Latest news with #BritishMuseum
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gladiators brought to life in new exhibition
A touring exhibition exploring the world of Roman gladiators has opened in Northamptonshire. Northampton Museum & Art Gallery is hosting Gladiators of Britain, which offers insight into the gladiators who lived in the county and the wider country. Local finds included two Nene Valley vessels depicting gladiators, fragments of an engraved glass from a Roman villa near Nether Heyford, and a clasp knife discovered in Piddington. Jill Birrell, curator at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery, said: "[The items] show us the Romans who did live here engaged in spectacle culture... they made objects that have gladiators depicted on them and bought them, used them and lost them in the county." Gladiators are traditionally associated with arenas like the Colosseum in Rome, but many fights took place across Britain. There was no amphitheatre in Northamptonshire, with the closest being at St Albans - formerly known as Verulamium. There were 25 artefacts in the exhibition, including the Hawkedon Helmet - the only confirmed piece of gladiatorial armour from Roman Britain. It was possibly plundered from Colchester - known then as Camulodunum - during Boudica's rebellion of AD60. According to the British Museum, the heavy bronze helmet originally had a tinned surface, and the wearer's face would have been encased in a hinged mask with eye guards. Another key exhibit is the Colchester Vase from AD175, discovered in a Roman-era grave in 1853. Anna Willi, the curator for ancient Mediterranean life at the British Museum, added: "There are misconceptions about gladiatorial fights... we are trying to dispel some of these myths. "For example, there were rules to the fights, there were umpires, and people didn't always fight to the death. In fact, a bout would last around 15 minutes because a dead gladiator was much more expensive than a wounded one that could fight more." Gladiators of Britain is at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery until 7 September. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. The real gladiators of Britain revealed Vote to decide gallery's 100th local object Northampton Museum & Art Gallery
BBC News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Gladiator exhibition opens at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery
A touring exhibition exploring the world of Roman gladiators has opened in Museum & Art Gallery is hosting Gladiators of Britain, which offers insight into the gladiators who lived in the county and the wider finds included two Nene Valley vessels depicting gladiators, fragments of an engraved glass from a Roman villa near Nether Heyford, and a clasp knife discovered in Birrell, curator at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery, said: "[The items] show us the Romans who did live here engaged in spectacle culture... they made objects that have gladiators depicted on them and bought them, used them and lost them in the county." Gladiators are traditionally associated with arenas like the Colosseum in Rome, but many fights took place across was no amphitheatre in Northamptonshire, with the closest being at St Albans - formerly known as Verulamium. There were 25 artefacts in the exhibition, including the Hawkedon Helmet - the only confirmed piece of gladiatorial armour from Roman Britain. It was possibly plundered from Colchester - known then as Camulodunum - during Boudica's rebellion of to the British Museum, the heavy bronze helmet originally had a tinned surface, and the wearer's face would have been encased in a hinged mask with eye guards. Another key exhibit is the Colchester Vase from AD175, discovered in a Roman-era grave in Willi, the curator for ancient Mediterranean life at the British Museum, added: "There are misconceptions about gladiatorial fights... we are trying to dispel some of these myths. "For example, there were rules to the fights, there were umpires, and people didn't always fight to the death. In fact, a bout would last around 15 minutes because a dead gladiator was much more expensive than a wounded one that could fight more."Gladiators of Britain is at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery until 7 September. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
These remote desert oases are Egypt's hidden gems
The world knows Egypt for the Pyramids of Giza and cosmopolitan Cairo, the tourist-trodden temples of Luxor, and Red Sea resort towns. These coastal and Nile River Valley destinations are a narrow view of a country that's 90 percent desert. Few travelers venture into that 90 percent. The vast Western Desert, which blends into Libya and beyond, is Egypt's great unknown. Adventurers since Alexander the Great have braved the harsh clime and been rewarded with the untouched nature and unique culture of Egypt's oases. Seclusion has kept these desert gems, if not secret, then still wild. Egypt's oases are time capsules of millions of years of human and natural history, from when whales had legs to the Roman Empire. There are golden mummies at the Bahariya Oasis and tombs vandalized with ancient graffiti at Kharga. There are natural masterpieces like geode-like salt lakes in Siwa Oasis, hundreds of bubbling hot springs at Dakhla, and unearthly landscapes of dead volcanoes and limestone hoodoos near Bahariya and Farafra. (How to plan the ultimate adventure in Egypt, from Cairo to the Red Sea) Fayoum