Category: Art
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The Complaint Tablet of Ea-nasir
The British Museum is full of all sorts of things that shouldn’t be there. One less well-known example, beyond the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone, is an initially inconspious clay tablet, traditionally referred to as ‘The Complaint Tablet of Ea-nasir’. The tablet itself is made of clay, c.12cm by 5cm, and covered in cuneiform…
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The Franks Casket
One of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ period‘s most impressive, and most complex, artefacts is the so-called ‘Franks Casket’. A lidded whalebone box, covered in intricate carvings and text, the casket appears to originate from an early eight-century Northumbrian context. But what was it used for, and what can it tell us? Finding the Casket The existence in…
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Bayeux Tapestry Online
The Bayeux Tapestry (technically an embroidery not a tapestry) is one of our best accounts of the conquest of ‘Anglo-Saxon‘ England by the Normans in 1066. Running from the end of the reign of Edward the Confessor to the aftermath of the battle at Hastings, the work covers a massive 70 meters and is kept…