Much of the stitched masterpiece, which is actually coloured yarn embroidered on linen rather than a woven tapestry, is currently covered up in giant polyester sheeting, to protect it from light damage.
Yesterday, over 18 painstaking hours, teams of French and British conservators and British Museum staff unfurled the 70-metre long artwork from the folding stand where it had been concertinaed, surrounded by protective mattress-type padding.
It will be kept under a cover to protect it from exposure to light until the exhibition, but one section of the tapestry was uncovered for the French delegation and the press to view. It’s from the early part of the woven story when William, Duke of Normandy, not yet the Conqueror, is on his throne sending messengers to free the future King Harold from captivity in France.
When it’s ready, the tapestry will be placed flat on its back inside a custom-made glass case. When the exhibition opens, visits will be timed, which each ticket-holder getting 40 minutes to walk the 70 meters (230 feet) of the tapestry. There won’t be much time to examine the scenes, and I imagine there will be a bottleneck around the iconic depiction of King Harold killed with an arrow to the eye at the Battle of Hastings.
That arrow, by the way, may well be a later addition. There are drawings of the tapestry made shortly after it was created, and there is no arrow in those drawings. According to Professor Michael Lewis, curator of the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, Harold being shot in the eye became part of the story in the 12th century, and the arrow was an interpolation added during a 19th century restoration to make the tapestry match the legend.
* This article was originally published here