has remained relatively untouched despite being only an hour from Cairo. Its name may ring a bell for the Fayum Portraits, the mummy masks found in museums like the Louvre and the British Museum. Just two remain in their hometown, at the Kom Aushim Museum, the oasis's first stop on the drive in from Cairo. But it's natural phenomena that Fayoum should be better known for. It's home to the prehistoric Lake Qarun, whose saline waters are a magnet for wintering birds, including flamingos. The unofficially named Magic Lake, so secret you won't find it on Google Maps, lures humans looking for a swim or photo op. Its waters reflect the sky, providing extraordinary views of the Milky Way. The lake is part of Fayoum's most popular attraction, the Wadi Al-Hitan UNESCO World Heritage Site—the world's largest whale graveyard, dating back 40 million years. (This desert oasis is a time capsule of Egypt's grand past) Before the late 1980s, Siwa Oasis was accessible only by camel. Today, it's a 12-hour drive from Cairo. Yet, remoteness does little to dissuade those captivated by this mysterious oasis, just 30 miles from Libya. In antiquity, Siwa Oasis was a site for pilgrims seeking the wisdom of the Oracle of Amun. The temple's hilltop ruins are a highlight among the oasis's historic sites. Also notable are the medieval mud-brick Shali Fortress, towering over the city, and Gebel al-Mawta, the Mountain of the Dead, featuring hundreds of tombs carved into its face. But diving into Siwa Oasis' salt lakes easily surpasses all of them as a must-do. They look like liquified geodes, their electric-blue waters ringed by sparkling, crystallized shores. You can swim and float in hundreds of salt lakes, some large and others hardly big enough for one person. Bahariya Oasis is the most well-known of the five Western Desert oases in part because it's the easiest to reach from Cairo, but also because it has fascinating relics, hundreds of hot springs, and off-roading among volcanoes. It's said that Alexander the Great commemorated his visit to Siwa's Oracle of Amun with a temple of his own, which he built in Bahariya. It lies in ruins that you can visit, but more impressive is the Valley of the Golden Mummies burial site. Hundreds of gold-covered mummies have been uncovered there, and many more are thought to remain buried. Some are on display at the small on-site museum. Bahariya Oasis's best feature is the Black Desert, a Martian landscape of ancient dead volcanoes. Miles of sand mountains sprinkled with black volcanic rocks are captivatingly apocalyptic. A 4x4 adventure through them is a signature experience in Bahariya. The oasis's 400 natural hot-and-cold springs and Roman-era wells offer a refreshing rinse after a desert exploration. (Tour Egypt's Valley of the Whales for a window onto the history of evolution) Kharga is the 'Little Italy' of ancient Egypt. The Romans conquered the oasis as a strategic trading route, and Kharga today still exudes the glory of the Roman Empire. Most notable is the Fortress of El-Deir, an imposing structure rising out of the golden dunes, still nearly intact. It has been graffitied by the many travelers who have passed through since the third century, from Turkish traders to British soldiers during the World War I. Graffiti from prehistoric to medieval times can also be found at Gebel al-Teir, a mountain on the oasis' northern edge, where petroglyphs exist alongside the unique Coptic script of Egypt's Christians. The oasis's best site for Christian monuments is the expansive El Bagawat necropolis. Colorful biblical scenes—often covered in Greek graffiti—are painted on the hundreds of cave-like, mud-brick tombs at this Christian cemetery, one of the world's oldest and best-preserved. Dakhla, meaning 'inside' in Arabic, is perhaps even more of an insider destination than its neighboring Kharga. Like Kharga, Dakhla's prime was the Greco-Roman era. Ironically, the best remaining Roman monument in Dakhla is the ancient pagan Deir el-Hagar temple, similar to the Karnak Temple in Luxor. The other remarkable Roman feat in Dakhla now lies underground: A Roman settlement that formed the base of the village of Al Qasr. Today, it's an interesting maze of abandoned mud-brick buildings and narrow alleyways. Kharga has more ruins for the archaeological enthusiast, but Dakhla has endless hot springs to dip in. More than 600 springs bubble up from an aquifer thousands of feet below. You can soak in the pools of mineral-rich waters with a vista of pink limestone cliffs hugging the horizon. (A practical guide to travel in Egypt, from tipping culture to independent touring) Farafra is said to be Egypt's most isolated oasis. It's the entry point to the enigmatic White Desert, which looks like the surface of a moon in an alternate universe. In some areas, the glittering white sand is easily mistaken for a dusting of snow. In others, it resembles swaths of thick meringue on the world's biggest cake. Yet still other parts are fields of limestone hoodoos that tower precariously over your 4x4 like giant mushrooms. If you can handle the rough and tumble of the terrain, it's well worth venturing further into the desert to see the Neolithic remains that attract anthropologists from around the globe. About 30 miles out are remnants of a prehistoric village, the foundations of huts still standing. Nearby, rock art that's older than the pyramids decorates the walls of a cave, including handprints. Miranda Mullings is an American travel and culture writer based in Rome, Italy.
