An expectant buzz goes through the darkened, tunnel-like exhibition hall.
- Is it Mr. Lewis? someone whispers.
Immediately a semicircle forms around him. Microphones are held out. Mr. Lewis squints in the harsh glare of the cellphone camera lights.
- Are you surprised by the interest? asks a man wearing a hat and overcoat.
- Not in the slightest. We've been waiting for this for centuries, I'm so grateful it's happening in my lifetime, replies Mr Lewis, whose first name is Michael.
He is a professor of archeology and has spent half his life studying the Bayeux Tapestry, which is not actually a tapestry but a 70 meter long embroidered linen cloth. The circumstances surrounding its creation are largely shrouded in mystery. In his own book "The story of the Bayeux tapestry", Lewis describes the tapestry as "an embroidery for which the word 'enigmatic' could have been coined".
It is obvious that the motif is a depiction of William the Conqueror's bloody invasion of England. The crescendo is the Battle of Hastings in 1066, an almost mythological year for the English.
The tapestry is believed to have been embroidered a decade later by English women who survived the war, probably in Canterbury, but no one knows for sure. It disappeared from historiography only to reappear in the 15th century in the inventory of the treasures of Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy.
Now it is back on English soil, specifically at the British Museum. Michael Lewis, curator of the exhibition that opened on Thursday, calls the homecoming an "extraordinary diplomatic feat".
In previous exhibitions, the wallpaper has been shown hanging vertically on the wall. At the British Museum, it has been laid down, like an unrolled, illuminated time strip. Along the black walls all around, simple animations are projected that set the embroidered figures in motion. The restrained informational texts do not dispel any of the mystery surrounding the wallpaper's creation.
At the press screening a few days before the opening, hundreds of journalists from all over the world crowd with medieval influencers filming themselves admiring the embroidered drama and the well-preserved, strong colors of the wool yarn. Outside the exhibition space, replicas of drinking horns, jewelry in the form of lances and shields, and embroidery kits with motifs from the wallpaper are sold in a newly established museum shop.
Advance interest has been rampant. The tickets released on July 1 sold out in a few hours. Some were reserved by five-star hotels such as One Aldwych Covent Garden. If you book a room for 1,000 pounds - roughly 12,000 Swedish kronor - a ticket to what is said to be the British Museum's most popular exhibition ever is included.
It may all seem strange. Those with money and time have been able to view the Bayeux Tapestry before without much trouble. Since 1983, it has hung in a regional museum in Normandy where it has not been difficult to gain entry.
But the autumn uproar in London has a particular historical and political resonance.
The Bayeux Tapestry is a 70 meter long commemorative culture of the last time England was invaded by a foreign power. An invasion that bound the island nation to the European continent for centuries to come. Over time, it has become a national icon. The confident Brits can't wait to experience it at home.
The work tells an adventure story about ambition, war and the people who had to pay with their lives and their suffering.
In the center are three men: the childless Edvard the Confessor, the rich nobleman Harald Godwinsson and then William the Conqueror, who was Duke of Normandy.
It all begins in 1064. Edward the Confessor is then king of England and invites his brother-in-law Harald to travel to Normandy to offer the throne to his cousin William. Harald's journey is fraught with hardships, but he arrives and succeeds in swearing a solemn oath to Vilhelm.
In the second act, Edvard dies. Harald claims the crown and thus breaks his promise to William. During the coronation, an ominous celestial body passes over Harald's head, it is Halley's comet which was visible from England for six days in 1066.
The betrayal enrages Vilhelm and he decides on an invasion. Trees are felled, ships are built, horses and barrels of wine are loaded aboard them. The Norman fleet crosses the English Channel and so the war begins. Men are divided and houses are set on fire. The end comes abruptly when Harald is hit in the eye by an arrow, dies and the English flee.
In between, and especially in the borders, are curious side stories featuring animals, monsters and 93 embroidered penises, which puzzled scholars and were edited out in Victorian depictions.
English women may have held the needles, but the client was a Norman, the researchers are pretty sure of that. The Bayeux Tapestry is the victor's story. The aim was to justify the conquest with simple stitches and a long overture by presenting it as a legitimate response to a terrible betrayal. A work of propaganda, some say. When Napoleon planned his own invasion of England, he hung it in the Louvre as an inspiration.
The wallpaper is still a highly political object.
The first time Britain asked to borrow it from France was in 1931. But it wasn't until after the country voted to leave the EU that the issue was brought to a head.
The shock of the French political establishment over Brexit had not subsided and the relationship between the nations was still strained when, in January 2018, President Emmanuel Macron visited then British Prime Minister Theresa May at Sandhurst and decided to accommodate the British wish.
- There are two things that nothing, neither a vote nor a political decision, can change: our history and our geography, said the French president.
Years of negotiations followed.
But then at 3.50am on July 10 this year, the Bayeux Tapestry arrived in London in a vibration-proof, climate-controlled lorry. The industrious British newspapers nested outside the British Museum, reporting on the police escort through the Channel Tunnel and that the medieval artefact had been insured for a value equivalent to ten billion Swedish kronor. Inside the museum, 90 people waited in latex gloves, unfolding the delicate linen cloth in a meticulous choreography that lasted seven hours.
Not long after it was in place, King Charles invited Emmanuel Macron to the British Museum for an exclusive preview. The president beamed with the joy of reconciliation, possibly also with pride at his own generosity.
- A thousand years ago, this work was created that depicts a crossing that changed history. Now it has traveled through a tunnel that we have built together, Macron said in his speech.
King Charles expressed his "deepest gratitude" to the president and described the loan as an unprecedented gesture of confidence. He concluded by quoting Shakespeare's "The Tempest": "The past is a prologue."
At the press screening, the questions to the exhibition's curator Michael Lewis do not want to end. He stands as if lifted up against one of the black walls, but answers just as patiently.
- The Bayeux Tapestry contains so many unsolved mysteries. Nudity, for example. Before the Battle of Hastings, a man and a woman appear in the lower border, both naked, the man moving towards the woman, who does not seem to appreciate the approach. What are they doing in this war depiction? Is the nudity a comment on...
A press person pushes into the semi-circle and announces that Michael Lewis is late for a meeting. He excuses himself and rushes away before he has time to finish his reasoning. The journalists look confusedly at the press team. They needed material for their stories, they say.
A woman introduces herself as Nolwenn Le Jeune, she is a reporter on the local radio channel Ici in Normandy, and proposes a set-up of meta-interviews.
She would like to know what the Swedes know about the Bayeux tapestry, in order to then share with her the French's attitude to lending tapestry.
My answer is quickly completed.
- It is a bit ironic, she says, for 24 years I have lived a short drive from Bayeux. Today, here in London, is the first time I see the Bayeux Tapestry.
The loan to Britain has met with strong opposition and has become a court case in France. A former director of the Bayeux Museum, Isabelle Attard, believes that the tapestry is too fragile to be transported at all, and the French art historian Didier Rykner started a petition last year against the loan, which he calls "a crime against cultural heritage". 40,000 French people signed it.
Many others, and above all Emmanuel Macron â explains Nolwenn Le Jeune â believe that the diplomatic gains trump the risks.
- But now, with this success at the British Museum, the question arises in France: will we get it back at all?
