01-11-2008, 10:45 PM
And from today's Times...
Two thousand years after he built a wall across Britain to keep out the barbarians, Hadrian is returning to this part of his empire. More than 200 treasures relating to the Roman Emperor will go on display in a block-buster exhibition this summer, the British Museum announced yesterday.
Spectacular artefacts that have only just been found will be among loans from 31 countries - a reflection of the global scale of Hadrian’s empire. It extended from Scotland to the Sahara, and from the Nile to the Danube.
Negotiations are now under way to bring to London a colossal marble statue of Hadrian that was found only a few months ago at Sagalassos, Turkey.
Archaeologists were excavating the site of a huge Roman bath complex, whose construction began under Hadrian, when they found the lower part of a leg and a foot with an exquisitely decorated sandal. The foot alone is about 0.8 metres (2.6ft) long. The complete statue, topped by an imposing head, was originally nearly five metres high. Traces of red paint have survived on both the hair and sandal.
The exhibition comes after the unprecedented success of the British Museum’s show on another great world leader, The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army, which has sold 600,000 tickets. The demand is such that opening hours have been extended to midnight four nights a week.
Hadrian: Empire and Conflict is likely to prove just as popular, particularly as Hadrian is part of the history of so many countries. The lenders include Italy, Georgia and Israel – as well as Newcastle upon Tyne.
This will be the first big show dedicated solely to the life and legacy of a military man who ruled the Roman Empire at its height between AD117138, combining ruthless suppression of dissent with cultural tolerance. The British Museum’s historic Round Reading Room is a particularly appropriate setting for this exhibition as its dome has been compared to that of Pantheon in Rome, one of Hadrian’s architectural masterpieces.
The exhibits will include a sculpture of Hadrian’s wife, created with a beauty that, according to Thorsten Opper of the British Museum, “would have had Michelangelo in raptures, if he had seen itâ€
Two thousand years after he built a wall across Britain to keep out the barbarians, Hadrian is returning to this part of his empire. More than 200 treasures relating to the Roman Emperor will go on display in a block-buster exhibition this summer, the British Museum announced yesterday.
Spectacular artefacts that have only just been found will be among loans from 31 countries - a reflection of the global scale of Hadrian’s empire. It extended from Scotland to the Sahara, and from the Nile to the Danube.
Negotiations are now under way to bring to London a colossal marble statue of Hadrian that was found only a few months ago at Sagalassos, Turkey.
Archaeologists were excavating the site of a huge Roman bath complex, whose construction began under Hadrian, when they found the lower part of a leg and a foot with an exquisitely decorated sandal. The foot alone is about 0.8 metres (2.6ft) long. The complete statue, topped by an imposing head, was originally nearly five metres high. Traces of red paint have survived on both the hair and sandal.
The exhibition comes after the unprecedented success of the British Museum’s show on another great world leader, The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army, which has sold 600,000 tickets. The demand is such that opening hours have been extended to midnight four nights a week.
Hadrian: Empire and Conflict is likely to prove just as popular, particularly as Hadrian is part of the history of so many countries. The lenders include Italy, Georgia and Israel – as well as Newcastle upon Tyne.
This will be the first big show dedicated solely to the life and legacy of a military man who ruled the Roman Empire at its height between AD117138, combining ruthless suppression of dissent with cultural tolerance. The British Museum’s historic Round Reading Room is a particularly appropriate setting for this exhibition as its dome has been compared to that of Pantheon in Rome, one of Hadrian’s architectural masterpieces.
The exhibits will include a sculpture of Hadrian’s wife, created with a beauty that, according to Thorsten Opper of the British Museum, “would have had Michelangelo in raptures, if he had seen itâ€
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