Latest news with #Bayeux
Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Mystery appendage fascinates Bayeux Tapestry historians
The question is, is the medieval swordsman going into battle unusually well armed? Or is he, in fact, going into battle unusually well endowed — and a swordsman of another kind? On the answer hangs, in more ways than one, a crucial matter of medieval scholarship. Because a historian believes that he has spotted nothing less than an extra penis in the Bayeux Tapestry. Is he right though, or is it merely a weapon? For Dr Christopher Monk, seeing is believing. 'The detail,' he explained on the HistoryExtra podcast, 'is surprisingly anatomically fulsome.' The swordsman in question appears in the marginalia of the 11th-century tapestry, which depicts the Norman Conquest. Running in pursuit of wild beasts, what could be a scabbard swings beneath his tunic.
CNN
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
France's Bayeux Tapestry to close to public for two years
From Picasso's 'Guernica' to Goya's 'Disasters of War,' there have been many famous depictions of conflict, but one of the oldest, and most extraordinary, is France's 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry. Over 70 meters of 70-centimeter wide linen cloth (around 224 feet by 20 inches), it tells the story surrounding the conquest of England in 1066 — the last time the country was successfully invaded by a hostile foreign force — by William, Duke of Normandy, also known as William the Conqueror. The creators of this medieval masterpiece have been lost to time, but it's believed to have been commissioned by Odo, bishop of Bayeux and William's half-brother, to decorate the nave of the new cathedral of Notre-Dame of Bayeux, which was consecrated in 1077. Since 1983 the tapestry has been on display in the Grand Seminary of Bayeux in northwest France, part of the Bayeux Museums complex alongside the Normandy Battle Memorial Museum and the Baron Gérard Museum of Art and History. However, visitors keen to see this legendary example of propaganda art will have to get their trip in before 7 p.m. local time on August 31, 2025, as the museum is set to close until October 2027 for a major renovation and conservation project. Its reopening will be in time to mark the millennium of the birth of William the Conqueror. A new extension to the Grand Seminary, designed by the British architectural firm RSHP, will house the tapestry and double the exhibition space. The 38-million-euro ($36 million) project is being led by the City of Bayeux, in collaboration with the French State — which owns the tapestry — as well as the Departmental Council of Calvados and the Regional Council of Normandy. 'In terms of economic and cultural influence, this is the most complex and ambitious project… ever undertaken by the Town of Bayeux.' Patrick Gomont, mayor of Bayeux, said in a press release. As before, the tapestry will be conserved in a hermetically sealed room to protect it from atmospheric pollution and variations in light and climate, but it will now be displayed on an inclined support specially designed to meet the conservation needs of the nearly thousand-year-old piece of fragile textile. Close to 600,000 people visited the Bayeux Museums in 2024, with the majority of international visitors hailing from the United Kingdom or United States. The crowds who first flocked to view the tapestry, back in the 11th century, would largely have been illiterate and narrative hangings of this nature, with a mix of picture and text inscriptions, were a way to tell stories that everyone could follow. The most famous scene on the embroidery — which is not technically a tapestry at all — is of Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, being killed by an arrow to the eye at the Battle of Hastings. Other standout moments include a depiction of Halley's comet, some six centuries before the birth of Edmond Halley, the English astronomer after which it would one day be named. Unsurprisingly, conserving the cloth, with its 10 colors of woolen thread made using plant-based dyes, isn't a case of throwing it in the washing machine at 90 F. 'During periods when the museum is closed to the public, in the low season, the work's display stand could be moved inside the premises, turning it into a genuine laboratory,' said Antoine Verney, head curator of Bayeux Museums, in a press release. 'Photographs can be taken, monitoring and studies carried out, as well as the programme for an ambitious restoration campaign overseen by the French State, the artwork's owner, which should stabilise the damages to the embroidered canvas.' The original colors have changed remarkably little over the years, but the 19th-century restoration work, particularly of the heavily restored final sections, has faded badly. The operations of its removal and restoration began in January 2025, with the careful dusting of the linen canvas and the removal of its fleece backing, an addition from 1983. It will be removed from its display case when conservation work begins in the fall of 2025, then packaged in a conservation crate before being moved to temporary reserves. The Bayeux Tapestry isn't the only popular French attraction to be going under wraps this year. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, the 1970s cultural center with a groundbreaking inside-out construction, will close for five years from late summer 2025. Like what you've just read? Here is more of our recent travel news, from robot legs taking off in China, to the Italian influencer who mobilized her own TikTok army. A Chilean father recently captured the moment a humpback whale briefly swallowed his son while kayaking in Patagonia. Miraculously, 24-year-old Adrian Simancas emerged unharmed. 