I got this news via RSS this morning that the amazing Viking ships housed in the Viking Ship Museum are possibly on the move. This is obviously quite a task and is raising quite a few emotions:
“Even if I have to live till I am 100, I will go on fighting this move,” the former curator, Arne Emil Christensen, 70, said in an interview. “The best way to stop it is still through diplomacy, but, if necessary, I will be in front of the ships, chained to the floor.”
I wrote about these ships for my Masters dissertation (load of rubbish and should be consigned to the bin!) They are extremely important to our understanding of maritime history and have to be preserved, I should think the engineers can move them intact, but risks have to be considered. As the Oseberg vessel is extremely fragile due to early 20th Century conservation techniques, it could be quite a risk.
The other news story of cultural note over the weekend is the Sunday Times article about the proposed Tutankhamen exhibition at the ill fated Millennium Dome, which reports that:
“If there is a casino in the dome, I will not send the exhibits to London,” declared Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
“It’s insulting. These Egyptian artefacts have dignity and therefore we should keep this dignity. I will never — [even] if they give us a billion dollars — show an Egyptian exhibit next door to a casino.”
I wonder if the money offered will increase….. The exhibit is currently on tour in the states, minus the iconic death mask which is too delicate (and probably too important to Cairo Museum to lose for a long stretch of time!) to transport.
It’ll be a block buster exhibition if it does make it and may increase tourism to Egypt immensely. Economically, they surely must have made some money off this touring spectacle!
OpenCalais helped to tag this with: Arne Emil Christensen • Cairo Museum • Egypt • Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities • London • Millennium Dome • Ship Museum • Sunday Times • Tut • USD • Viking Ship Museum
Possibly related posts: Past from Above • First Emperor opens at the British Museum • BBC news article on the Persia exhibit •
