24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage
Gateway to Over 3,000 UK museums, galleries and heritage attractions
Skip to navigation
Hadrian - Empire And Conflict At The British Museum
By Jon Pratty, Editor, 24 Hour Museum
24/07/2008
Image: Photo of a stone-carved bust of a man with a beard and curly hair
Giant statue of Emperor Hadrian, unearthed near Antalya, Turkey in August 2007. © Jon Pratty/Culture 24
Exhibition review - Jon Pratty explores leadership and succession at the new Hadrian exhibition at The British Museum running until October 26.
It was a crucial moment in history. The empire was overstretched; treachery lay around each corner and there was little sense of control or succession. A new leader takes over and withdraws his armies from Iraq and builds new walls around the borders. Sound familiar?
No – it’s not today’s western Europe and the struggle in the middle east. It’s a description of what the Emperor Hadrian did when he succeeded Trajan and took control of the Roman Empire in AD117.
Hadrian: Empire and Conflict (July 24 - October 26) is one of the most eagerly awaited exhibitions in recent times in London, and not just because of its apparently topical themes. It’s been eagerly awaited because the show brings together many rarely seen artefacts; it re-unites and combines again objects and sculptures that together paint a fascinating picture of life in Hadrian’s empire.
Image: Photo of a bronze statue of a man with curly hair
Bronze head of Hadrian, 2nd century AD, found in the river Thames near London Bridge. © Jon Pratty/ Culture 24
More than anything, it presents to the visitor astonishing new discoveries fresh from the ground that open up new ways to see this fascinating, cultured but brutal man. One side of the legend is represented by delicate silver cups replete with fornicating men; statues of the great man himself dressed as a Greek god and the elaborate mausoleum built to honour his memory when he passed on.
But another and much more sinister side of the legend is demonstrated by the display here – for the very first time outside Israel – of incredibly well preserved but poignant objects from the Cave of Letters, where Jews sheltered from the Roman legions during the Jewish Rebellion in 132 AD.
Image: Photo of a stone-carved bust of a young man with a beard and curly hair
Stone-carved bust of Hadrian. © Jon Pratty/ Culture 24
It’s shocking to see just a few surviving relics from a once populous race who were exterminated in a systematic purge on a village-by-village, house-to-house basis.
And yet we find elsewhere in the show that Hadrian himself was a cultured artistic man. He valued the arts and particularly architecture and made it part of his life’s work to build extravagant structures that stretched the boundaries of what could be built using the technologies of the time.
Hadrian’s Pantheon, in Rome, is miraculously still standing, and must be one of the wonders of the world. A complex modern model of this marvel of concrete and stone construction stands directly under the cupola of the British Museum’s Reading Room at the core of the show – the cupola of the Reading Room modelled, much later but on the same scale, on the Pantheon itself.
Image: Photo of a marble carved statue of a young man pulling grapes from a large bunch
Bronze statue of Hadrian with grapes. © Jon Pratty/ Culture 24
So what of the wall across the north of England? Thorsten Opper, curator of this detailed and fascinating show, relates that Hadrian’s Wall is a valuable but small part of the Hadrian story. The whole Empire covered 40 countries, from the middle east to the far east and right across Europe to the untamed but fenced-off Scottish border.
To look at this great exhibition is to see the story of an Empire, and an Emperor, and the growth and decline of both. The death of Hadrian of course, wasn’t the end of this massive empire, but his legacy continues to be felt across the world.
According to Thorsten Opper, Hadrian’s Empire shows how we all have a stake in history, and that history has lessons for us all in the present day. It’s a superb exhibition, full of rarities, surprises, shocks and delicate and subtle lessons. Well worth a visit.
British Museum
The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG, England
T: +44 (0)20 7323 8299
Open: Museum opening hours:
Saturday - Wednesday 10.00-17.30
Thursday - Friday 10.00-20.30
Great Court Opening Hours:
Sunday - Wednesday 09.00-18.00
Thursday - Saturday 09.00-23.00
Reading Room Opening Hours:
Saturday - Wednesday, Friday - 10.00-17.30
Thursday 10.00-20.30
Closed: Closed 1 January, Good Friday and 24-26 December every year.
Related Articles
Museums, Metal Detectorists And Our Archaeological Heritage
British Museum Gets Set For Historic Egyptian Tomb Gallery
Babylon: Myth Or Reality? At The British Museum
British Archaeological Awards 2008 Held At British Museum
Winners Of Young Archaeologist Of The Year Awards 2008 Announced
£3 Million To Be Invested In New Museum Research Projects
Summer 2008 Holiday Ideas At UK Heritage Sites And Museums
E-news registration
E-mail story to a friend
Tell us what you think
Mark Leckey Scoops £25,000 And The 2008 Turner Prize
Library Thief Update: Sentencing Adjourned Until January 16, 2009
Fund Aims To Realise Long Campaign For Cardiff Museum
Britglyph Art Campaign Uses Web To Make Mass Geoglyph
Inaugural Awards Ceremony Honours UK Arts Philanthropists
Rare Silver Cup Commemorating Coronation Of Charles II Is Saved For The Nation
London Fire Brigade Museum Escapes Closure - For Now
Another Busy Year For Archaeology On Orkney In 2008
Severndroog Castle To Be Restored Thanks To Lottery Grant
Campaign To Save Captain Scott's Hut Needs Another £65,000
Open Air Lab Project Launches At The Natural History Museum
Gravity Defying Vertical Racer Drives Kids Up the Wall At MOSI
DCMS And English Heritage List Seven London Bridges
Railway Museums Launch Joint WWII Railway Worker Project
Bowes Museum Famous Mechanical Swan Goes Back On Show In December
Free Admission To Historic Scotland Sites For St Andrew's Day
Fund Raising Scheme Is Backing Great North Museum: Hancock
Tyneside Gallery Plots New Display After Funding Victory
Search this site
Home Page
News Page
Exhibition Page
What's On
Trails Page
Website of the Week
Letters Page
Welsh Home
Graphical Version
Copyright © 24 Hour Museum
Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.