'I thought … that I was going to die,' Simancas told CNN. In this video, two American tourists share another harrowing story of the day they were attacked by a shark in the Bahamas. Although unprovoked shark attacks in the Bahamas are rare, it's at least the third reported shark attack involving Americans since 2023. It's not just at sea that tourists need to be vigilant, of course. A video of a dangerous encounter with a territorial bison went viral back in 2022, but would you know what to do if one of the shaggy beasts had you in its sights? Here are our bison survival tips if you get yourself in a pickle. Finally, a Massachusetts man visiting Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park was in a bad way last year when a grizzly bear took a 'good chomp right to the bone' on his leg. Here's what happened next. From animal encounters to Chance Encounters, CNN Travel's hit series about love and friendship is now a new CNN podcast. Host Francesca Street chronicles marvelous real-life stories of incredible travel connections, starting with an Italian woman and an American man who met by chance in London's Trafalgar Square in 1984. If you don't want to end up like the man who was fined $200 this month for putting his phone on speaker in a French train station, you'll want to use headphones in order to listen. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have this guide to the best true wireless earbuds of 2025. After you've finished the podcast, there are still several years of the weekly Chance Encounters column you can catch up on, such as the tale of Arthur 'Chip' Gaudio Jr., who hadn't seen his high school crush in years. Then he traveled to Sweden to visit her. China has been working on some innovative ways to get around – from the prototype for what could be the world's fastest high-speed train to robot legs to make mountain-climbing easier. Yes, tourists are tackling the 5,000-foot-tall Mount Tai in Shandong Province using high-tech exoskeletons to make hiking a breeze. And you thought electric bikes were fancy. Then there's the Comac C919, China's first homegrown passenger jet and the country's answer to the Airbus A320. Here's what it's like on board. China is also building the world's largest artificial island airport, Dalian Jinzhou Bay International off the country's northeast coast. Its operators aim to handle 80 million passengers per year, with the first phase due to open in 2035. Some young Chinese people, however, are preferring to go back to basics. The so-called 'iron butt' travelers are ditching planes to travel long distances by bus and train – no matter if it wreaks havoc on heinies. Vegemite, an Australian delicacy with the unpromising base material of leftover brewers' yeast, is so loved in the country there's even a museum dedicated to it. It's a short day trip from Melbourne, the cosmopolitan city that's become a global food and drink powerhouse. Influencer mobilizes TikTok 'hordes' to 'invade' ski resort. It's part of an ongoing beef between Rita De Crescenzo and the Italian ski resort industry. One of Paris' most popular attractions is closing for five years. Some say it's a 'serious mistake.' This country's Cold War paranoia left it riddled with bunkers. Now they're coming back to life. IKEA names its furniture for Swedish destinations. This American took a road trip to visit them.
CNN
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
France's Bayeux Tapestry to close to public for two years
From Picasso's 'Guernica' to Goya's 'Disasters of War,' there have been many famous depictions of conflict, but one of the oldest, and most extraordinary, is France's 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry. Over 70 meters of 70-centimeter wide linen cloth (around 224 feet by 2 inches), it tells the story surrounding the conquest of England in 1066 — the last time the country was successfully invaded by a hostile foreign force — by William, Duke of Normandy, also known as William the Conqueror. The creators of this medieval masterpiece have been lost to time, but it's believed to have been commissioned by Odo, bishop of Bayeux and William's half-brother, to decorate the nave of the new cathedral of Notre-Dame of Bayeux, which was consecrated in 1077. Since 1983 the tapestry has been on display in the Grand Seminary of Bayeux in northwest France, part of the Bayeux Museums complex alongside the Normandy Battle Memorial Museum and the Baron Gérard Museum of Art and History. However, visitors keen to see this legendary example of propaganda art will have to get their trip in before 7 p.m. local time on August 31, 2025, as the museum is set to close until October 2027 for a major renovation and conservation project. Its reopening will be in time to mark the millennium of the birth of William the Conqueror. A new extension to the Grand Seminary, designed by the British architectural firm RSHP, will house the tapestry and double the exhibition space. The 38-million-euro ($36 million) project is being led by the City of Bayeux, in collaboration with the French State — which owns the tapestry — as well as the Departmental Council of Calvados and the Regional Council of Normandy. 