Parthenon, Athens, 1907
Boissonnas headed to Athens and worked to photograph the monuments of the Acropolis, a subject he returned to several times.
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The riches of Ravenna
In a small city on Italy’s Adriatic coast, faces of all-powerful emperors, empresses, and bishops gaze out from glittering mosaics. But why are these magnificent decorations here? Judith Herrin explores the history of Ravenna, a well-connected city and one-time capital of the Western Roman Empire.
Tantra: from ecstasy to enlightenment
Lindsay Fulcher enters the transgressive realm of Tantra. This rebellious Indian cult, which has overturned religious, social, sexual, and political norms from AD 500 to the present day, is currently being celebrated in an exhibition curated by Imma Ramos at the British Museum.
New discoveries at Saqqara
As well as the coffins, archaeologists also unearthed 28 statues of Ptah Sokar, the main god of the Saqqara necropolis...
The king’s new clothes
Researchers had moved the best textiles, including the ‘Eagle Silk’ and a pillow with birds, deemed more fitting for a king, over to Cnut’s shrine, where they are displayed with his remains under a glass lid.
What’s in the Box? Plymouth’s new museum opens
The large and ambitious opening exhibition, entitled Mayflower 400: legend and legacy, tells the story of the voyage and assesses the impact of the settlers’ arrival on the indigenous population.
Painting the past
Joining the gallery’s collections is an 1819 oil-on-paper painting by Achille Etna Michallon (1796-1822) of The Forum at Pompeii.
MANAGING MUSEUMS
Managing the Musée Champollion and The Pitt Rivers Museum.
Anglo-Saxon burials revealed
‘We had expected to find some kind of Anglo-Saxon burial, but what we found exceeded all our expectations and provides new insights into this stretch of the Thames in the decades after the collapse of the Roman administration in Britain.’
Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors
In the mid 4th century BC, Greece experienced a seismic convulsion whose shockwaves would be felt as far away as India, when an energetic young commander took the throne of Macedon, led his army to a string of victories, and…
Secret Britain: unearthing our mysterious past
From a small spindle whorl to an expanse of moorland, there are many objects, individual sites, and entire landscapes in Britain that offer a portal to the past. In her engaging new book, Mary-Ann Ochota is our guide to the…
Rome in the 8th Century: A History in Art
What do we imagine the city of Rome to have been like in the 8th century AD? With the supremacy of Constantinople as the political and administrative centre of the empire, the Rome of this period – its buildings falling…
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
Viollet-le-Duc needed connections: he had elected not to study architecture, preferring to learn on the job.
Aztecs: where eagles dare
Buried beneath Mexico City lie the remains of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and its sacred centre. Lucia Marchini reports on an exhibition investigating wealth, worship, and empire in pre-Hispanic Mexico.
Thebes: city of myths
Sparta is famous for its warrior tradition, Athens for its intellectual and artistic achievement. But what of Thebes? As ancient historian Paul Cartledge explains, Thebes too had a most distinctive image.
China: in the beginning
Chinese rulers held the disciplines of astronomy and cosmology in high regard for millennia. Dalu Jones
previews an exhibition of exquisite objects exploring the connections between Heaven and Earth.