National Geographic
a day ago
- National Geographic
These remote desert oases are Egypt's hidden gems
The world knows Egypt for the Pyramids of Giza and cosmopolitan Cairo, the tourist-trodden temples of Luxor, and Red Sea resort towns. These coastal and Nile River Valley destinations are a narrow view of a country that's 90 percent desert. Few travelers venture into that 90 percent. The vast Western Desert, which blends into Libya and beyond, is Egypt's great unknown. Adventurers since Alexander the Great have braved the harsh clime and been rewarded with the untouched nature and unique culture of Egypt's oases. Seclusion has kept these desert gems, if not secret, then still wild. Egypt's oases are time capsules of millions of years of human and natural history, from when whales had legs to the Roman Empire. There are golden mummies at the Bahariya Oasis and tombs vandalized with ancient graffiti at Kharga. There are natural masterpieces like geode-like salt lakes in Siwa Oasis, hundreds of bubbling hot springs at Dakhla, and unearthly landscapes of dead volcanoes and limestone hoodoos near Bahariya and Farafra. (How to plan the ultimate adventure in Egypt, from Cairo to the Red Sea) Fayoum Fayoum has remained relatively untouched despite being only an hour from Cairo. Its name may ring a bell for the Fayum Portraits, the mummy masks found in museums like the Louvre and the British Museum. Just two remain in their hometown, at the Kom Aushim Museum, the oasis's first stop on the drive in from Cairo. But it's natural phenomena that Fayoum should be better known for. It's home to the prehistoric Lake Qarun, whose saline waters are a magnet for wintering birds, including flamingos. The unofficially named Magic Lake, so secret you won't find it on Google Maps, lures humans looking for a swim or photo op. Its waters reflect the sky, providing extraordinary views of the Milky Way. The lake is part of Fayoum's most popular attraction, the Wadi Al-Hitan UNESCO World Heritage Site—the world's largest whale graveyard, dating back 40 million years. (This desert oasis is a time capsule of Egypt's grand past) Siwa Oasis Before the late 1980s, Siwa Oasis was accessible only by camel. Today, it's a 12-hour drive from Cairo. Yet, remoteness does little to dissuade those captivated by this mysterious oasis, just 30 miles from Libya. In antiquity, Siwa Oasis was a site for pilgrims seeking the wisdom of the Oracle of Amun. The temple's hilltop ruins are a highlight among the oasis's historic sites. Also notable are the medieval mud-brick Shali Fortress, towering over the city, and Gebel al-Mawta, the Mountain of the Dead, featuring hundreds of tombs carved into its face. But diving into Siwa Oasis' salt lakes easily surpasses all of them as a must-do. They look like liquified geodes, their electric-blue waters ringed by sparkling, crystallized shores. You can swim and float in hundreds of salt lakes, some large and others hardly big enough for one person. Bahariya Oasis Bahariya Oasis is the most well-known of the five Western Desert oases in part because it's the easiest to reach from Cairo, but also because it has fascinating relics, hundreds of hot springs, and off-roading among volcanoes. It's said that Alexander the Great commemorated his visit to Siwa's Oracle of Amun with a temple of his own, which he built in Bahariya. It lies in ruins that you can visit, but