Vikings at the British Museum
https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/vikings.aspx
Of the BM exhibitions I've seen recently, this was the biggest and the most expensive: treasure hoards, coins, amber and jet, gold, silk, and much much silver, 'killed' swords, the staffs of volvas, amulets, charms, huge broaches with unfeasible pins..most forlorn in majesty, waited the skeleton of a longship, at which point everyone who had complained about the crowds suddenly grew quiet. It's an impressive beast. On the walls were quotes from Byzantium to Baghdad (One of which spoke so strongly of the lack of hygiene among the Vikings, I wondered if it had inspired the creation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan in The Thirteenth Warrior.) The walls also bore poetry, and indeed, the earlier rooms had recordings of poems, stories, incantations and who knows what else spoken in Norse to enhance the atmosphere. Unknown languages have this thing.... They could have been reading out recipes, it would still have sounded magical.
But it wasn't the most empathically laid out of exhibitions. The queues and crowds were a test, because, despite the huge rooms there is an awful lot to see...the same number of exhibits with more space would have made for less exasperated crowds. It's a grand exhibition, but it needs time and space. I'd go back in an instant.
Of the BM exhibitions I've seen recently, this was the biggest and the most expensive: treasure hoards, coins, amber and jet, gold, silk, and much much silver, 'killed' swords, the staffs of volvas, amulets, charms, huge broaches with unfeasible pins..most forlorn in majesty, waited the skeleton of a longship, at which point everyone who had complained about the crowds suddenly grew quiet. It's an impressive beast. On the walls were quotes from Byzantium to Baghdad (One of which spoke so strongly of the lack of hygiene among the Vikings, I wondered if it had inspired the creation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan in The Thirteenth Warrior.) The walls also bore poetry, and indeed, the earlier rooms had recordings of poems, stories, incantations and who knows what else spoken in Norse to enhance the atmosphere. Unknown languages have this thing.... They could have been reading out recipes, it would still have sounded magical.
But it wasn't the most empathically laid out of exhibitions. The queues and crowds were a test, because, despite the huge rooms there is an awful lot to see...the same number of exhibits with more space would have made for less exasperated crowds. It's a grand exhibition, but it needs time and space. I'd go back in an instant.