Sawt Falasteen - British Museum shows Bayeux Tapestry unfurled after 'titanic' efforts

Michael Lewis, the curator of the landmark exhibition opening in September, said: "I'm relieved that the tapestry has travelled well" with "no obvious signs of damage".

The 11th-century tapestry depicting the 1066 Battle of Hastings and the invasion by William the Conqueror's Norman army, was brought to London last week.

It will be displayed from September 10 until July 11, 2027, with 100,000 tickets already sold to the public for the first four months of the exhibition.

On Friday, the tapestry was shown to officials and journalists laid out flat at full length on the table where it will be displayed, in a long gallery with dark walls.

Some sections of the embroidery were uncovered, including one showing the Anglo-Saxon King Harold, while others were protected with dark sheets.

Once the tapestry has been checked and is perfectly laid out, in the coming days, it will placed inside a sealed glass case.

Seeing the tapestry being installed "was an amazing thing to witness", Lewis said in the gallery.

Museum staff and French colleagues will be "condition checking the tapestry over the next few weeks", he said, but "as far as I'm concerned it has worked really well".

- 'Very good shape' -

French culture minister Catherine Pegard visited the museum Friday to see the 68-metre (224-foot) embroidery, telling AFP it "arrived in excellent condition, in very good shape".

"We are now carrying out all the checks to make sure that every aspect of the journey went smoothly," she added, praising the work in bringing over the tapestry as a "titanic undertaking" and a "technical feat".

French teams will remain at the British Museum until mid‑August to "oversee all the work involved in installing the tapestry", the minister said.

Transported to London under tight security by truck from western France, the tapestry was initially kept in a specially designed double case to limit vibrations and maintain constant temperature and humidity levels.

It was slowly removed from the case on Thursday and fully unfurled.

The final exhibition will include visual projections of small areas of the tapestry to help explain the story, as well as "some sound", Lewis told AFP.

"The idea is to bring the tapestry to life," he said.

"I think a lot of people coming to the Bayeux Tapestry think it's about the Battle of Hastings", he said, but in fact those battle scenes are "only the last third, so there's lots of events beforehand".

"Some of them people will be familiar with and others they won't be, and that needs to be explained to them to help them through that."

O.Salim--SF-PST