'In terms of economic and cultural influence, this is the most complex and ambitious project… ever undertaken by the Town of Bayeux.' Patrick Gomont, mayor of Bayeux, said in a press release. As before, the tapestry will be conserved in a hermetically sealed room to protect it from atmospheric pollution and variations in light and climate, but it will now be displayed on an inclined support specially designed to meet the conservation needs of the nearly thousand-year-old piece of fragile textile. Close to 600,000 people visited the Bayeux Museums in 2024, with the majority of international visitors hailing from the United Kingdom or United States. The crowds who first flocked to view the tapestry, back in the 11th century, would largely have been illiterate and narrative hangings of this nature, with a mix of picture and text inscriptions, were a way to tell stories that everyone could follow. The most famous scene on the embroidery — which is not technically a tapestry at all — is of Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, being killed by an arrow to the eye at the Battle of Hastings. Other standout moments include a depiction of Halley's comet, some six centuries before the birth of Edmond Halley, the English astronomer after which it would one day be named. Unsurprisingly, conserving the cloth, with its 10 colors of woolen thread made using plant-based dyes, isn't a case of throwing it in the washing machine at 90 F. 'During periods when the museum is closed to the public, in the low season, the work's display stand could be moved inside the premises, turning it into a genuine laboratory,' said Antoine Verney, head curator of Bayeux Museums, in a press release. 'Photographs can be taken, monitoring and studies carried out, as well as the programme for an ambitious restoration campaign overseen by the French State, the artwork's owner, which should stabilise the damages to the embroidered canvas.' The original colors have changed remarkably little over the years, but the 19th-century restoration work, particularly of the heavily restored final sections, has faded badly. The operations of its removal and restoration began in January 2025, with the careful dusting of the linen canvas and the removal of its fleece backing, an addition from 1983. It will be removed from its display case when conservation work begins in the fall of 2025, then packaged in a conservation crate before being moved to temporary reserves. The Bayeux Tapestry isn't the only popular French attraction to be going under wraps this year. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, the 1970s cultural center with a groundbreaking inside-out construction, will close for five years from late summer 2025. Like what you've just read? Here is more of our recent travel news, from robot legs taking off in China, to the Italian influencer who mobilized her own TikTok army. A Chilean father recently captured the moment a humpback whale briefly swallowed his son while kayaking in Patagonia. Miraculously, 24-year-old Adrian Simancas emerged unharmed. 'I thought … that I was going to die,' Simancas told CNN. In this video, two American tourists share another harrowing story of the day they were attacked by a shark in the Bahamas. Although unprovoked shark attacks in the Bahamas are rare, it's at least the third reported shark attack involving Americans since 2023. It's not just at sea that tourists need to be vigilant, of course. A video of a dangerous encounter with a territorial bison went viral back in 2022, but would you know what to do if one of the shaggy beasts had you in its sights? Here are our bison survival tips if you get yourself in a pickle. Finally, a Massachusetts man visiting Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park was in a bad way last year when a grizzly bear took a 'good chomp right to the bone' on his leg. Here's what happened next. From animal encounters to Chance Encounters, CNN Travel's hit series about love and friendship is now a new CNN podcast. Host Francesca Street chronicles marvelous real-life stories of incredible travel connections, starting with an Italian woman and an American man who met by chance in London's Trafalgar Square in 1984. If you don't want to end up like the man who was fined $200 this month for putting his phone on speaker in a French train station, you'll want to use headphones in order to listen. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have this guide to the best true wireless earbuds of 2025. After you've finished the podcast, there are still several years of the weekly Chance Encounters column you can catch up on, such as the tale of Arthur 'Chip' Gaudio Jr., who hadn't seen his high school crush in years. Then he traveled to Sweden to visit her. China has been working on some innovative ways to get around – from the prototype for what could be the world's fastest high-speed train to robot legs to make mountain-climbing easier. Yes, tourists are tackling the 5,000-foot-tall Mount Tai in Shandong Province using high-tech exoskeletons to make hiking a breeze. And you thought electric bikes were fancy. Then there's the Comac C919, China's first homegrown passenger jet and the country's answer to the Airbus A320. Here's what it's like on board. China is also building the world's largest artificial island airport, Dalian Jinzhou Bay International off the country's northeast coast. Its operators aim to handle 80 million passengers per year, with the first phase due to open in 2035. Some young Chinese people, however, are preferring to go back to basics. The so-called 'iron butt' travelers are ditching planes to travel long distances by bus and train – no matter if it wreaks havoc on heinies. Vegemite, an Australian delicacy with the unpromising base material of leftover brewers' yeast, is so loved in the country there's even a museum dedicated to it. It's a short day trip from Melbourne, the cosmopolitan city that's become a global food and drink powerhouse. Influencer mobilizes TikTok 'hordes' to 'invade' ski resort. It's part of an ongoing beef between Rita De Crescenzo and the Italian ski resort industry. One of Paris' most popular attractions is closing for five years. Some say it's a 'serious mistake.' This country's Cold War paranoia left it riddled with bunkers. Now they're coming back to life. IKEA names its furniture for Swedish destinations. This American took a road trip to visit them.
