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More than 300 astonishing objects made from gold and other precious materials are presented in the major exhibition “Beyond El Dorado. Power and gold in ancient Colombia”, held by the British Museum in conjunction with the Museo del Oro, Bogotá. The exhibition opens on October 17, 2013 and will run through March 23, 2014.

In ancient Colombia gold was used to fashion some of the most visually dramatic and sophisticated works of art found anywhere in the Americas before European contact. This exhibition will feature over 300 exquisite objects drawn from the Museo del Oro in Bogotá, one of the best and most extensive collections of Pre-Hispanic gold in the world, as well as from the British Museum’s own unique collections. Through these exceptional objects the exhibition will explore the complex network of societies in ancient Colombia – a hidden world of distinct and vibrant cultures spanning 1600 BC to AD 1700 – with particular focus on the Muisca, Quimbaya, Calima, Tairona, Tolima and Zenú chiefdoms. This important but little understood subject will be explored in this unique exhibition following on from shows in Room 35 such as Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind, Grayson Perry: Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World and Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa in shining a light on world cultures through their craftsmanship.

Although gold was not valued as currency in pre-Hispanic Colombia, it had great symbolic meaning. It was one way the elite could publicly assert their rank and semi-divine status, both in life and in death. The remarkable objects displayed across the exhibition reveal glimpses of these cultures’ spiritual lives including engagement with animal spirits though the use of gold objects, music, dancing, sunlight and hallucinogenic substances that all lead to a physical and spiritual transformation enabling communication with the supernatural. Animal iconography is used to express this transformation in powerful pieces demonstrating a wide range of imaginative works of art, showcasing avian pectorals, necklaces with feline claws or representations of men transforming into spectacular bats though the use of profuse body adornment.

The exhibition will further explore the sophisticated gold working techniques, including the use of tumbaga, an alloy composed of gold and copper, used in the crafting the most spectacular masterworks of ancient Colombia. Extraordinary poporos (lime powder containers) showcase the technical skills achieved both in the casting and hammering techniques of metals by ancient Colombian artists. Other fascinating objects will include an exceptional painted Muisca textile and one of the few San Agustín stone sculptures held outside Colombia. Those, together with spectacular large scale gold masks and other materials were part of the objects that accompanied funerary rituals in ancient Colombia.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum said “Ancient Colombia has long represented a great fascination to the outside world and yet there is very little understood about these unique and varied cultures. As part of the Museum’s series of exhibitions that shine a light on little known and complex ancient societies this exhibition will give our visitors a glimpse into these fascinating cultures of pre-hispanic South America and a chance to explore the legend of El Dorado through these stunning objects.”

“American Airlines and American Airlines Cargo are thrilled to be partnering with the British Museum on Beyond El Dorado: power and gold in ancient Colombia.” said Tristan Koch, Managing Director of Cargo Sales for EMEA – American Airlines. “American Airlines is a supporter of the arts in many cities that we serve around the world and it’s exciting to be linking the two destinations of Bogotá, Colombia and London by transporting precious passengers and cargo between them.”

Source: The British Museum [August 04, 2013]

As London hosts the 30th modern edition of the Olympic Games, Dr Craig Barker from the University's Nicholson Museum and Michelle Kiss, a Year 10 work experience student from William Carey Christian School, evoke the ancient Olympic spirit with a look at the origins of the world's oldest sporting festival that may provide parallels for the next three weeks of competition in London.

• The first Olympic Games took place in 776 BC at Olympia in Greece, a sanctuary site devoted to the Greek god Zeus. The ancient Olympics were held every four years, a tradition that remains today. However, whereas cities around the world compete to host the modern games, ancient-world athletes always competed in Olympia.

• Olympia boomed as the games increased in importance — a statue of Zeus was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world — before the games were eventually abolished by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in 394 AD, supposedly because they were reminiscent of paganism. While there is much talk of the legacy of London 2012, Olympia and its athletic stadium is an important historical and archaeological site.

