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10.00.00

Title:

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The Treasures of Britain

Part 1 :

The Ashmolean Museum

10.00.22

Introduction. GVs Oxford,

va. Oxford is famous the world over as a place of ancient

the Ashmolean Museum

learning. For more than nine centuries, students have

and invigilator opening

come here to study amid the city's gleaming spires. It's no

doors inside.

surprise then that one of the worlds;oldest universities

should also be home to one of the world's oldest

museums - the Ashmolean.

This morning, like most other mornings for the past three

hundred years, staff are getting the museum ready to

welcome visitors.

10.01.02

Interview - Luca Perini,

I have been working here for seven years now and I do

Museum Invigilator

enjoy it. To see people everyday, new people, new faces.

We have a lot of students, a lot of children. It's a nice

place to be.

10.01.14

GVs inside museum.

va. The Ashmolean is not just one of the worlds oldest

museums, its also one of the greatest with collections of

art and archaeology from all the worlds major cultures.

10.01.30

Interview Henry Kim,

Throughout this museum we have many rich collections,

!

Curator Greek Coins.

from Islamic material to Western Art material to Indian,

Chinese, Greek and Roman. Some of these collections

are absolutely key collections to the study of their fields.

For example, our collection of early Greece, of Minoan

Greek art is one of the best outside Greece. The same

goes for our pre-dynastic collections from Egypt. We have

material here that is only rivalled by the Cairo Museum.

10.02.07

Portraits of Tradescants.

va. The Museum's original collection was started by a

GVs inside Museum.

1 t^h Century gardener, John Tradescant and added to by

his son, John Tradescant the younger. The Tradescants

travelled for their work, collecting plants, shells and other

natural curiosities from all over the world. By 1634 their

collection was on display at their home in London and had

become a fashionable visitor attraction. One of their first

and most enthusiastic visitors was Elias Ashmole, a

wealthy London lawyer.

10.02.43

Interview - Christopher

Ashmole came, saw this remarkable collection and bought

Brown, Museum

the house next door. He got to know them very well and

Director

when John the Younger died the collection went to

Ashmole. And it was Ashmole who gave the collection,

adding in his own, to the University in 1677 on the

understanding that the University would build a building

for it. And indeed it did that and that building opened to

the public in 1683 which makes us the oldest public

museum in this country, the oldest public museum in

Europe and therefore, I believe the oldest public museum

in the world.

10.03.22

GYs inside Museum

YO. The Ashmolean museum grew quickly as other

benefactors were inspired to part with their collections

and, when funds allowed, curators made occasional

purchases. One of the most remarkable additions was in

1841 when hundreds of drawings including many by

Raphael and Michelangelo were purchased for £7,000.

Today after three centuries of unbroken history the

Ashmolean has unrivalled collections in art and antiquities

from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. There are nearly

a million objects here, but in this programme we are going

to look at four of the most famous ones.

10.04.15

Title.

Hunt in the Forest

By Paulo Uccello.

10.04.31

Interview Katherine

It's an extraordinarily exciting painting. It's a very rare

Whistler, Curator

survivor from the late Fifteenth Century in Florence. Its by

Western Art.

Paulo Uccello who is a wonderful artist, but a lot of his

work hasn't come down to us or hasn't come down to us

in rather poor condition so this is actually amazing

because its in very good condition. And it's also an

extraordinary picture.

10.04.52

Interview Jon Whiteley,

Its one of the most magical pictures in the Ashmolean.

Senior Curator Western

Indeed I think its one of the most magical paintings

Art

surviving from the Fifteenth Century.

10.05.09

Interview Katherine

It shows a hunt, a contemporary hunt, by night in this rich

Whistler

dark forest. And we have all this brightly coloured figures

dashing around in the forest - men, animals, horses-

they're shouting, blowing horns, its full of vigour and

vivacity so it's a most extraordinary thing.

What we also have is that our eyes are drawn right into

the centre of the painting. We can't help this our eyes are

pulled in partly because of the lines of the sticks carried by

the beaters. We also have the logs in the wood so again

we're being brought right in and what we realise is that

everything is getting smaller as it disappears into the

distance. So we have this really good sense of a really

coherent constructed space that we can almost imagine

ourselves walking into and joining in.

10.06.05

Uccello Portrait. Other

YO. Paolo Uccello was born in Florence in 1397 at the

paintings from

time when the rules of perspective were being established

Ashmolean collection.

by artists such as Brunelleschi and Pero delia Francesca.

Hunt in the Forest.

Prior to this time the relative sizes of people and objects in

art were unsystematic and to our modern eves plainly

wrong as in this 14^m Century picture of the virgin Mary.