CNN
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
France's Bayeux Tapestry to close to public for two years
From Picasso's 'Guernica' to Goya's 'Disasters of War,' there have been many famous depictions of conflict, but one of the oldest, and most extraordinary, is France's 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry. Over 70 meters of 70-centimeter wide linen cloth (around 224 feet by 2 inches), it tells the story surrounding the conquest of England in 1066 — the last time the country was successfully invaded by a hostile foreign force — by William, Duke of Normandy, also known as William the Conqueror. The creators of this medieval masterpiece have been lost to time, but it's believed to have been commissioned by Odo, bishop of Bayeux and William's half-brother, to decorate the nave of the new cathedral of Notre-Dame of Bayeux, which was consecrated in 1077. Since 1983 the tapestry has been on display in the Grand Seminary of Bayeux in northwest France, part of the Bayeux Museums complex alongside the Normandy Battle Memorial Museum and the Baron Gérard Museum of Art and History. However, visitors keen to see this legendary example of propaganda art will have to get their trip in before 7 p.m. local time on August 31, 2025, as the museum is set to close until October 2027 for a major renovation and conservation project. Its reopening will be in time to mark the millennium of the birth of William the Conqueror. A new extension to the Grand Seminary, designed by the British architectural firm RSHP, will house the tapestry and double the exhibition space. The 38-million-euro ($36 million) project is being led by the City of Bayeux, in collaboration with the French State — which owns the tapestry — as well as the Departmental Council of Calvados and the Regional Council of Normandy. 'In terms of economic and cultural influence, this is the most complex and ambitious project… ever undertaken by the Town of Bayeux.' Patrick Gomont, mayor of Bayeux, said in a press release. As before, the tapestry will be conserved in a hermetically sealed room to protect it from atmospheric pollution and variations in light and climate, but it will now be displayed on an inclined support specially designed to meet the conservation needs of the nearly thousand-year-old piece of fragile textile. Close to 600,000 people visited the Bayeux Museums in 2024, with the majority of international visitors hailing from the United Kingdom or United States. The crowds who first flocked to view the tapestry, back in the 11th century, would largely have been illiterate and narrative hangings of this nature, with a mix of picture and text inscriptions, were a way to tell stories that everyone could follow. The most famous scene on the embroidery — which is not technically a tapestry at all — is of Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, being killed by an arrow to the eye at the Battle of Hastings. Other standout moments include a depiction of Halley's comet, some six centuries before the birth of Edmond Halley, the English astronomer after which it would one day be named. Unsurprisingly, conserving the cloth, with its 10 colors of woolen thread made using plant-based dyes, isn't a case of throwing it in the washing machine at 90 F. 'During periods when the museum is closed to the public, in the low season, the work's display stand could be moved inside the premises, turning it into a genuine laboratory,' said Antoine Verney, head curator of Bayeux Museums, in a press release. 'Photographs can be taken, monitoring and studies carried out, as well as the programme for an ambitious restoration campaign overseen by the French State, the artwork's owner, which should stabilise the damages to the embroidered canvas.' The original colors have changed remarkably little over the years, but the 19th-century restoration work, particularly of the heavily restored final sections, has faded badly. The operations of its removal and restoration began in January 2025, with the careful dusting of the linen canvas and the removal of its fleece backing, an addition from 1983. It will be removed from its display case when conservation work begins in the fall of 2025, then packaged in a conservation crate before being moved to temporary reserves. The Bayeux Tapestry isn't the only popular French attraction to be going under wraps this year. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, the 1970s cultural center with a groundbreaking inside-out construction, will close for five years from late summer 2025. Like what you've just read? Here is more of our recent travel news, from robot legs taking off in China, to the Italian influencer who mobilized her own TikTok army. A Chilean father recently captured the moment a humpback whale briefly swallowed his son while kayaking in Patagonia. Miraculously, 24-year-old Adrian Simancas emerged unharmed. 