In 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was killed in his cathedral by knights linked to his former friend King Henry II. But how did Becket become a revered saint and protector of the king?…
The Romans’ passion for fine dining is well known – now a mouth-watering new exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum shows how the production, distribution and consumption for food and wine coloured every aspect of Roman life, as its curator Paul Roberts explains…
• Nero: a new look at the infamous emperor
• Picasso: Iberian influences
• Ionia, 1764: the romance of ruins
•Galloway Hoard: surprising finds from the Viking Age
• Banquets: the theatre of feasting…
And pretty Samos, and the palace of Croesus at Sardis,What of Smyrna and Colophon – better or worse than their fame?Or are they all as dirt beside the Campus and the Tiber’s stream?Or does one of the cities of Attalus surface in your prayers,Or do you commend Lebedus, now sick…
From myths of the Minotaur to Cycladic sculpture, the influence of the ancient world on Picasso is well known. But a less familiar part of the artist’s relationship with the distant past is his fruitful engagement with the art of ancient Iberia, as Cécile Godefroy and Hélène Le Meaux explain.…
In the largest study of north-western Arabia’s mustatil to date, archaeologists have recorded more than 1,000 of the enigmatic rectangular structures across 200,000km2 of land, shedding light on one of the oldest widespread monument-building traditions. These prehistoric structures take their name from the Arabic word for ‘rectangle’, and while they…
Wining and dining has long been part of diplomacy. Fine objects from the table tell stories of power, partnerships, and protocol, but also of poisoning, as a new exhibition explores. Geraldine Fabrikant reports.…
Disease has been a constant companion of humankind throughout the ages. As civilisations rose, populations flourished, and trade routes expanded, people brought their ideas, their goods, and their pathogens to new lands and cities that had never previously encountered them. The lack of natural immunity to the transported bacteria, viruses,…
Many museums and galleries around the world have recently reopened with safety measures in place, including compulsory booking and limits on visitor numbers. Closures are still a possibility, and the dates listed below may have changed since we went to print. Check the websites and social-media accounts of the institutions…
This dramatic work has been acquired by the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it is now on view. Artemisia trained with her father Orazio Gentileschi, and her Lucretia joins two of his works in the Getty collection.…
William Pars’s poetic images of the ruins he encountered on an expedition to Ionia and Athens helped shape the taste for Greek styles in 18th-century Britain. Louise Stewart takes us on a journey to Ionia through the eyes of this young artist.…