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Friday, October 28, 2016

The Shambles: One of Britain's best preserved Medieval streets

The ancient street of the Butchers of York. Photo Credit1 Photo Credit2

The Shambles gives a sense of the medieval town where buildings leaned toward each other across narrow streets. Photo Credit

The street was once known to be a row of butchers shops complete with slaughter houses. Photo Credit

The Shambles: One of Britain's best preserved Medieval streets

The making of medieval embroidery

Medieval embroidery was a painstaking and precise art form, performed by skilled embroiderers – both men and women – mostly based in the city of London. This film shows contemporary embroiderer Rosie Taylor-Davies recreating a detail from a 700-year-old fragment of English embroidery. Working entirely by hand, she demonstrates the intricate process and skill of 14th-century embroiderers, who created some of England’s most beautiful and elaborate textile art.

First the design is drawn out on paper and transferred to the fabric with charcoal in a technique known as 'pouncing'. The design is then embroidered using two techniques which were characteristic of English medieval embroidery: split stitch (shown here with white and colored silk thread), and underside couching (usually silver or gold, as here).

Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery
1 October 2016 – 5 February 2017
vam.ac.uk/opus

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Mausoleum of Augustus Reconstruction, Circa 28bc

The video below (created by Christopher Antoniou) gives us a three-dimensional glimpse into the possible plan, elevation and sectional attributes of the Mausoleum of Augustus, including the internal setup of the massive tomb.

Archaeological reconstruction of Mausoleum of Augustus, circa 28bc on the Campus Martius in Rome (currently unrendered). Cypress trees were said to be used as imposing ornamentation upon the various tiers of the super-structure. Coming soon: Completed and fully rendered version of the Mausoleum dedicated to the first Roman Emperor with actual topography and surrounding buildings in situ. Archaeological reconstruction created by Christopher Antoniou ©.