Actor and Director Mel Gibson is working on a Viking-themed film that is going to star Leonardo DiCaprio, who will have to brush up on his Old Norse. The script is in the hands of Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan, and will chronicle the Viking raids on England and Scotland in the ninth century.
When asked about the Viking project at a recent press event, Mel Gibson told Collider.com: “I think it’s going to be English - the English that would have been spoken back then - and Old Norse. Whatever the 9th century had to offer. I’m going to give you real.”
The medieval Lewis Chessmen were hand carved by Norse master craftsmen in Trondheim, then for some reason abandoned in a sand dune on a Scottish island, before being discovered in 1831 and split up and sold to two different museums, in Edinburgh and London. For the first time in over 150 years, pieces from both collections – 30 of them in total – will be reunited in Scotland, in a hotly-anticipated touring exhibition that begins in Edinburgh before visiting Aberdeen Art Gallery (October 7, 2010 – January 8, 2011), Shetland Museum & Archives (January 29, 2011 – March 27, 2011) then finally Museum nan Eilean on the chessmen’s spiritual home of Lewis (April 15, 2011 – September 12, 2011).
Museum nan Eilean, or the Western Isles Museum, was the Western Isles of Scotland's first dedicated professional museum service when it was founded in 1984. It has since moved to its own facility - a building which originally served as the Secondary department of the Nicolson Institute (first opened 1898).
It holds and extensive collections of objects, photographs, prints, paintings and archives illustrating the archaeology, social, domestic and economic history of Stornoway, Lewis and the Western Isles. In 2011, Museum nan Eilean will welcome the return of the Lewis Chessmen to the island where they were discovered, when a joint exhibition comprising pieces from the collections of the National Museum of Scotland and the British Museum arrives on a Scottish tour. It'll be the first time pieces from both sets have visited Lewis for over 150 years.
The medieval Lewis Chessmen were hand carved by Norse master craftsmen in Trondheim, then for some reason abandoned in a sand dune on a Scottish island, before being discovered in 1831 and split up and sold to two different museums, in Edinburgh and London. For the first time in over 150 years, pieces from both collections – 30 of them in total – will be reunited in Scotland, in a hotly-anticipated touring exhibition that begins in Edinburgh before visiting Aberdeen Art Gallery (October 7, 2010 – 8 January 2011), Shetland Museum & Archives (January 29, 2011 – March 27, 2011) then finally Museum nan Eilean on the chessmen’s spiritual home of Lewis (April 2011, 15 – September, 12 2011).
Costing in the region of £11.6 million - with a large portion of that money (£4.9 million) coming from a Heritage Lottery Fund grant - the New Shetland Museum & Archives on the far northern Scottish island of Shetland is a highly contemporary facility that has been praised for its innovative design. Purpose built in the historic Hay's Dock, it comprises substantial exhibition space, a three-storey boat hall, extensive archives, a 120-seat lecture hall and a cafe. There is also space for floating exhibits in the harbour in front of the building.
Its exhibits concentrate primarily on telling the story of the island - its geological, sociological, political, cultural, economic and industrial history, from ancient times up to the present day.
