• helen-atkinson

    Ashmolean’s New Block is Bright and Welcoming

    I got a jump on the Queen of England the other day, and visited the newly-opened wing of the Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology in Oxford a full week before she officially opens it Dec. 2. My parents live in Oxford, and I was visiting them unexpectedly (death in my husband’s family). They had tried to visit the Museum at the weekend, but queues that snaked round the block drove them back, so my father and I took a secondwalk over there on a quieter Wed. afternoonto see what all the fuss was about. First off, I should confess…

  • Ann

    The Acropolis Theatre of Dionysus to be Restored

    The ‘birthplace of drama’ – the Theatre of Dionysus, located on the south slope of the Acropolis – is to be partially restored in a 6 million project that is set for completion in 2015. The ancient open-air theatre in Athens saw the premire of many of the great dramatic works written during the ‘golden age’ of Greek Tragedy. Famous ancient playwrights – such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Aristophanes – took part in competitions staged twice yearly at the Dionysus theatre; the City Dionysia festival during the spring and the Lenaia in wintertime. The limestone and marble version of…

  • sean-williams

    Lost Pictish Throne Brought to Life by National Museum of Scotland Team

    Scottish history lovers can get a unique view of their country’s heritage at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) – a team of experts has rebuilt a Pictish throne. The wooden giant was created by master furniture maker Adrian McCurdy, who took his lines from ancient stone carvings. Picts ruled Scotland north of the Firth of Clyde from the 4th to 9th century AD. But they are best known for their mysterious rock art, which still baffles experts today. The throne was commissioned by the museum alongside distillers Glenmorangie. It will go on display next Tuesday (December 1st) at the…

  • bija-knowles

    The Curse of King Tut – A Video Guide to Avoiding it

    Tutankhamun, or King Tut as he’s affectionately known, was the boy king who ruled Egypt during the New Kingdom’s 18th dynasty, from 1333 to 1324 BC. In life he wasn’t the most important or memorable of Egypt’s pharoahs, but in death he’s become the one pharoah everyone’s heard of. His death at the age of 19 has been the topic of much discussion (You can watch last week’s video on the mystery of King Tut’s death here) and he was buried in the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile near Luxor (ancient Thebes). His tomb…

  • prad

    Google Earth Tour: Great Cities of the Ancient World

    After Heritage Key’s recent video interview with John Julius Norwich on his new book “The Great Cities in History” (which you should definately watch here) I wrote an article looking at the greatest ancient cities that Lord Norwich selected. With cities across the globe and ranging from the Greeks and Romans, to the Egyptians and Muslims, as far as the Indus Valley and Chinese to the Mayan Civilisation. The city is very much an ancient concept, but one which our society relies upon today in order to maintain a place of power, culture and trade. The earliest cities were based…

  • bija-knowles

    Lewd Latin and Beastial Busts: Erotic Art and Poetry of the Romans

    The first century BC Roman poet Catallus has been making the headlines this week more than 2,000 years after he penned his erotic body of work known as the Carmina. One poem from the Carmina, Catallus 16, begins with the explicit line Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo – literally translated by The Guardian (who go on to question the BBC’s reluctance to offer a translation and send the reader to check out the full text on wikipedia instead) as “I will bugger you and stuff your gobs.” These Latin words were written in an email by a London business man,…

  • sean-williams

    Top 10 Underwater Archaeology Sites Around the World

    Underwater archaeology may still be in its relative infancy, but that hasn’t stopped it making some of the world’s biggest recent discoveries. From Cleopatra to ancient plonk, there’s plenty more under the sea than a load of old shipwrecks – though they can be pretty spectacular too. Even Egyptological legend Zahi Hawass is getting a piece of the action, scouring the Nile for ancient treasure. So we thought we’d strike while the iron’s wet and bring you a top ten of the world’s underwater archaeology sites. If you think we’re talking rot, or if there’s anywhere we’ve missed, don’t hesitate…

  • Ann

    Google To Digitise Iraq’s National Museum Archives

    Google will soon begin digitising artefacts and documents at Iraq’s National Museum, chief executive Eric Schmidt said on a visit to Baghdad. Some 14,000 digital images taken from the museum will be freely available online from the beginning of next year. The NationalMuseum of Iraq – opened in 1924 with a focus on objects from the Ur excavations and home to an extraordinary collection of Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian artefacts as well as rare Islamic texts – suffered damage and looting caused by the Iraqi war and only reopened to visitors February this year. Some 6,000 artefacts were recovered, but…

  • malcolmj

    Preserving King Tut’s Guts: The Canopic Shrine and Jars Introduced

    As we described in our recent handy guide to how to make a mummy, the ancient Egyptians went to great and grizzly lengths to ensure that every last bit of a body was efficiently preserved. The internal organs had to be removed in order to effectively dry out a corpse. They would then be individually wrapped and preserved separately in canopic vessels. King Tuts guts in keeping with the generally lavish and wondrous spirit of his mummification and burial were given extra-special treatment, as we discover in the first instalment of the new four part video series, Tuts Treasures. Shot…

  • site

    Art Gallery of Ontario

    Attribution: John Kannenberg Ontario Canada Key Dates  Founded in 1900. Founded in 1900 by a group of private citizens as the Art Museum of Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario is one of the largest art museums in North America, with a physical facility of 486,000 square feet. Currently under construction, the AGO’s new facility will boast 583,000 square feet, and will re-open in 2008 with an innovative architectural design by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. Collection The AGO currently has more than 68,000 works in its collection, spanning from 100 AD to the present. Highlights include: More than 40% of…