• In 2012, news surfaced that Australia's men's basketball team travelled to London in business class while their female equivalents languished in economy. However, during the first ancient games, gender equality in sport was even worse: women couldn't compete. Competitors were split into two groups, boys (12-18 years) and men (18+ years). Horses were also split into colts and fully grown age groups.

• While the composition of the crowds of spectators is less well understood, it's likely that only males and young girls were allowed to watch.

• In antiquity, a lit flame was tended throughout the celebration of the Olympics, and the idea of the fire was reintroduced in 1928 in Amsterdam. Every four years the Olympic flame is lit in front of the Temple of Hera then carried by torch to the host city. The torch relay was not an ancient practice and was introduced at the controversial 1936 Berlin Olympics.

• Judges were handpicked from people living in Elis, the area surrounding Olympia. The 'Elean Judges' enforced strict rules on the competitors: fines were issued for failing to arrive on time for the training period, cheating and for cowardice.

• Events in the ancient Olympics included foot races, discus, jump, javelin, boxing, pentathlon, pankration (a blend of boxing and wrestling) and chariot races. Most events, including the races, discus and javelin, took place in the Stadium of Olympia with other events taking place in the surrounding area.

• Before the start of any Olympic Games a truce would be announced, proclaiming that all wars, disputes and death penalties be put on hold until the end of the games. This truce also guaranteed athletes a safe journey to Olympia in the month leading up to the games. The truce was written on a bronze discus and placed in Olympia. The modern International Olympic Committee has revived the tradition of the truce, and all 193 United Nations member states have, for the first time, united to co-sponsor the Olympic Truce Resolution for the 2012 London Olympics.

• the sixth-century BC wrestler Milo of Croton, who was said to have died when he was wedged against a tree during a display of strength gone wrong and subsequently devoured by wolves

• Astylos, also of Croton, who competed at Olympic Games between 488 and 480 BC, but was expelled from his home city when he agreed to compete for Syracuse, and so can lay claim to being the first free-agent in sporting history

• Roman emperor Nero, who despite being thrown from his chariot in the 10-horse race at the 67 AD games, was still proclaimed the winner on the grounds that he would have won had he been able to complete the race

All around the hull of the longest Viking warship ever found there are swords and battle axes, many bearing the scars of long and bloody use, in an exhibition opening in Copenhagen that will smash decades of good public relations for the Vikings as mild-mannered traders and farmers.

The exhibition, simply called Viking, which will be opened at the National Museum by Queen Margrethe of Denmark on Thursday, and to the public on Saturday, will sail on to to London next year to launch the British Museum's new exhibition space.

In contrast to recent exhibitions, which have concentrated on the Vikings as brilliant seafarers, highly gifted wood- and metal-workers, and builders of towns including York and Dublin, this returns to the more traditional image of ferocious raiders, spreading terror wherever the shallow keels of the best and fastest ships in Europe could reach, armed with magnificent swords, spears, battleaxes and lozenge-shaped arrows. "The arrow shape did more damage," Pedersen explained, "the wounds were bigger and more difficult to heal than a straight-edged slit."

Other powers employed the fearless warriors as mercenaries, including Byzantium and Jerusalem, but some were anxious to keep weapons of mass destruction out of their hands: a Frankish law forbade selling swords to Vikings. They got them anyway, as the exhibits prove.

A skull from a grave in Gotland bears the marks of many healed sword cuts, but also decorative parallel lines filed into the warrior's teeth, like those recently found on teeth from a pit of decapitated bodies in Dorset, in what must have been an excruciating display of macho bravado.

"Probably only a small percentage of the Vikings ever went to sea on raiding parties, but I think those who stayed home would have told stories of great warriors, great ships and great swords they had known," Pedersen said. "It was very much part of the culture."