'I thought … that I was going to die,' Simancas told CNN. In this video, two American tourists share another harrowing story of the day they were attacked by a shark in the Bahamas. Although unprovoked shark attacks in the Bahamas are rare, it's at least the third reported shark attack involving Americans since 2023. It's not just at sea that tourists need to be vigilant, of course. A video of a dangerous encounter with a territorial bison went viral back in 2022, but would you know what to do if one of the shaggy beasts had you in its sights? Here are our bison survival tips if you get yourself in a pickle. Finally, a Massachusetts man visiting Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park was in a bad way last year when a grizzly bear took a 'good chomp right to the bone' on his leg. Here's what happened next. From animal encounters to Chance Encounters, CNN Travel's hit series about love and friendship is now a new CNN podcast. Host Francesca Street chronicles marvelous real-life stories of incredible travel connections, starting with an Italian woman and an American man who met by chance in London's Trafalgar Square in 1984. If you don't want to end up like the man who was fined $200 this month for putting his phone on speaker in a French train station, you'll want to use headphones in order to listen. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have this guide to the best true wireless earbuds of 2025. After you've finished the podcast, there are still several years of the weekly Chance Encounters column you can catch up on, such as the tale of Arthur 'Chip' Gaudio Jr., who hadn't seen his high school crush in years. Then he traveled to Sweden to visit her. China has been working on some innovative ways to get around – from the prototype for what could be the world's fastest high-speed train to robot legs to make mountain-climbing easier. Yes, tourists are tackling the 5,000-foot-tall Mount Tai in Shandong Province using high-tech exoskeletons to make hiking a breeze. And you thought electric bikes were fancy. Then there's the Comac C919, China's first homegrown passenger jet and the country's answer to the Airbus A320. Here's what it's like on board. China is also building the world's largest artificial island airport, Dalian Jinzhou Bay International off the country's northeast coast. Its operators aim to handle 80 million passengers per year, with the first phase due to open in 2035. Some young Chinese people, however, are preferring to go back to basics. The so-called 'iron butt' travelers are ditching planes to travel long distances by bus and train – no matter if it wreaks havoc on heinies. Vegemite, an Australian delicacy with the unpromising base material of leftover brewers' yeast, is so loved in the country there's even a museum dedicated to it. It's a short day trip from Melbourne, the cosmopolitan city that's become a global food and drink powerhouse. Influencer mobilizes TikTok 'hordes' to 'invade' ski resort. It's part of an ongoing beef between Rita De Crescenzo and the Italian ski resort industry. One of Paris' most popular attractions is closing for five years. Some say it's a 'serious mistake.' This country's Cold War paranoia left it riddled with bunkers. Now they're coming back to life. IKEA names its furniture for Swedish destinations. This American took a road trip to visit them.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Indoor toilet clue to finding King Harold's palace
Archaeologists believe they may have identified the site of King Harold's palace in Sussex, thanks to its toilet. The facility, at the site in Bosham, was inside the wooden building, which experts said would only have been the case for the home of someone at "the top end of society". The team also said they are sure the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the Norman Conquest, shows Harold setting sail from Bosham. Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, leading to William the Conqueror becoming King of England. A timber building with a toilet built into it dated to the late Saxon period was first identified at Bosham in 2006. "That is absolutely key in identifying a high status building" Dr Duncan Wright, a senior lecturer from the University of Newcastle, told BBC Radio Sussex. "It's one that is definitely the higher end, around the 10th Century you start to get Anglo Saxon en suites. "We're as sure as we can be that this is the site of King Harold's residence. You find latrines in other places, but these ones built into grand timber buildings are very much the top end of society." The Bayeux Tapestry is also thought to depict Harold attending a feast and a church, both thought to have been Bosham. "The church is almost certainly that of Bosham still standing today" said Dr Wright, "so we've identified that binary complex that we see on the tapestry. "It would have been his principle residence, it was his dad's principle seat before him as well." Follow BBC Sussex on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@ or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. The Battle of Hastings explained: 950 years later Battle of Hastings marked 950 years on New 50p struck for 1066 anniversary 'Warriors' stage king's battle march Hastings march 'warriors' invade London University of Newcastle School of History, Classics and Archaeology
