The British Museum
Self-portrait of a former Robben Island political prisoner
‘Although I was a prisoner [at Robben Island] for seven years, I also started working there when they opened [it] as a museum. So I had lots of time association with Robben Island not as a place of banishment but as a place of learning,...
The British Museum
Maggi Hambling on life, death and drawing
Maggi Hambling talks to Hugo Chapman, Keeper of Prints and Drawings, about her exhibition 'Touch: works on paper' at the British Museum – a retrospective of Hambling's prints and drawings, many of which have never been exhibited before....
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn | Episode 9: Colour matching
Episode nine in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Watch previous episodes in the series - https://goo.gl/U851ra Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the ashes...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn | Episode 8: Mould making and resin casting
Episode eight in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Watch previous episodes in the series - https://goo.gl/U851ra Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the ashes...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn | Episode 7: Gap fills
The seventh episode in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Watch previous episodes in the series - https://goo.gl/U851ra Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn | Episode 6: Reconstruction
The sixth episode in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Watch previous episodes in the series - https://goo.gl/U851ra Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn | Episode 2: Investigation
The second episode in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the ashes of cremated bodies. Follow conservator, Dr Duygu...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn - Episode 3: Preparation for dismantling
The third episode in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Watch previous episodes in the series - https://goo.gl/U851ra Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn - Episode 4: Dismantling
The fourth episode in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Watch previous episodes in the series - https://goo.gl/U851ra Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn | Episode 5: Analysis
The fifth episode in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Watch previous episodes in the series - https://goo.gl/U851ra Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the...
The British Museum
Conservation of a Romano-British urn | Episode 1: Introduction
This is the first episode in a weekly series that tracks the in-depth conservation work on a Romano-British cinerary urn. Cinerary urns were designed to carry ashes, especially the ashes of cremated bodies. Follow conservator, Dr Duygu...
The British Museum
The worst tyrants of Sicily
Who cooked people to death in a bronze oven in the shape of a bull? Who catapulted the entire population of a town into a ravine? Should we read these stories with buckets of salt? Curator Peter Higgs reveals some of the barbaric stories...
The British Museum
Conservation of a 12th-century textile
Find out how conservator Anna Harrison approached the conservation of this very fragile 12th-century textile from the tomb of the Sicilian king Henry VI. Discover more about the island of Sicily in our #SicilyExhibition. Sicily: culture...
The British Museum
A tombstone in four languages
Under the Norman kings of Sicily, the island became a prosperous and influential Mediterranean superpower. The coexistence of western, Islamic and Byzantine cultures on Sicily created a multilingual state. In this video, Curator Dirk...
The British Museum
Curating Krishna in the garden of Assam
British Museum Curator Richard Blurton takes us on a visually sumptuous tour of the exhibition ‘Krishna in the garden of Assam: the cultural context of an Indian textile.’ From vibrant textiles to dramatic festival masks and contemporary...
The British Museum
Do cyclopes come from Sicily?
Many of the greatest stories and legends from Homer’s Odyssey were based around Sicily. From the mythical sea monsters of Scylla and Charybdis to the cyclops Polyphemus, discover how Sicily’s fertile landscape and wild coastline inspired...
The British Museum
Krishna in the garden of Assam: the cultural context of an Indian textile
A beautiful film made by Curator Richard Blurton about the Vrindavani Vastra, a 17th-century silk textile richly woven with images and texts telling stories of the incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu, and the life of Krishna – one of...
The British Museum
On this day in history: The marriage of Frederick II and Isabella
Political marriages have
The British Museum
Kakiemon: a history of making Japanese porcelain
2016 marks the 400th anniversary of porcelain production in Japan. It is said to have started in 1616 in Arita, a town on the southern island of Kyushu near Nagasaki. One of the major styles of porcelain from Arita is known as Kakiemon....
The British Museum
Curating Sicily: from Greek temples to Norman palaces
From Greek temples to Norman palaces, discover that there’s more to Sicily than sunshine, beaches and lemons. Exhibition Curators Peter Higgs and Dirk Booms introduce the story of this remarkable island, and highlight some of the key...
The British Museum
Isaac Habrecht's Carillon Clock: The Rolls-Royce of Renaissance clocks
Isaac Habrecht's carillon clock of 1589 was never intended to simply tell the time. It was a performance piece which, to former British Museum Curator David Thompson, was equivalent to ‘a Rolls-Royce level of clocks’. Made in Strasbourg,...
The British Museum
Discovering the sacred barge of Osiris
There are many shipwrecks on the seabed of Abukir Bay, but one in particular caught the eye of Franck Goddio as he was excavating a lost underwater city... Submerged under the sea for over a thousand years, two lost cities of ancient...
The British Museum
An archaeologist's favourite find
Underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio picks his favourite object out of the hundreds excavated from Abukir Bay. It’s not gold, or even a colossal statue – the answer may surprise you! Submerged under the sea for over a thousand years,...
The British Museum
World heritage at risk in Yemen | Curator's Corner Season 1 Episode 6
St John Simpson, Curator for Ancient Arabia and Ancient Iran, talks about the impact that the destruction of Yemeni cultural heritage will have on humanity. He also looks at what international museums can do to assist authorities in...