10:19am Friday 11th December 2009
By Sylvia Vetta
When she was five, Bettany Hughes was one of the 1,694,117 people who saw Tutankhamen’s golden mask while it was on display at the landmark British Museum exhibition in 1972.
Move on 37 years and Bettany is now an acclaimed presenter of history documentaries and enjoys the respect of the academic community for the quality of her research.
Bettany says that her visit to the British Museum was a revelation. The boy king was not a character from a fairytale — this golden youth had actually lived and breathed.
“I still remember the frisson, the heart-in-the-mouth moment when I realised that the stories I had heard of boy-kings dripping in gold, of hidden burial chambers and court intrigue could, sometimes, be true.
“It inspired me, to watch the BBC documentary on Tutankhamen and to write my first illustrated book!” Bettany has recently been filming at the Ashmolean Museym for a new Channel 4 series and spoke of her love of the museum at a special reception held last month to mark the completion of the building’s £61m refurburbishment project.
She told a VIP audience that she spent a lot of time at the Ashmolean when she was a student in Oxford. So it is not surprising that she selected an item from the museum as her ‘desert island’ choice.
“When I was a student at St Hilda’s, I worked in the Ashmolean Library. I visited a different gallery in the Ashmolean almost every day, feeling privileged to be so close to other worlds and cultures.
“A friend told me about a dog-eared notice on a noticeboard in the museum, publicising a travelling scholarship.
“I immediately dashed to the museum on my bicycle, forgetting I was wearing a long skirt. I was in such a hurry, it became tangled in the wheels. But I did find that wonderful little piece of paper. l applied and won the scholarship,” she recalled.
“It allowed me to travel to Turkey and into Iran to study Hellenistic and Bronze Age Asia Minor. Seeing the remains of these civilisations in the landscape made me feel that it is arrogant to think that I could sit in Oxford writing about these societies and really understand their lives.
“That trip not only taught me a respect for the past and for the importance of the landscape in history, but also to value friendship. If my friend had not made the effort to tell me about the notice, I would never have had that opportunity. It also makes me feel very loyal to the Ashmolean.
“If I wanted to take something to remind me of that special time, in the flush of youth and enthusiasm, seeing places few have the chance to see, I think I would choose something from Hattusa in North Central Anatolia, which was the centre of Hittite Civilisation(1400-1200BC).
“The Egypto-Hittite Peace Treaty (c. 1258 BC) between Hattusili III and Ramesses II is probably the earliest written peace treaty. If I took that and some other diplomatic tablets to the island, they could occupy my mind.
“Reading Hittite cuneiform is a challenge and there are not enough scholars in the world to translate the 7,000 fragments of tablets, which remain un-translated,” she said. Bettany acquired the travel bug and, during 1986, embarked on an Inter-Rail tour of Europe.
“I wanted to study figurative sculpture from the prehistoric to modern times,” she said. “My aim was to record and understand the importance of the human body in art. I took a sketch book with me on my travels through Greece and Italy and my drawings were my journal. If I took my sketchbook to the island, it would be nostalgic and I could look back to those carefree days.”
I wondered whether those memories might make her feel particularly homesick for Europe while on our island. Bettany agreed it might provoke a sentimental interlude.
She recalled a particular location on her ‘grand tour’.
‘My particular academic interest is in Helen of Troy and Spartan women. The Hill of Therapne, above the Eurotas Valley, is a hauntingly beautiful place. From the river bluff you can look up into the mountains.
“Standing there, I knew that this exquisite location was special and could have been chosen to worship Zeus or any number of Greek heroes but, they chose to make a shrine in honour of ‘OREA ELENI’ Helen of Troy.
“I knew there must be more to this woman that the boring placid blonde of mythology. I began to study her in depth and discovered that in 2,700 years, there has never been a time when she was not talked about but the opinions are nearly always prejudiced and misogynistic. Following those images is like holding up a mirror to the world, reflecting the idea of what woman should be.
“If I took the painting of The Abduction of Helen (c. 1450) by Zanobi Strozzi, which hangs in the National Gallery, it would not only remind me of Helen and the years I have spent studying her, wondering why the idea of her is so potent — but there is a detail in the framing that would make me feel close to my family.
“Scenes from Helen’s life were used as decoration on objects in the home in Renaissance Italy. This painting was in fact a decorated tray and its purpose was to carry treats and a first drink to women after giving birth. Like any mother I can remember that first cup of tea after labour, Bettany explained.
“At the moment, my mind and imagination is focused on a philosopher and mathematician called Hypatia. I am using her story to unpick the world of Alexandria, where she lived, for a new series on Channel 4.
“She even ran her own school of philosophy but a faction dominated by Bishop Cyril encouraged a mob to flay her alive. Rachel Weiss is going to play the role of Hypatia in the new blockbuster film based on the story of her life.
“Raphael’s portrait of Hypatia would be an inspiration, but I think if I can only take one thing, it has to be from the Ashmolean — one of those iconic objects that connected me with the ancient world, when I was a student in Oxford.
“This particular artefact is just under two inches long. As soon as I saw it I wanted to cradle it in my hand — because it is a tiny, beautifully made representation of a crawling baby, she said.
“The baby has a wonderfully pudgy bottom and is lifting its head up enquiringly – you can imagine it just having made those first, vital moves to start to explore the world around about.
“This was probably a votive offering – it is 3,500 years old and was discovered by Arthur Evans in the Psychro Cave near Lasithi in Crete. The sad truth is that, in real life, a baby may well have been sick, and its parents were desperately pleading to the gods for help. Modern Greeks still leave these gifts for sublime powers — ‘tamata’ — when they are ill.
“There is a happier interpretation, that the parents were giving thanks for the successful survival of their precious child through birth and infancy — a flesh and blood token of the future. Either way, that little child, short-circuits me back into the lives of men and women from the very distant past, and has always reminded me that, as Wordsworth said, although humanity has many faces,across time as well as space, we all share one human heart."
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