Thirty years after the wonders of King Tut first toured the world, an even bigger exhibition Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs will make its appearance at the Pacific Science Center starting May 24th, 2012. With an almost entirely different selection of treasures and more than twice the number of artefacts than were displayed in the 1978 exhibition, Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs features more than 100 remarkable objects from the tomb of King Tut and ancient sites representing some of the most important rulers throughout 2,000 years of ancient Egyptian history. This is really…
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Gladiator was the world’s biggest blockbuster when it hit screens in 2000. Now, ten years later, Colchester’s Odeon Cinema is offering viewers the chance to relive Ridley Scott’s classic on Thursday 13th May, with proceedings going to help save the city’s Roman Circus. The project has already reached an initial 200,000 target, which will eventually be joined by almost 600,000 in public and private funding. Yet Colchester Archaeology Trust, whose director Philip Crummy will introduce the film, may help to secure access to the Victorian building sitting on top of the circus, Britain’s only Roman chariot racecource, by the summer.…
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Fearless globetrotters or carpetbagging looters? Whatever your opinion, Britain’s adventurers during the Age of Exploration, from the opening of the world’s first museum in Oxford to the King Tut tomb raid, changed ancient history forever. The Ancient World in London is reaching its climax, and over the course of our video series I’ve seen most of the city’s stunning treasures, from the Knidos Lion to the Assyrian Lion Hunt. So here’s a top ten greatest Age of Exploration personalities. If you think I’ve done well, or if you think I’m more inept than a boxer’s tear ducts, have your say…
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The Royal Ontario Museum will host afour day symposium called Life in the Afterlife at the same time that a giant Terracotta Warriors show will be on display at the museum. Life in the Afterlife will explore ideas on life after death across different cultures. Speakers will be talking about the afterlife in numerous places, including Ancient China, Egyptand the Near East. The symposium also examines China during the rule of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor. The event is aimed at a popular audience. The keynote lecture will be given by journalist Simon Winchester who will be discussing Joseph…
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As volcanic ash from Iceland’s volcano continues to cause chaos, there is news that access to Iran‘s ancient sites could soon become easier. From June to October this year, IranAir plans to operate a weekly non-stop flight from London Heathrow to Shiraz. The Saturday service will operate alongside the airlines existing three-day-a-week London-Tehran service, and see a return Shiraz-London flight offered every Sunday. Internal flights already operate from Tehran to Isafahan, Mashhad and Tabriz, as well as to Shiraz. The news comes at a time when Iraq is also opening up to tourists. When the ash clears, adventurous travellers will…
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From the bloody rebellion of Boudicca to the fearsome Norman invasion, London had always been under attack in its ancient past. Yet successes during the Middle Ages allowed the city and nation to branch out, conquering new lands and forging trade links all over the world. 1683 saw Oxford play host to the world’s first museum, the Ashmolean, allowing a new generation of explorers to quench their thirst for adventure. And just a few decades later London’s great archaeologists and antiquaries would spread their wings proper, globetrotting to far flung corners of the planet in search of great discoveries and…
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King’s Lynn in Norfolk played host to the year’s oddest cultural occasions yesterday, as a 1.5 ton tree stump was lowered into the town’s Lynn Museum. But it was no ordinary stump: the giant piece of oak was once the centrepoint for 4,000-year-old Seahenge, an ancient circle of wooden posts discovered off the coast of Holme in 1998. The move is the last major event before the completed henge goes on display at the museum this summer in a replica of its original surroundings. Almost 50,000 people have visited the posts since they were first exhibited there in 2008. Each…
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The south east of England has been at the centre of British history for two thousand years. There are hundreds of heritage sites within striking distance of London that can be easily visited in a day. Tracking out from the historic Roman heart of the city, here are some of my suggestions Within 2 Miles of the Centre Why not start where it all began? London wall was built by the Romans in around 200 AD. It lasted over 1,000 years and helped define the shape of the medieval city. One of the few remaining chunks of wall can be…
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This week, the UK skies fell oddly silent due to flight cancellations caused by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland. As business and holiday travellers fret over changed plans and lost vacation, one particularly symbolic flight hangs in the balance. Passengers booked onto the 11am Iraqi Airways flight to Baghdad on Saturday, April 17 are awaiting news of whether their flight will board tomorrow, Sunday or Monday. When it does take off, it will be the first direct commercial service between the British capital and Iraq in almost 20 years, and it represents another small step on Iraq’s long…
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An underwater probe searching for evidence of vessels blown up by the Mafia to dispose of radioactive waste in the Mediterranean has found evidence of a shipwreck of a different kind containing several hundred Roman amphorae. The large clay ‘pots’ used to contain Roman foodstuffs (olive oil, wine, grain or fish sauce/garum) were spotted on the seabed off the coast of Campania in southern Italy by the company managing the underwater exploration. The Aberdeen-based company, Hallin Marine, which provides under-sea services to industry, was using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) as part of an Italian government-run investigation into the disappearance of…