Some of the objects assembled from collections in 12 countries, such as a heap of walnut-sized pieces of amber, or jewellery made to incorporate Islamic and Byzantine coins, probably did come through trade. Others, such as a pair of brooches from the grave of a Viking woman made from gold intricately twisted into tiny animals, originally panels chopped up from a shrine made in Ireland to hold the relics of a saint, certainly were not.

One magnificent silver collar found in Norway has an inscription in runes saying the Vikings came to Frisia and "exchanged war garments with them" – but that may be a black joke. Iron slave collars from Dublin confirm that the wealth they sought wasn't always gold and silver.

This is the largest Viking exhibition in more than 20 years, bringing together loans from across Europe, including hoards from Yorkshire, Norway and Russia, a silver cross and a diminutive figure of a Valkyrie, a mythological battlefield figure, both found in Denmark only a few months ago. Loans from Britain include some of the famous Lewis chessmen carved as fierce Viking warriors, biting on the edge of their shields in an ecstasy of rage.

The most spectacular object, fitting into the gallery with just 1.7 metres (5ft6in) to spare – the new space in Bloomsbury has already been measured carefully – is the sleek, narrow hull of the longest Viking warship ever found, specially conserved for the exhibition and on display for the first time. Just over 36m in length, it was built to hold at least 100 men on 39 pairs of oars.

The ship was found by accident at Roskilde, home of the famous Viking ship museum. The museum was built 50 years ago to hold a small fleet of Viking boats that were deliberately sunk 1,000 years ago to narrow and protect the approach to the harbour. In the 1990s, workers building an extension chopped through the massive timbers of what turned out to be nine more ships, including the awesome length of the warship, estimated to have taken around 30,000 hours of skilled labour to build: only a king could have afforded such a vessel.

Recent scientific tests show it was built from oak felled in 1025 near Oslo, probably for King Cnut the Great – the sea-defying Canute to the English – who conquered England in 1016, and Norway in 1028. Only a quarter of the timbers survived, but they included the entire length of the keel.

Although the exhibition includes sections on Viking politics, strategic alliances through marriage and trade, and beliefs including the contents of the grave of a sorceress with her iron magic wand and little pots of narcotic drugs, the warlike tone was dictated by the ship, which was itself a weapon of war. Vikings sang about ships – one refers to a new ship as "a dragon" – played as children with toy ships and, if rich enough, were eventually buried in ships.

The displays and some of the contents will change in London, but in Copenhagen the ship is spectacularly displayed against an animated backdrop of stormy seas and a ferocious raid that leaves the target settlement in flames.

The animation was made in the United States and the Danish team was initially dismayed as it appeared to show raiders attacking a much later medieval walled town. Eventually, curator Peter Pentz said, a Hampshire site saved the film: they agreed it was plausible that the towers and curtain walls could represent the ruins of a Roman shoreline fort, such as Portchester castle near Portsmouth.

As well as the swords, some bent like a folded belt to destroy their earthly use as they went into a warrior's grave, there is one unique weapon, a battleaxe with an intricately decorated golden shaft. Such golden axes are described in the sagas, but this, from a settlement in Norway, is the only real example ever found.

"I think the main point was to impress, not to kill somebody," Pedersen said, adding with satisfaction: "but you can kill somebody with it if you want.

Viking, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, until November 17 2013

Author: Maev Kennedy | Source: The Guardian [June 19, 2013]

The history of the horse is the history of civilisation itself. The horse has had a revolutionary impact on ancient civilisations and this major exhibition explores the influence of horses in Middle Eastern history, from their domestication around 3,500 BC to the present day. Britain’s long equestrian tradition is examined from the introduction of the Arabian breed in the 18th century to present day sporting events such as Royal Ascot and the Olympic Games.

The domestication of the horse more than 5,000 years ago dramatically changed human history. Domestication is thought to have first happened on the steppes of South Russia with horses being introduced into the Middle East around 2,300BC. Before this introduction, asses and donkeys were used for transport, predominantly as harness animals pulling cumbersome but technologically advanced vehicles — as seen on objects found at the Royal Cemetery of Ur -but gradually horses became the means of faster transportation for these early societies.

