocker friend Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead and David Bowie left him in a reflective mood. 'Everybody's dying around me, but I'm at that age,' he told Rolling Stone magazine in 2016. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2019, with all profits from his last concert on July 5 going to charities including Cure Parkinson's and Birmingham Children's Hospital. The Prince of Darkness clung on for another six years after his diagnosis, before joining his peers in the pantheon of late, great British musicians. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news. By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse
eNCA
8 hours ago
- eNCA
Versailles orchestra plays New York in 'Affair of the Poisons'
NEW YORK - Acrobatics, fortune tellers, opulent gowns and palace intrigue: The New York debut of the Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra was a performance befitting the era it recalls. Monday's immersive show "Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons" centered on France's 17th-century period of excess and seediness that its creator, Andrew Ousley, told AFP has parallels to the present day. At the evening staged in Manhattan's new Printemps luxury emporium, guests and performers alike donned velvet waistcoats, silky corsets, feathered headdresses and powdered makeup. Core to the performance's tale was the discovery of arsenic, Ousley said -- the first "untraceable, untasteable poison." "Everybody was just poisoning everybody." And at the web's center? A midwife and fortune teller named La Voisin, he said, a "shadowy-like person who basically would peddle poison, peddle solutions, peddle snake oil." "She was the nexus," Ousley continued, in a scheme that "extended up to Louis XIV, his favorite mistresses" -- inner circles rife with backstabbing and murder plots. The poisoning scandal resulted in a tribunal that resulted in dozens of death sentences -- until the king called it off when it "got a little too close to home," Ousley said with a smile. "To me, it speaks to the present moment -- that this rot can fester underneath luxury and wealth when it's divorced from empathy, from humanity." Along with a programme of classical music, the performance included elaborately costumed dancers, including one who tip-toed atop a line of wine bottles in sparkling platform heels. The Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra formed in 2019, and its first stateside tour is underway: the series of shows kicked off at Festival Napa Valley in California before heading to New York. On Wednesday, it will play another, more traditional show at L'Alliance New York, a French cultural centre in Manhattan.
eNCA
8 hours ago
- eNCA
Ozzy: 'Prince of Darkness' and maestro of heavy metal
LONDON - Ozzy Osbourne will go down in rock history as the "godfather of heavy metal" who fulfilled his hard-living dreams as the frontman of Black Sabbath. After decades of debauchery and more than 100 million albums sold, the British singer died on Tuesday at the age of 76, leaving behind his wife Sharon, six children, a host of grandchildren and a permanent legacy in the annals of rock'n'roll. His death came a little more than two weeks after Black Sabbath played a farewell concert to 40,000 fans at Villa Park, in his native Birmingham. Rock royalty lined up to pay tribute to him including Metallica, Guns N' Roses and members of Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones at the stadium that is the home to his beloved Aston Villa football team. Ozzy, as he was routinely referred to, attracted legions of new fans in the 2000s after appearing as the hard-of-hearing, slightly crazy but doting grandfather in MTV's hit reality show "The Osbournes", a far cry from the excesses that defined his 1970s heyday. Until his renaissance, he was best known in the mainstream for biting the head of a live bat during a concert and for urinating in the wine glass of a record-label chief -- as well as on the Alamo monument in Texas. But for hard-rock fans, he will forever be remembered as the "Prince of Darkness" leading Black Sabbath, the band that helped launch heavy metal, a blend of rock and blues drenched in distortion and dark lyrics. - 'Girls ran out screaming' - The band enjoyed immediate success on the release of its eponymous debut album in 1970. Hundreds of thousands around the world continued to flock to hear rock hymns such as "Paranoid", "War Pigs" and "Iron Man" at the band's riotous live shows for almost 50 years, until the band brought down the curtain a first time with a gig in Birmingham in 2017. Ozzy, like many of his contemporaries, suffered from gaps in his memory due to drink and drugs on the road, but few can claim to have such monumental black holes. He said that he had forgotten attempting to strangle his wife, Sharon, the year their eldest daughter was born, adding that he had very few recollections from the 1990s as a whole. In 2010, scientists even analysed his genome to try to understand how he had survived so much self-inflicted punishment. Ozzy said he could not remember where he performed Black Sabbath's debut album for the first time. "But I can sure as hell remember the audience's reaction: all the girls ran out of the venue, screaming," he recalled in his autobiography "I am Ozzy". His wild lifestyle led to run-ins with the law, including visits to court on charges of satanism and encouraging suicide, though his criminal career started before he joined the band, spending time in jail for stealing a television and baby clothes. John Michael Osbourne was born into a working-class family in Birmingham on December 3, 1948. He inherited his nickname in primary school. Dyslexic and angry with homework, he left school at 15 before working in manual jobs, including at an abattoir. But he decided he would become a rock star after hearing the Beatles on the radio, a fantasy he realised incredibly quickly. - 'Everyone around me is dying' - Shortly after meeting guitarist Tony Iommi, the two decided to "stop doing blues and write scary music instead", inspired by horror movies. The resulting sound of heavy riffs accompanied by Ozzy's droning voice singing lyrics exploring the dark side of human nature became the template for heavy metal. AFP/File | HECTOR MATA "Pink Floyd was music for rich college kids, and we were the exact opposite of that," he said. Albums followed at a frantic pace, often shunned by critics but acclaimed by fans. Ozzy left the band in 1979, going on to have a successful solo career and releasing 11 albums while juggling a turbulent personal life. His first marriage to Thelma, with whom he had two children, Elliot and Jessica, was by his own admission a disaster. In 1982 he married Sharon, his manager, who quickly became his rock. They had three children -- Aimee, Kelly and Jack -- and adopted another boy, Roberto. Despite his seemingly carefree personality, the deaths of his rocker friend Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead and David Bowie left him in a reflective mood. "Everybody's dying around me, but I'm at that age," he told Rolling Stone magazine in 2016. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2019, with all profits from his last concert on July 5 going to charities including Cure Parkinson's and Birmingham Children's Hospital. The Prince of Darkness clung on for another six years after his diagnosis, before joining his peers in the pantheon of late, great British musicians.