The young Uccello was fascinated by the new rules of

mathematics and geometry that enabled artists to create

the illusion of space and depth. It was an interest that was

to dominate his whole life.

10.06.48

Interview Jon Whiteley

Vasari, one of his earliest biographers, described how

when his wife would cal/ him to bed in the middle of the

night, he would cry out 'Oh what a sweet mistress

perspective is' as though it was something that kept him

awake through the night. Maybe it did, Vasari was writing

long afterwards, but the evidence of this interest is fairly

visible in the painting.

10.07.19

C/Us Hunt in the Forest

va. In Hunt in the Forest, Uccello has used a central

vanishing point to create the illusion of depth. Beneath

the paint there are a series of orthogonal lines radiating

outwards. Uccello would have used to size his characters

and objects. If we look at Infra Red images of one of the

beaters in the foreground we can just glimpse the grid

underneath that Uccello used.

But although the Hunt in the Forest is underpinned by

mathematics and rationality, it is the sheer vitality, colour

and rhythm of the hunt itself that makes this painting such

a masterpiece.

10.08.11

Interview Jon Whiteley

A glance at the picture shows that Uccel/o's concerns

were not limited by the desire to create a total illusion of

the world at large, because into this structure of radiating

lines he places, along the surface of the painting, a series

of dogs, of horsemen who seem to dance like a pattern

across the surface of the picture and this is the charm of

Uccel/o. Its what gives a fairy tale quality to many of his

pictures. Its this combination of extreme unreality,

something that seems to belong to the world of the

imagination with a series of spaces that belongs to the

new arl of illusion.

10.08.59

Title

Taharqa's Shrine

10.09.14

W/S and details from the

va. The Pharaoh Taharqa was born around 720 BC, in

Taharqa Shrine.

Nubia - what is modern day Sudan. He was the third and

the greatest of the Nubian pharaohs who controlled the

3D reconstruction of

largest empire in ancient Africa, stretching from Palestine

Temple at Kawa.

in the North to the meeting ofthe Blue and White Niles in

the South

The Nubians had created this vast empire by invading

their old colonial masters, the Egyptians. But their control

over such an immense area was never assured. Constant

threats from Assyrians to the West and rebellious

Egyptian princes in the North meant there was little peace.

By the time he was twenty Taharqa had already fought

many battles and was acutely aware of the dangers

threatening his reign.

Despite these problems T aharqa was one of the greatest

builders of his dynasty, erecting temples and monuments

across the empire to honour Amon-Re, the foremost god

of the Nubians.

Amon-Re, often shown in the guise of a Ram, was the god

of the sun, of fertility, the father of all the gods and

goddesses. If Taharqa could please him, he reasoned,

then he might stand a chance of surviving the hostile

forces plotting against him.

At Kawa in his native Nubia, Taharqa set about rebuilding

a great temple dedicated to Amon Re. Egyptian craftsmen

and architects were brought from Memphis, 1000 to the

north, to carry out this work.

At the centre of the temple he added his own shrine. This

was to be a grand political statement, proclaiming to the

world that he, Taharqa, had been chosen by the Gods to

rule both Egypt and Nubia. To be the most powerful ruler

on earth.

10.11.32

Interview Helen

He was at the height of his powers although he already

Whitehouse, Curator

knew there was a threat on his northern borders. Perhaps

Egyptian Collections

he even knew that he was provoking a threat on his

northern borders and that maybe one of the reasons why

he was anxious not only to build temples to Amon Re and

establish his good relationship wit his most important

patron divinity, but also to make this very strong statement

with this shrine saying 'I am the legitimate ruler of Egypt. '

10.12.01

Details from the Taharqa

va. The decorations on the shrine contain a carefully

Shrine.

balanced political message. On the west wall he is shown

wearing the Nubian crown of a cap surmounted by two

cobras and paying homage to the 'Nubian' version of

Amon-Re. While on the East wall he pays homage to an

Egyptian version of Amon Re dressed as an Egyptian

wearinq the double crown of Eqypt.

10.12.44

Interview Sheila Mills,

The Shrine looks this beige colour now, its made of

Historian.

sandstone, but it would have originally been painted in

very bright colours and that's what one has to imagine

when you are looking at the shrine, that it was painted in

vivid blues, greens, reds and yellows which the sand has

worn off during thousands of years.

10.13.15

Black and White

va. Taharqa's temple was discovered in 1930 by Francis

photographs from

Griffith, Professor of Egyptology at Oxford University. He

Griffith's expedition in

spent four years excavating Kawa, but died before he

1930's.

could complete his work. In recognition of his contribution

to Nubian archaeology, the Sudanese offered Taharqa's

W/S and details from the

shrine to his colleagues at Oxford.