The exhibition includes one of the earliest known depictions of a horse and rider: a terracotta mould found in Mesopotamia (Iraq) dating to around 2,000 – 1,800 BC. Horses became a vital component in warfare and hunting, as reflected in the art of ancient Assyria, where elaborate and ornate horse trappings and ornaments were developed reflecting the prestige and status of horse, charioteer and rider.

Riding became an essential part of society during the Achaemenid period (5th -4th century BC), a cylinder seal of Darius, dating to 522 – 486 BC shows the king hunting lions in a chariot, and famously, the Achaemenid’s introduced ‘post horses’ which were used to deliver messages on the royal road. The horsemen of the Parthian Empire (3rd century BC – 3rd century AD) were celebrated by Roman authors for the ‘Parthian shot’, in which an apparently retreating rider would shoot arrows backwards whilst on horseback. The renown of Parthian horsemen is shown in their representation on terracotta plaques and bronze belt buckles in the British Museum collection.

Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Mughal miniature paintings, ceramics and manuscripts all attest to the growing importance of the horse in the Islamic world from the 7th century AD. Exquisite Mughal miniatures depict princes with their valued Middle Eastern steeds, horses that were famed for their speed and spirit. A magnificent Furusiyya manuscript, dating to the 14th century AD, on loan from the British Library, is a beautifully illustrated manual of horsemanship, including information on proper care for the horse, advanced riding techniques, expert weapon handling, manoeuvres and elaborate parade formations.

The horse has a long history on the Arabian Peninsula, becoming an important cultural phenomenon and a noted part of the traditional Bedouin way of life. The ‘Arabian horse’ was developed through selective breeding, and with features including a distinctive head profile and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most familiar horse breeds in the world. The exhibition includes ‘Gigapan’ panorama photography of rock art which show horses in scenes of various dates from sites in Saudi Arabia, as well as loans of objects from Qaryat al-Fau which include wall paintings and figurines.

The importance of fine horses in the Middle East is explored through the fascinating Abbas Pasha manuscript (dating to the 19th century and on loan from the King Abdulaziz Public Library, Riadyh). This document is the primary source of information about the lineage of the purebred Arabian horses acquired by Abbas Pasha (the viceroy of Egypt) throughout the Middle East.

The story of the Arabian breed of horse is examined in parallel to that of Wilfrid Scawan Blunt (1840-1922), poet and agitator, and Lady Anne Blunt (1837-1917), the granddaughter of Lord Byron. The Blunts travelled widely in the Middle East and established a celebrated stud for purebred Arabians, which was crucial for the survival of the Arabian breed, at Crabbet Park in Sussex, and another outside Cairo in Egypt.

Horses, including Arabians had long been imported from the Middle East to Britain, but from the 17th century, three Arabian stallions in particular were introduced, which, bred with native mares, produced the Thoroughbred breed, now the foundation of modern racing; some 95% of all modern Thoroughbreds are descended from these three horses. Paintings and prints, trophies and memorabilia explore their remarkable success and their influence on sport and society, from early race meetings through to modern equestrian events.

Faissal Ibn Abdullah Ibn Muhammad Al-Saud, Minister of Education and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Saudi Equestrian Fund said "It is well known that the horse has played a crucial role in the development of civilization, and that a close bond exists between horses and men. I am very pleased that it has been possible to support this exhibition in London which gives us an opportunity to look at different aspects of the history of the Arabian horse and the context from which it emerged."

The exhibition runs until 30 September 2012 and is part of the celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee.

Admission is free.

Source: The British Museum [June 02, 2012]

The British Museum will open a major exhibition presenting a history of Indigenous Australia, supported by BP. This exhibition will be the first in the UK devoted to the history and culture of Indigenous Australians: both Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders. Drawing on objects from the British Museum’s collection, accompanied by important loans from British and Australian collections, the show will present Indigenous Australia as a living culture, with a continuous history dating back over 60,000 years.