more impressive is the Valley of the Golden Mummies burial site. Hundreds of gold-covered mummies have been uncovered there, and many more are thought to remain buried. Some are on display at the small on-site museum. Bahariya Oasis's best feature is the Black Desert, a Martian landscape of ancient dead volcanoes. Miles of sand mountains sprinkled with black volcanic rocks are captivatingly apocalyptic. A 4x4 adventure through them is a signature experience in Bahariya. The oasis's 400 natural hot-and-cold springs and Roman-era wells offer a refreshing rinse after a desert exploration. (Tour Egypt's Valley of the Whales for a window onto the history of evolution) Kharga Kharga is the 'Little Italy' of ancient Egypt. The Romans conquered the oasis as a strategic trading route, and Kharga today still exudes the glory of the Roman Empire. Most notable is the Fortress of El-Deir, an imposing structure rising out of the golden dunes, still nearly intact. It has been graffitied by the many travelers who have passed through since the third century, from Turkish traders to British soldiers during the World War I. Graffiti from prehistoric to medieval times can also be found at Gebel al-Teir, a mountain on the oasis' northern edge, where petroglyphs exist alongside the unique Coptic script of Egypt's Christians. The oasis's best site for Christian monuments is the expansive El Bagawat necropolis. Colorful biblical scenes—often covered in Greek graffiti—are painted on the hundreds of cave-like, mud-brick tombs at this Christian cemetery, one of the world's oldest and best-preserved. Dakhla Dakhla, meaning 'inside' in Arabic, is perhaps even more of an insider destination than its neighboring Kharga. Like Kharga, Dakhla's prime was the Greco-Roman era. Ironically, the best remaining Roman monument in Dakhla is the ancient pagan Deir el-Hagar temple, similar to the Karnak Temple in Luxor. The other remarkable Roman feat in Dakhla now lies underground: A Roman settlement that formed the base of the village of Al Qasr. Today, it's an interesting maze of abandoned mud-brick buildings and narrow alleyways. Kharga has more ruins for the archaeological enthusiast, but Dakhla has endless hot springs to dip in. More than 600 springs bubble up from an aquifer thousands of feet below. You can soak in the pools of mineral-rich waters with a vista of pink limestone cliffs hugging the horizon. (A practical guide to travel in Egypt, from tipping culture to independent touring) Farafra Farafra is said to be Egypt's most isolated oasis. It's the entry point to the enigmatic White Desert, which looks like the surface of a moon in an alternate universe. In some areas, the glittering white sand is easily mistaken for a dusting of snow. In others, it resembles swaths of thick meringue on the world's biggest cake. Yet still other parts are fields of limestone hoodoos that tower precariously over your 4x4 like giant mushrooms. If you can handle the rough and tumble of the terrain, it's well worth venturing further into the desert to see the Neolithic remains that attract anthropologists from around the globe. About 30 miles out are remnants of a prehistoric village, the foundations of huts still standing. Nearby, rock art that's older than the pyramids decorates the walls of a cave, including handprints. Miranda Mullings is an American travel and culture writer based in Rome, Italy.