Taharqa Shrine.

Bringing it back was no easy task. Even without its inner

walls and foundations the shrine still consisted of 236

monumental stone blocks, each of which had to

individually packed and transported two and half thousand

miles to the Ashmolean Museum. Here it was

painstakingly re-built in its own, specially designed room

and is the only complete Egyptian building in Britain.

However, Taharqa's grand gift to his gods was a gesture

that went unnoticed. Nubia's control over its empire was to

last only one more generation. Around 657 BC the

Assyrian's drove the Nubians out of Egypt. Then in the 3^rd

century AD Taharqa's temple and shrine were burned and

left to the encroachinq desert sands.

10.14.59

Title

Octopus Jar from the

Palace of Minos

10.15.32

Interview Henry Kim,

When we look at the Octopus with its wonderfully flowing

Curator Greek Coins.

tentacles, the fact that you have murex shells scattered

between the tentacles, this speaks of a wonderful rich,

luxurious lifestyle that we associate with the palaces of

Bronze Age Greece.

10.15.52

Interview - Christopher

This wonderful object with this very powerful design is

Brown, Museum

3000 years old, I mean an extraordinary thing and yet

Director.

actually almost a piece of Art deco. It is, of course, from

the great Palace of Knossos, the great Minoan Palace

discovered by Arthur Evans who was one of my

predecessors here.

10.16.13

Black and white

va. The ancient Palace of Knossos and this beautiful

photographs from Evans

octopus storage jar were lost to the world for almost three

excavations at Knossos.

and half thousand years. They. belonged to an ancient

Bronze Age society, yet a people able to produce art of

the most exquisite quality - The Minoans.

The Minoans were Europe's first civilisation, a peace-

loving people who lived on Crete, an island in the eastern

Mediterranean that stands at the crossroads between Asia

and Greece. Knossos was the site of their most important

palace. All evidence of their existence had vanished until

in 1878 Arthur Evans, a young English archaeologist, re-

discovered them.

10.17.07

Interview Henry Kim,

Arthur Evans was your classic linen suited archaeologist

Curator Greek Coins.

of a golden age when archaeological discoveries were

being made on a grand scale. In his twenties he was a

journalist for a Manchester newspaper and it is during this

period of time that he travelled through the Balkans.

Some people think that he was almost a spy at that point.

Archaeologv and spying are always closely linked.

10.17.33

Black and white

va. Whether he was a spy or not we shall probably never

photographs from Evans

know, but Evans had gone to Crete to crack a code. At

excavations at Knossos

Oxford he had come across ancient tablets with

undecipherable symbols on them that he believed to be

early forms of writing. He'd been told that there were

many to be found in Crete so in 1878 he started

excavating at what turned out to be the site of Knosos. He

was quickly rewarded for his efforts, finding not only more

tablets, but a vast array of other treasures as well.

10.18.10

Interview Henry Kim,

What I find remarkable about these diaries is how, as you

Curator Greek Coins.

wander, through the first few days! Evans was making

some important discoveries from the very beginning. He

was finding small figurines, pottery, some gems as well. It

shows he knew he was on to a very rich site.

10.18.30

Black and white

va. Evans had discovered a civilisation with a very

photographs from Evans

sophisticated social structure and highly developed forms

excavations at Knossos.

of art and culture. Strangely he found no evidence that

Details on Greek pots

they were a military people, but instead, it seems they

from Ashmolean

relied on a remarkable ability to trade.

Museum.

According to ancient Greek legends, there were also dark

secrets lurking at Knosos. From the very beginnings of the

excavations, Evans was convinced that he had discovered

the legendary palace of King Minos. The site with its

confusing passages and unusual layout was reminiscent

of the labyrinth in which the dreaded half bull-half human

monster, the Minotaur, was said to have been kept.

10.19.38

Interview Henry Kim,

Now the Minotaur was one of those horrific creatures, it

Curator Greek Coins.

was supposed to be a man's body with a bull's head.

According to Greek legend the Athenians were meant to

send a sacrifice of twelve youths down to Crete every year

to be offered up to the Minotaur. The only way they solved

this problem, end this event, was that their legendary

hero, Theseus, went down to Knossos and actually slew

the Minotaur.