The objects displayed in this exhibition are immensely important. The British Museum’s collection contains some of the earliest objects collected from Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders through early naval voyages, colonists, and missionaries dating as far back as 1770. Many were collected at a time before museums were established in Australia and they represent tangible evidence of some of the earliest moments of contact between Aboriginal people, Torres Strait Islanders and the British. Many of these encounters occurred in or near places that are now major Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. As a result of collecting made in the early 1800s, many objects originate from coastal locations rather than the arid inland areas that are often associated with Indigenous Australia in the popular imagination.

The exhibition will not only present Indigenous ways of understanding the land and sea but also the significant challenges faced by Indigenous Australians from the colonial period until to the present day. In 1770 Captain Cook landed on the east coast of Australia, a continent larger than Europe. In this land there were hundreds of different Aboriginal groups, each inhabiting a particular area, and each having its own languages, laws and traditions. This land became a part of the British Empire and remained so until the various colonies joined together in 1901 to become the nation of Australia we know today. In this respect, the social history of 19th century Australia and the place of Indigenous people within this is very much a British story. This history continues into the twenty first century. With changing policies towards Indigenous Australians and their struggle for recognition of civil rights, this exhibition shows why issues about Indigenous Australians are still often so highly debated in Australia today.

The exhibition brings together loans of special works from institutions in the United Kingdom, including the British Library, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. A number of works from the collection of the National Museum of Australia will be shown, including the masterpiece ‘Yumari’ by Uta Uta Tjangala. Tjangala was one of the artists who initiated the translation of traditions of sand sculptures and body painting onto canvas in 1971 at Papunya, a government settlement 240km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Tjangala was also an inspirational leader who developed a plan for the Pintupi community to return to their homelands after decades of living at Papunya. A design from ‘Yumari’ forms a watermark on current Australian passports.

This exhibition has been developed in consultation with many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, Indigenous art and cultural centres across Australia, and has been organised with the National Museum of Australia. The broader project is a collaboration with the National Museum of Australia. It draws on a joint research project, funded by the Australian Research Council, undertaken by the British Museum, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian National University. Titled ‘Engaging Objects: Indigenous communities, museum collections and the representation of Indigenous histories’, the research project began in 2011 and involved staff from the National Museum of Australia and the British Museum visiting communities to discuss objects from the British Museum’s collections. The research undertaken revealed information about the circumstances of collecting and significance of the objects, many of which previously lacked good documentation. The project also brought contemporary Indigenous artists to London to view and respond to the Australian collections at the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum said, “The history of Australia and its people is an incredible, continuous story that spans over 60,000 years. This story is also an important part of more recent British history and so it is of great significance that audiences in London will see these unique and powerful objects exploring this narrative. Temporary exhibitions of this nature are only possible thanks to external support so I am hugely grateful to BP for their longstanding and on-going commitment to the British Museum. I would also like to express my gratitude to our logistics partner IAG Cargo and the Australian High Commission who are supporting the exhibition’s public programme.”

Source: The British Museum [April 23, 2015]

The British Museum has acquired a digital copy of the Trust for African Rock Art (TARA) photographic archive to ensure that this important collection is preserved and made widely available, thanks to generous support from the Arcadia Fund. The 25,000 digital photographs of rock art sites from across Africa will be catalogued and made accessible through the British Museum’s online collection catalogue, drawing on documentation from TARA staff and archaeological and anthropological research. The Museum will digitise its own African pictorial collection of 19th and 20th century photographs alongside the TARA images to support the integration of this archive.

The TARA collection will be presented through the British Museum’s Collection Online and will form one of the most complete searchable databases on African rock art worldwide. Africa’s rock painting tradition is believed to date back at least 50,000 years while abstract engravings in the Cape, South Africa have been dated to 77,000 years of age.

