The Bayeux Tapestry has arrived in London for the first time in nearly a millennium, completing a secretive and complicated journey back to British soil.
The metal case holding the 11th-century medieval masterpiece was unloaded from a truck at the British Museum on Friday.
“It’s a unique moment,” museum director Nicholas Cullinan said after the tapestry arrived from France in the darkness of the early morning hours.
“It’s the first time in 1,000 years that such an important piece of British — French too — history is going to be on these shores,” he said.
Secured on loan from France, the tapestry will go on display at the British Museum from September 10 until July 2027.
Some 100,000 tickets were sold just on the first day of sales this month.
“I don’t take for granted that people care that much about a 1,000-year-old embroidery. I think that’s an amazing Thing,” Cullian said.
The threads of history
The UNESCO-listed tapestry is a symbol of the intertwined, sometimes frictional histories of Britain and France.
Stitched in wool on linen fabric, the masterpiece shows the story of the Norman invader William the Conqueror, who crossed the Channel and defeated the English king Harald in the 1066 Battle of Hastings.
That was the last successful conquest of England.
Historians believe the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William’s half-brother, giving it its name. It is believed to be sewn by women in England, possibly nuns, before it was taken to the town of Bayeux in northwest France where it has spent most of the last 1,000 years.
The top secret transfer mission
The transfer comes about a year after French President Emmanuel Macron announced it in a diplomatic spirit to celebrate French-British relations.
However, the timings and details of the transfer were kept completely under wraps as part of a sensitive operation.
In Bayeux, the 70-meter tapestry was folded in accordion-style and stored in a climate-controlled case which was put into a cradle built to cancel out any vibrations.
The cradle was placed in a truck which crossed France on a vehicle train, through the Channel Tunnel, into the UK.
After an 11-hour journey, escorted by police, the truck slowly backed into the loading bay at the British Museum where workers carefully eased the case out.
Museum staff and British and French diplomats who had been watching the whole thing with slow anticipation broke into applause.
Even now, the tapestry will not be unpacked but left to acclimatize for days in the new environment before it is displayed.
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko
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