10.20.19

Black and white

va. The story of the Minotaur is an intriguing myth, but

photographs from Evans

looking at the Knossos uncovered by Evans it's hard to

excavations at Knossos.

imagine it to be a place of torment and death. Instead, the

palace radiates a joyous exuberance for pleasure not

Details of Octopus Jar

pain. Its architecture and elegant wall frescoes, its

from Knossos.

beautifully decorated pottery all speak of a people who

approached the subtleties of life and the splendour of

nature with a joyous disposition.

And the Octopus jar reminds us of the great Minoan

legacy to appreciate art for its own sake, for the pleasure

it gives, rather than as way to commemorate great battles

or dead kings. This is no trivial matter, it suggests that the

Minoans pursued knowledge for the sake of knowledge,

and is so doing laid the foundations upon which modern

western culture has been built.

10.21.18

Title: The Alfred Jewel

10.21.37

Interview - Christopher

Perhaps the most remarkable single object in the

Brown, Museum

Ashmolean is the Alfred Jewel. It's a thing of great

Director

delicacy, a thing of great beauty and I find it personally

extremely moving.

10.21.51

Interview - Arthur

It's a consummate piece of Anglo Saxon goldsmith work.

MacGregor, Senior

It has a cast iron relationship with King Alfred, one of the

Curator Antiquities.

supreme figures of Anglo Saxon history. And it has been

our collection for nearly 300 years now.

10.22.10

Reconstruction of battles.

va. England during the 9^th century was a country in

Maps of 9^th Century

turmoil. Vast armies of Vikings from Denmark had invaded

all along the east coast and by 871 they had captured

England. Etc.

York, Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia. Most of the

Anglo Saxon Kings had either fled or been tortured to

death. Only one remained - the 21-year-old king of

Wessex -Alfred.

But though young Alfred was a battle hardened and

resourceful fighter. He assembled a mobile army of men

in the marshes of Somerset and pursued a guerrilla war

against the Vikings. In 878 he won a great victory at

Edington and then successfully laid siege to the Danish

fortress at Chippenham. By the end of the year Wessex

was safe.

With peace Alfred was able to create a royal palace at

Winchester. Here he set about fostering a rebirth in

religious and educational activities. Artists, writers and

translators were brought to his court and he arranged for

books on history, philosophy and religion to be produced

in Anglo Saxon.

These were sent out to the bishops of the kingdom along

with gifts, such as the Alfred Jewel, and royal charters

heralding a new age of enlightenment and learning. With

these efforts Alfred was laying the foundations of what

would one day become a great nation. But fifteen hundred

years after his death little remains of his cities, his

monuments, and his books except for one small precious

object.

10.24.00

Interview - Arthur

The whole thing is held together by a clasp or frame which

MacGregor, Senior

carries an inscription and this is the key to the whole

Curator Antiquities.

object really. It reads Alfred ordered me to be made, in

Anglo Saxon.

10.24.21

Interview - Christopher

There is something about the inscription, the fact that this

Brown, Museum

was a personal commission by Alfred the Great that

Director

makes, across the centuries, a very intense and moving

connection, I think, with the present day. Here's a key part

of our history in that object and so if I was to choose one

single object out of the astonishing and outstanding

collections at the Ashmolean, I think it would be the Alfred

Jewel.

10.24.47

Details of Alfred Jewel.

(Va) The jewel is an outstanding piece of craftsmanship.

Beneath a pear shaped rock crystal is a delicately

enamelled male figure. This is assumed to be an iconic

representation of sight. The whole piece is set in a band of

gold filigree into which the inscription has been

painstakingly punched out. The jewel terminates with a

dragon like head that originally would have held a pointer.

10.25.21

Interview - Arthur

It's unique in a number of ways. Enamelling was a very

MacGregor, Senior

rare technique in the Anglo Saxon world at this time. The

Curator Antiquities.

figure which we have on this piece is almost without

parallel. I've always had a soft spot for it and I've been

very privileged to have been its curator for a while. It

appeal son so many levels; as an object it is very rarely

handled at all. It's a great privilege to be brought face to

face with this primary relic of King Alfred.

10.26.03

Details of Alfred Jewel.

va. It is for his valiant defence against a stronger army,

for securing peace with the Vikings, for his far sighted

reforms and the reconstruction of Wessex and beyond,

and for fostering a rebirth in religious, scholarly and artistic

activity that Alfred, alone of all English kings and queens

is know as the 'great'.

And his jewel comes down to us across generations as a

precious reminder of his farsighted rule.

10.26.46

GVs inside Museum.

There is a whole world of art and culture waiting to be

discovered at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It is a

place in which to reflect, to learn and to be inspired.

Activities that no doubt would bring much pleasure to its

1 yth century benefactor, Elias Ashmole.

10.27.12

Credits.