Today only a handful of isolated cultures still engage in rock art and a few sites are still used for rituals, such as fertility and rainmaking, showing that it is still a living form of expression. TARA’s work over the last 30 years has created one of the best and most extensive photographic surveys of African rock art. Highlights from this collection include images of sites across the Fezzan of Southwest Libya, with dates ranging from 10,000 BC to 100 AD. These include sites in the Messak Sattafet as well as in the Acacus Mountains, (part of the Tadrart-Acacus trans-frontier UNESCO World Heritage site) and depict a wide range of subjects, such as hippopotami, men in chariots and hunting scenes.
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There is a survey of South African sites showing the different styles and subject matters of the Khoi, San and other groups from thousands of years ago to the recent past day. The collection also includes engravings and graffiti by European settlers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In east Africa, the TARA archive contains geometric paintings and engravings by Twa forager-hunters as well as paintings of livestock, shields and clan markings made by Maasai and Samburu pastoralists in rock shelters. In addition to these depictions there are images of rock gongs, rocks with natural resonance once used for communication and divination.

As rock art can be susceptible to destruction by natural and man-made events, and, in most cases, is fairly inaccessible geographically, this project will allow a greater access to rock art images and research for both academic and general audiences. By integrating these images with existing African collections, the British Museum is able to offer new insights into the techniques and tools used, the subjects represented and the people that made them.

The project will take five years and involve research by Museum staff and on-going collaboration with TARA, as well as involving African communities. Through the incorporation of this collection into the British Museum’s online database, people across the world will be able to both use and contribute to the archive and its documentation. Partnership between TARA and the Museum will help preserve and disseminate this important collection and establish it as a major academic resource. By combining a wide range of research from the Museum, TARA’s international network and colleagues in Africa, the archive will capture and preserve knowledge about rock art for future generations.

Source: The British Museum [February 18, 2013]

National Maritime Museum Cornwall is bringing the Vikings to Cornwall in a new major exhibition called Viking Voyagers, opening on 20 March 2015. The new exhibition, featuring nationally and internationally historically significant artefacts, explores what is behind the popular myth of the bloodthirsty raiders, what it meant to become a Viking and shows how their mastery of maritime technology was the secret to their success.

Ships and boats were vital to Viking expansion; they explored and colonised, were invaders and migrants and the seas and rivers were the highways and byways to amassing huge wealth and power through raiding and trading.

Their power was built on their knowledge of boatbuilding and their seafaring skills, enabling them to sail across the Atlantic’s icy waters to Newfoundland and Iceland, down to the warm Mediterranean to Istanbul and as far East along the river Volga as Ukraine and Russia.

Visions of horned helmets, unkempt beards and fearsome raiding fighters carried by longships that were dragon headed war beasts come to mind when thinking of Vikings. However, this new show dispels the myth and reveals that just like us they also wore jewellery, combed their hair and many were entrepreneurs, using smaller boats and ships to do business and seek new opportunities far from their Scandinavian homelands.

This new show invites you to encounter these Norse voyagers and the people and things they met along the way, contrasting the mayhem of the raiders, pillagers and ransackers with the resourceful trader, boat builder, craftsman and family man, woman and child.

The humanising of the Vikings is conveyed through engaging interactive displays that amplify what life was like as a Viking. With institutional and loaning partners including the British Museum, National Museum of Ireland, National Museum of Denmark and Manx National Heritage and others, a stunning number of artefacts show a culture that enjoyed ostentation and hierarchy as well as ritual, religion and the simplicity of family life.

These archaeological finds, which are over 1000 years old, include weaponry, jewellery, household implements, slave chains and coins, richly showing the global reach of the Vikings and their ships.

Richard Doughty, Director of National Maritime Museum Cornwall says: “It is enormously exciting for National Maritime Museum Cornwall to be bringing the Vikings to Falmouth and hosting historically significant artefacts, in what is undoubtedly our most important exhibition to date. The Museum’s legacy of award winning work has now afforded us the opportunity to access national and international collections, securing loans with major partner Museums, and offering Cornwall and the South West a unique first in being able to see these items outside of these national and international institutions.”