Tokyo Weekender
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tokyo Weekender
Prostitution in Feudal Japan: A Literary Look
With over 1 million residents at its height, Edo (modern-day Tokyo) was the largest city in the world around the 18th century. And also the most literate. About half of its population were samurai, who were well versed in the classics. But Edo also had a thriving popular literature scene greatly enjoyed by the other half of the city. Together with adventure epics, dramas and comedies, the thing that commoners loved the most were stories involving the city's prostitutes. Though most of them were fictional, these stories help us understand the nature of sex work and the very culture of Japan's capital hundreds of years ago. List of Contents: Looking Down on Nighthawks To Be a Cool Guy in Edo, You Had To Visit Prostitutes Only Monsters Would Get Mad at Their Husbands Visiting Prostitutes Related Posts Image of Yoshiwara workers by Kitao Masanobu (c. 1800) | British Museum collections (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Looking Down on Nighthawks Yoshiwara, a government-sanctioned red-light district, was one of only three places in all of Japan which was set up to better control the flow of sex work in the country. It quickly became a common setting of popular books during the Edo period, many of which juxtaposed it and its working women with 'nighthawks.' Author Yamaoka Matsuake explained in his classic Sekifujinden that nighthawks, or yotaka, were unlicensed prostitutes who operated outside Yoshiwara, sometimes literally on the slopes of its moat, but also all around the city. The story focuses on a high-ranking Yoshiwara worker being condescending to a nighthawk while trying to get her to join the brothel district, for which she receives an eloquent dressing down about the hypocrisy of her gilded cage and its suffocating, rule-ridden hierarchy. Licensed prostitutes looked down on the nighthawks, but they themselves lived and worked in a place with a rigid etiquette system and a mean-girl-style pecking order. Yamaoka probably did not personally believe that the nighthawks had it better than the women in Yoshiwara (unlicensed prostitutes were virtually homeless and had no protection outside local gang bosses). But he simply refused to romanticize a place that put a lot of rules on sex. Terakado Seiken offered additional details on nighthawks in Edo Hanjoki , describing, among other things, their heavy makeup meant to hide skin conditions and other diseases. He also wrote about the wobbly shanties where they entertained clients. It was apparently common for people to peek in on those occasions and get a serious beating when they were caught. '8 O'clock at night of Yoshiwara' by Odake Kokkan. Meiji Period (1906) | British Museum collections (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) To Be a Cool Guy in Edo, You Had To Visit Prostitutes Physical contact was restricted in feudal Japan. Things like hugs, caresses and kisses were reserved for prostitutes, so naturally it was quite common for young men to fall in love with working women. But showing it would make them un- tsu. 'Tsu' was the name for the cool aloofness and emotional distance that people from Edo decided was the definition of a true man of the capital. While the concept is a little more complex than simply 'not caring,' that was a big part of it and the best way to show it was with prostitutes. Umebori Kokuga's Keiseikai Futasujimichi describes a Yoshiwara prostitute and her client, who are both the epitomes of tsu. They're smooth-talkers seemingly only focused on what they want, and they spend most of their time playfully insulting each other. In reality, the two are miserable and the only joy in their lives is each other's company, but they'd rather gargle the Yoshiwara moat water (which was essentially a communal toilet) than admit their feelings. In the end, they break up in a torrent of sarcasm because tsu trumped personal happiness every time. Or, in some cases, common sense. Santo Kyoden's Edo Umare Uwaki no Kabayaki tells the story of Enjiro, the son of a wealthy Edo merchant who wants to be known for his mastery of tsu. By this, he's already failed, because trying to be tsu is automatically un-tsu — it should come naturally to you — yet he still gives it a go. For instance, he visits the most expensive prostitutes in Yoshiwara and hires a live-in mistress to yell at him and be jealous of his many conquests. He even pays a guy to pretend to be a hired prostitute's steady client so that she can sneak away and be with her beloved Enjiro. Because getting a prostitute to fall in love with you — while you yourself remained emotionally unattached — was the ultimate cool-guy fantasy during the Edo period. Only Monsters Would Get Mad at Their Husbands Visiting Prostitutes Feudal Japan actually had a pretty liberal attitude towards sex… whenever there wasn't some anti-prostitution moral panic sweeping the capital. On the whole, though, if a husband visited prostitutes or had a mistress, his wife was expected to be fine with it. Nowhere is this attitude more obvious than in Baba Bunko's Todai Edo Hyaku Bakemono , a collection of short stories including the tale of a merchant who falls for a courtesan and starts spending all of his time with her, abandoning his family and business. His wife eventually disguises herself as the courtesan's aunt to gain entry to her brothel, mirroring the legend of Watanabe no Tsuna , whose demonic foe Ibaraki-doji also disguised itself as the hero's relative. Once inside, the wife tries to drag her husband back home, and through this and the Ibaraki-doji reference, she is branded by the author as a 'monster' who used trickery to disturb her husband's good time. Haifu Yanagidaru, an Edo-period collection of humorous poems, suggests that wives should have their children accompany their husbands during their outings to stop them from hiring prostitutes. This loose attitude towards fidelity continued well into the 20th century and once involved Prime Minister Katsura Taro, who actually had to publicly break up with his lover to save her, but not from his wife. The two women reportedly got along well together . Related Posts Osaka Street Painted Yellow To Prevent Prostitution Japan's Ancient Sex Worker Sirens: Asobi Samurai Cops: Inside Edo's Police Force During Feudal Japan