“This new state of the art show has taken years to develop. You might think you know the Vikings but you will have never experienced them in the way this new exhibition promises. All I can say is watch out, the Vikings are coming!”

The theatre is provided by a beach market scene. A full scale replica of a 14m coastal cargo Viking ship, from 11th century Denmark, invites you to climb aboard and discover what it was like to sail and row in these awe inspiring vessels, and explore the wares they carried.

The iconic Viking small boat, a 6m Norwegian faering, built by ‘apprentice Viking boat builders’ from Falmouth Marine School, is the centrepiece of a ‘touch and feel’ boat builder’s yard. Visitors can hold tools and materials used to design these clinker-built ships with their shallow drafts, which allowed them to navigate inland rivers and conquer kingdoms.

The history of Britain and Ireland was transformed by the impact of Viking raiding and colonisation. We still utter their words in our everyday language such as starboard, berserk, kid and ransack. What began as small encampments up river grew to be Viking towns such as Dublin, which for a time was the centre of the European slave trade. Cornwall was very much part of the Irish Sea world, and the exhibition will reveal tantalising evidence for Vikings in Cornwall.

Dr Tehmina Goskar, Exhibitions Registrar at the Maritime Museum says: “The story of the Vikings is incredibly alluring. Not only have they left us with a legacy of beautiful storytelling in their Sagas but also an astonishing material culture. Above all, the Vikings were sailors, their men, women and children thrived because of their skills with boats and seafaring so with our harbour location, celebrating the sea and small boats, there is no better place to come to hear their stories.

“I am completely delighted to bring amazing Viking antiquities to Cornwall for the very first time, some of which have never been on display in any museum before. Working closely with our Guest Curator Dr. Gareth Williams of the British Museum, a world-leading expert in the Vikings and also an outstanding Viking re-enactor himself, has been an immense privilege and a lot of fun, and hopefully visitors will feel this from the way we tell the story of the Viking Voyagers in the show.”

The two year exhibition, funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and a number of generous trusts and foundations, aims to show how the Vikings were a maritime culture, not an ethnic group but something you became when you wanted an adventure.

Ben Lumby, Exhibitions Manager concludes: “Aboard their ships Vikings reached further than any culture had before them and they have left huge legacies behind since the 300 years of the Viking Age from the 8th to 11th centuries. This atmospheric exhibition will evoke the Viking world through thought-provoking stories, stunning exhibits and engaging interactives which take you on an epic journey. We invite you to discover who the Vikings really were and what was the secret to their success. ”

Viking Voyagers runs from 20 March 2015 to 22 February 2017.

Source: National Maritime Museum Cornwall [Jabuary 16, 2015]

High in the Italian Alps, thousands of stick-like images of people and animals, carved into rock surfaces, offer a tantalising window into the past. Archaeologists believe that the earliest of these 150,000 images date from the Neolithic but that most originate from the Iron Age. The UNESCO-protected ‘Pitoti’ (little puppets) of the Valcamonica valley extend over an area of some three square kilometres and have been described as one of the world’s largest pieces of anonymous art.

An event taking place next Monday (18 January 2016) at Downing College, Cambridge, will give the public an opportunity to learn more about a fascinating project to explore and re-animate the Pitoti of Valcamonica. Displays and hands-on activities staged by seven of the institutions involved in the EU/European Research Council-funded ‘3D Pitoti’ digital heritage project will show visitors how archaeologists and film-makers have used the latest digital technology to explore an art form often portrayed as simplistic or primitive.

The exhibitors from Austria, Italy, Germany and the UK will show that the thousands of Pitoti can be seen as “one big picture” as dozens of artists, over a period of some 4,000 years, added narratives to the giant ‘canvases’ formed by sandstone rocks scraped clean by the movement of glaciers across the landscape. The images are etched into the rock surfaces so that, as the sun rises and then falls in the sky, the figures can be seen to gain a sense of movement.

Displays will introduce visitors to the scanning, machine learning and interactive 3D-visualisation technologies used by Bauhaus Weimar, Technical University Graz, and St Pölten University of Applied Sciences to record, analyse and breathe life into the Pitoti. Cambridge archaeologists Craig Alexander, Giovanna Bellandi and Christopher Chippindale have worked with Alberto Marretta and Markus Seidl to create Pitoti databases using Arctron’s Aspect 3D system.

The scanned images of the Pitoti are stored in the rock-art research institute in Valcamonica, Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici, and have given the project’s team an unprecedentedly rich resource to play with in exploring the power of graphic art in combination with other media.

The 3D Pitoti team members attending next week’s event will engage with visitors who will be given the chance to experience the scanner, UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), computer sectioning, and the Pitoti ‘oculus rift’ virtual reality experience, made possible by using advanced imaging systems which are creating a new generation of ‘real’ images. The live demonstration of the interactive 3D Pitoti children’s app, developed by Archeocammuni and Nottingham University, is likely to prove popular with younger visitors who will have the chance to handle the technology and ask questions. Also taking part in the event will be the renowned craftsperson Lida Cardozo Kindersley who will demonstrate the art of letter cutting as an intensely physical process.

“Many of the images at Valcamonica are contemporary with classical Greek art but are an under appreciated form of art. I believe that the Pitoti are an example of minimalism, an early precursor to work by Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. They can be just as powerful as the classical art of Athens and Rome in their own way. By showcasing our project in the neo-classical setting of Downing College, we are highlighting this clash of visual cultures and using the digital to raise the appreciation of what has been seen as ‘barbarian’ or ‘tribal’ art.”

Members of the 3D Pitoti team captured thousands of images of people, sheep, deer, horses and dogs found on the Valamonica rocks. The digitised images gave the project a ‘casting directory’ of thousands of ‘characters’ in order to create imagined narratives. The creation of moving images using pixels, or dots, echoes the making of the Pitoti which were pecked out of the rock by people striking the surface with repeated blows to produce lines and shapes.

Dr Sue Cobb, from the University of Nottingham, who led the international team of scientists, said: “Thanks to the 3D Pitoti project, archaeological sites and artefacts can be rendered in stunningly realistic computer-generated models and even 3D printed for posterity. Our tools will give more people online access to culturally-important heritage sites and negate the need to travel to the locations, which can be inaccessible or vulnerable to damage.

“We overcame a number of technical challenges to innovate the technology, including developing weatherproof, portable laser scanner to take detailed images of the Pitoti in situ in harsh, rugged terrain; using both a UAV and glider to take aerial shots of the valley for the computer model and processing huge masses of data to recreate an immersive, film-quality version of the site in 3D.

Next Monday’s event will include a test screening of a 15-minute 3D generated film called ‘Pitoti Prometheus’ which reimagines the story of Prometheus (who, according to legend, created men from clay) by animating digital images captured in Valcamonica. The fully finished film will be launched later in the year.

The film’s 3D engineer Marcel Karnapke and film-maker Fred Baker (contributing via Skype) will take part in a discussion at the end of the day, enabling the audience to ask questions about the film and the unfolding of an ambitious project which breaks new boundaries in terms of European cross-disciplinary collaboration.

“We use the word ‘pipeline’ to describe the process by which we’ve scanned and channelled the rock art images through time and space to bring them to mass audiences,” says Baker. “It’s a pipeline which stretches well beyond what we’ve produced and future technologies will undoubtedly open up new understandings of art forms that communicate so much about humanity and our relationships with each other, with the environment, and with imagined worlds.”

Next Tuesday morning (19 January 2016), a series of talks and workshops, aimed primarily at academics, will take place at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. The two days of events are the official culmination of the 3D Pitoti project. For details of Monday’s event, which is free of charge, go to http://3d-pitoti.eu/

Source: University of Cambridge [January 14, 2016]

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